Is there a Kyoto Protocol scenario available?
A. The Kyoto Protocol agreed at the Third Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 1997, sets a target for developed countries to reduce net emissions of greenhouse gases by about 5% by the period 2008-2012 with respect to 1990 levels. Should this Protocol be ratified and adhered to, there are modest implications for future climate change and sea level. Neither the IS92 nor the Preliminary SRES emissions scenarios available from the DDC, nor any of the forcing scenarios used by GCM experiments, include the effect of the Kyoto Protocol on future emissions or radiative forcing. Climate change scenarios obtained from the DDC should be regarded therefore as ‘non-interventionist’ scenarios. A separate scenario exercise would need to be undertaken to consider the effects of the Kyoto Protocol, although it has been shown that the effect of the Kyoto Protocol on future climate change is likely to be modest.
