Kyoto Protocol :
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is
occurring and (part two) it is extremely likely that human-made CO2 emissions have
predominantly caused it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan on 11 December 1997
and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There are currently 192 parties (Canada withdrew
from the protocol, effective December 2012) to the Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol implemented the objective of the UNFCCC to reduce the onset of global
warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to "a level that would
prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (Article 2). The Kyoto
Protocol applies to the six greenhouse gases listed in Annex A: Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane
(CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and
Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
The Protocol is based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: it
acknowledges that individual countries have different capabilities in combating climate change,
owing to economic development, and therefore puts the obligation to reduce current emissions
on developed countries on the basis that they are historically responsible for the current levels of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The Protocol's first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. A second
commitment period was agreed in 2012, known as the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol,
in which 37 countries have binding targets: Australia, the European Union (and its 28 member
states), Belarus, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Belarus,
Kazakhstan, and Ukraine have stated that they may withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol or not put
into legal force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand, and Russia have
participated in Kyoto's first-round but have not taken on new targets in the second commitment
period. Other developed countries without second-round targets are Canada (which withdrew
from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012) and the United States (which has not ratified). As of January
2019, 124 states have accepted the Doha Amendment, while entry into force requires the
acceptances of 144 states. Of the 37 countries with binding commitments, 7 have ratified.
Negotiations were held in the framework of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences
on measures to be taken after the second commitment period ends in 2020. This resulted in the
2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, which is a separate instrument under the UNFCCC rather
than an amendment of the Kyoto Protocol.
Ecological footprint:
The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes
to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounting system.
The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use for their consumption to the
biologically productive area available within a region or the world (biocapacity, the productive
area that can regenerate what people demand from nature). In short, it is a measure of human
impact on Earth's ecosystem and reveals the dependence of the human economy on natural
capital.
Footprint and biocapacity can be compared at the individual, regional, national or global scale.
Both footprint and biocapacity change every year with number of people, per person
consumption, efficiency of production, and productivity of ecosystems. At a global scale,
footprint assessments show how big humanity's demand is compared to what planet Earth can
renew. Since 2003, Global Footprint Network has calculated the ecological footprint from UN
data sources for the world as a whole and for over 200 nations (known as the National Footprint
Accounts). Every year the calculations are updated with the newest data. The time series are
recalculated with every update since UN statistics also change historical data sets. As shown in
Lin et al (2018) the time trends for countries and the world have stayed consistent despite data
updates. Also, a recent study by the Swiss Ministry of Environment independently recalculated
the Swiss trends and reproduced them within 1-4% for the time period that they studied (19962015). Global Footprint Network estimates that, as of 2014, humanity has been using natural
capital 1.7 times as fast as Earth can renew it. This means humanity's ecological footprint
corresponds to 1.7 planet Earths.
Ecological footprint analysis is widely used around the Earth in support of sustainability
assessments. It enables people to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the
economy and explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services,
organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.Since 2006, a first set
of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation
procedures. The latest version are the updated standards from 2009.
Footprint measurements and methodology
The natural resources of Earth are finite, and unsustainably strained by current levels of human
activity.
For 2014, Global Footprint Network estimated humanity's ecological footprint as 1.7 planet
Earths. This means that, according to their calculations, humanity's demands were 1.7 times
faster than what the planet's ecosystems renewed.
Ecological footprints can be calculated at any scale: for an activity, a person, a community, a
city, a town, a region, a nation, or humanity as a whole. Cities, due to their population
concentration, have large ecological footprints and have become ground zero for footprint
reduction.
The ecological footprint accounting method at the national level is described on the web page of
Global Footprint Network or in greater detail in academic papers, including Borucke et al.
The National Accounts Review Committee has also published a research agenda on how to
improve the accounts.
Natural resource management refers to the management of natural resources such as land,
water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of
life for both present and future generations (stewardship).
Natural resource management deals with managing the way in which people and natural
landscapes interact. It brings together land use planning, water management, biodiversity
conservation, and the future sustainability of industries like agriculture, mining, tourism,
fisheries and forestry. It recognises that people and their livelihoods rely on the health and
productivity of our landscapes, and their actions as stewards of the land play a critical role in
maintaining this health and productivity.
