How are forests treated in the Kyoto Protocol?
Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 191 nations, including Canada, have committed to actions to stabilize “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [human] interference with the climate system.” In the Kyoto Protocol to the Convention, developed countries further agreed in 1997 to limit their greenhouse gas emissions in 2008–12 relative to their 1990 emissions. Under the Protocol, the 36 participating developed countries must report and account for their greenhouse gas emissions from afforestation and deforestation. They also have the option of including emissions and removals from forest management, cropland management, grazing land management, and revegetation in their annual reporting and accounting.
