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Greenhouse gas emissions and the role of the Kyoto Protocol

  • Research Article
  • Progress in Sustainable Development Economics
  • Published:
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Abstract

Our study empirically investigates the effects of the Kyoto Protocol’s quantified emission limitation or reduction commitments on various greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and other greenhouse gases consisting of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). These GHG emissions are considered to be the main source of global warming issues, and 39 countries approved to meet the commitments by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Our empirical analysis is based on the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model, the stochastic version of the IPAT model, using the data of 119 countries from 1990 to 2005. Our main findings are that the effects of the commitments to the Kyoto Protocol are (1) significantly negative for the cases of CO2 and CH4 emissions, (2) not significant for the case of N2O emissions, and (3) significantly positive for the case of other greenhouse gas emissions. These results have important policy implications for global warming issues.

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Notes

  1. Rosenzweig et al. (2007) point out that various damages may be caused by global warming.

  2. For instance, researches on genuine saving (GS) include the relationship between global warming and sustainability. The World Bank (2009) defines GS as “adjusted net savings are equal to net national savings plus education expenditure and minus energy depletion, mineral depletion, net forest depletion, and carbon dioxide.” From its definition, a country’s GS value increases if GHG emissions like CO2 emissions decrease, leading to the improvement of its sustainability.

  3. In this paper, the term “all GHGs” refers to these six kinds of GHGs.

  4. As for HFCs and PFCs, which include a lot of species, their GWPs are different from each other and are much higher than that of CO2. Note that the Kyoto Protocol is based on the GWPs in the IPCC second assessment report. This report shows that the GWPs of CH4, N2O, and SF6 are 21, 310, and 23900, respectively if the GWP of CO2 is assumed to be unity in a time span of 100 years.

  5. Due to data availability, this paper defines other greenhouse gas as by-product emissions of HFCs, PFCs, and SF6.

  6. Although our study focuses on the effects of the Kyoto Protocol, den Elzen et al. (2005), van Steenberghe (2005), and den Elzen et al. (2007) study the post-Kyoto abatement costs based on different future commitments of countries.

  7. Another strand of research is the EKC hypothesis for CO2 emissions (e.g., Shafik 1994; Holtz-Eakin and Selden 1995; Richmond and Kaufmann 2006). In addition, a number of case studies on the determinants of CO2 emissions are also available (e.g., Liu 2005; Soytas et al. 2007; Ang 2009).

  8. Several studies using the STIRPAT model can be found on environmental impacts other than CO2. Among others, Cramer (1998) analyzes five air pollutants such as reactive organic gases (ROG), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM10) in California.

  9. Some previous studies examine how a country decides to ratify the Montreal Protocol, Helsinki Protocol, and Kyoto Protocol (e.g., Beron et al. 2003; Murdoch et al. 2003; Managi et al. 2009). Managi et al. (2009) demonstrate the effect of the Kyoto Protocol on CO2 emissions, taking into account the self-selection of ratification. This paper does not consider the problem of self-selection bias in our econometric analysis. In creating a dummy variable for the Kyoto Protocol, Managi et al. (2009) consider whether each country signed it or not, whereas this paper focuses on the countries that ratified it and approved to meet quantified emission limitation or reduction commitments. Although the United States, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, other UNFCCC Annex I countries in fact ratified it. It should be noteworthy that many states and cities have had measures against global warming even in the United States. Most of the Annex I countries may have ratified the Kyoto Protocol due to the various social pressures within and between countries. These pressures, such as the activities of environmental non-governmental organizations, have the effect of forcing many Annex I countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (e.g., Betsill 2002). In addition, domestic institutions and internal political processes on climate change in each country generate self-reinforcing dynamics for ratification (e.g., Hovi et al. 2003). The majority of Annex I countries are EU countries and since these countries sought to obtain international initiative for policies on climate change, they had to get along with other EU countries and had difficulty renouncing the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, Japan had a strong incentive to create the Kyoto Protocol as the chair country. Given this discussion, we infer that the problem of self-selection bias is not severe in our specification and hence conduct econometric analysis without considering the self-selection of ratification.

  10. Since many elements of the data of other greenhouse gas (HFCs, PFCs, and SF6) emissions are zero, we take the logarithm after adding one to their values. Although the estimation results using the variable taken in logarithm without adding one are slightly different, the coefficient of commitments to the Kyoto Protocol is still significantly positive, similar to the results in Table 4.

  11. We also conduct the OLS and RE estimations in this specification. Since the specification tests indicate that the FE estimation is appropriate, we only report the FE estimation results.

  12. For example, the long-run impact of population is calculated from the coefficient of population divided by one minus the coefficient of lagged CO2.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Kazuki Kagohashi, Sovannroeun Samreth, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors are our own. This research is financially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Socio-Environmental Studies, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, 3-30-1 Wajiro-higashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 811-0295, Japan

    Hiroki Iwata

  2. Faculty of Human Environmental Studies, Hiroshima Shudo University, 1-1-1 Ozuka-higashi, Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima, 731-3195, Japan

    Keisuke Okada

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Correspondence to Hiroki Iwata.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Countries in the samples

As of 2009, 194 countries and regions have ratified the UNFCCC. Of these countries and regions, 39 countries and the EU have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and have approved to meet quantified emission limitation or reduction commitments, which are legally binding. They are listed in Table 6. Our sample does not include the EU which also ratified the Kyoto Protocol, because the aim of our study is to focus on country-level analysis. Note that Turkey ratified the Kyoto Protocol but has not yet set its target value. The commitments of Belarus and Turkey have not been officially approved as a treaty because the Kyoto Protocol has not been revised. Due to data limitation, Australia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Sweden, and Switzerland are excluded from our analysis.

Table 6 Countries in the sample
Full size table

Next, 150 countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol but have not yet approved to meet quantified emission limitation or reduction commitments, and 4 countries have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Because of data availability, 85 countries are included in our sample as countries without commitments to the Kyoto Protocol. They are shown in Table 6. Since the data of greenhouse gas emissions other than CO2 emissions in Macedonia is unavailable, the number of countries is different among the estimations.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is one of the first treaties in the history of the United Nations to achieve universal ratification. Developing countries as well as developed countries must reduce the production and consumption of ozone depleting substances.

Appendix 2: Data descriptions and sources

See Table 7.

Table 7 Data definitions and sources
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Iwata, H., Okada, K. Greenhouse gas emissions and the role of the Kyoto Protocol. Environ Econ Policy Stud 16, 325–342 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-012-0047-1

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