Natural resource management specifically focuses on a scientific and technical understanding of
resources and ecology and the life-supporting capacity of those resources. Environmental
management is also similar to natural resource management. In academic contexts, the sociology
of natural resources is closely related to, but distinct from, natural resource management.
Management of the resources
Natural resource management issues are inherently complex. They involve the ecological cycles,
hydrological cycles, climate, animals, plants and geography, etc. All these are dynamic and interrelated. A change in one of them may have far reaching and/or long term impacts which may
even be irreversible. In addition to the natural systems, natural resource management also has to
manage various stakeholders and their interests, policies, politics, geographical boundaries,
economic implications and the list goes on. It is a very difficult to satisfy all aspects at the same
time. This results in conflicting situations.
After the United Nations Conference for the Environment and Development (UNCED) held in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992, most nations subscribed to new principles for the integrated management
of land, water, and forests. Although program names vary from nation to nation, all express
similar aims.
The various approaches applied to natural resource management include:
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Top-down (command and control)
Community-based natural resource management
Adaptive management
Precautionary approach
Integrated natural resource management
Adaptive management
The primary methodological approach adopted by catchment management authorities (CMAs)
for regional natural resource management in Australia is adaptive management.
This approach includes recognition that adaption occurs through a process of ‘plan-do-reviewact’. It also recognises seven key components that should be considered for quality natural
resource management practice:
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Determination of scale
Collection and use of knowledge
Information management
Monitoring and evaluation
Risk management
Community engagement
Opportunities for collaboration.
Integrated natural resource management
Integrated natural resource management (INRM) is a process of managing natural resources in a
systematic way, which includes multiple aspects of natural resource use (biophysical, sociopolitical, and economic) meet production goals of producers and other direct users (e.g., food
security, profitability, risk aversion) as well as goals of the wider community (e.g., poverty
alleviation, welfare of future generations, environmental conservation). It focuses on
sustainability and at the same time tries to incorporate all possible stakeholders from the
planning level itself, reducing possible future conflicts. The conceptual basis of INRM has
evolved in recent years through the convergence of research in diverse areas such as sustainable
land use, participatory planning, integrated watershed management, and adaptive management.
INRM is being used extensively and been successful in regional and community based natural
management.
Cleaner production:
Cleaner production is a preventive, company-specific environmental protection initiative. It is
intended to minimize waste and emissions and maximize product output. By analysing the flow
of materials and energy in a company, one tries to identify options to minimize waste and
emissions out of industrial processes through source reduction strategies. Improvements of
organisation and technology help to reduce or suggest better choices in use of materials and
energy, and to avoid waste, waste water generation, and gaseous emissions, and also waste heat
and noise.
The concept was developed during the preparation of the Rio Summit as a programme of UNEP
(United Nations Environmental Programme) and UNIDO (United Nations Industrial
Development Organization) under the leadership of Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel, the former
Assistant Executive Director of UNEP. The programme was meant to reduce the environmental
impact of industry. It built on ideas used by 3M in its 3P programme (pollution prevention pays).
It has found more international support than all other comparable programmes. The programme
idea was described "...to assist developing nations in leapfrogging from pollution to less
pollution, using available technologies". Starting from the simple idea to produce with less waste
Cleaner Production was developed into a concept to increase the resource efficiency of
production in general. UNIDO has been operating National Cleaner Production Centers and
Programmes (NCPCs/NCPPs) with centres in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
In the US, the term pollution prevention is more commonly used for cleaner production.
Examples for cleaner production options are:
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Documentation of consumption (as a basic analysis of material and energy flows, e. g.
with a Sankey diagram)
Use of indicators and controlling (to identify losses from poor planning, poor education
and training, mistakes)
Substitution of raw materials and auxiliary materials (especially renewable materials
and energy)
Increase of useful life of auxiliary materials and process liquids (by avoiding drag in,
drag out, contamination)
Improved control and automatisation
Reuse of waste (internal or external)
New, low waste processes and technologies
One of the first European initiatives in cleaner production was started in Austria in 1992 by the
BMVIT (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie).
Cleaner production is a concept that encompasses many of the operational practicalities of best
environmental practice on a mine site. It aims at maximizing resource usage and operational
efficiency during the production of minerals. The concept also extends to minimize waste
disposal and rehabilitation requirements, and its application is linked to continuous improvement
in environmental and economic performance. It is an integrated and preventative approach to
minimize environmental risk rather than a curative approach. The benefits of cleaner production
can include less waste, recovery of valuable byproducts, improved environmental performance,
increased productivity, better efficiency, reduced energy consumption, and an overall reduction
in costs. The best worldwide environmental management practices may be uploaded into the
cloud system for adaptation of suitable cleaner production technologies.
Life Cycle Assessment:
Goal and scope
An LCA starts with an explicit statement of the goal and scope of the study, which sets out the
context of the study and explains how and to whom the results are to be communicated. This is a
key step and the ISO standards require that the goal and scope of an LCA be clearly defined and
consistent with the intended application. The goal and scope document therefore includes
technical details that guide subsequent work:
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the functional unit, which defines what precisely is being studied and quantifies the
service delivered by the product system, providing a reference to which the inputs and
outputs can be related. Further, the functional unit is an important basis that enables
alternative goods, or services, to be compared and analyzed. So to explain this a
functional system which is inputs, processes and outputs contains a functional unit, that
fulfills a function, for example paint is covering a wall, making a functional unit of 1m²
covered for 10 years. The functional flow would be the items necessary for that function,
so this would be a brush, tin of paint and the paint itself.
the system boundaries; which are delimitations of which processes that should be
included in the analysis of a product system.
any assumptions and limitations;
the allocation methods used to partition the environmental load of a process when
several products or functions share the same process; allocation is commonly dealt with
in one of three ways: system expansion, substitution and partition. Doing this is not easy
and different methods may give different results
the impact categories chosen for example human toxicity, smog, global warming,
eutrophication.
Life cycle inventory
Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis involves creating an inventory of flows from and to nature
for a product system. Inventory flows include inputs of water, energy, and raw materials, and
releases to air, land, and water. To develop the inventory, a flow model of the technical system is
constructed using data on inputs and outputs. The flow model is typically illustrated with a flow
chart that includes the activities that are going to be assessed in the relevant supply chain and
gives a clear picture of the technical system boundaries. The input and output data needed for the
construction of the model are collected for all activities within the system boundary, including
from the supply chain (referred to as inputs from the technosphere).
The data must be related to the functional unit defined in the goal and scope definition. Data can
be presented in tables and some interpretations can be made already at this stage. The results of
the inventory is an LCI which provides information about all inputs and outputs in the form of
elementary flow to and from the environment from all the unit processes involved in the study.
Inventory flows can number in the hundreds depending on the system boundary. For product
LCAs at either the generic (i.e., representative industry averages) or brand-specific level, that
data is typically collected through survey questionnaires. At an industry level, care has to be
taken to ensure that questionnaires are completed by a representative sample of producers,
leaning toward neither the best nor the worst, and fully representing any regional differences due
to energy use, material sourcing or other factors. The questionnaires cover the full range of
inputs and outputs, typically aiming to account for 99% of the mass of a product, 99% of the
energy used in its production and any environmentally sensitive flows, even if they fall within
the 1% level of inputs.
One area where data access is likely to be difficult is flows from the technosphere. The
technosphere is more simply defined as the man-made world. Considered by geologists as
secondary resources, these resources are in theory 100% recyclable; however, in a practical
sense, the primary goal is salvage. For an LCI, these technosphere products (supply chain
products) are those that have been produced by man and unfortunately those completing a
questionnaire about a process which uses a man-made product as a means to an end will be
unable to specify how much of a given input they use. Typically, they will not have access to
data concerning inputs and outputs for previous production processes of the product. The entity
undertaking the LCA must then turn to secondary sources if it does not already have that data
from its own previous studies. National databases or data sets that come with LCA-practitioner
tools, or that can be readily accessed, are the usual sources for that information. Care must then
be taken to ensure that the secondary data source properly reflects regional or national
conditions.