The primary component of the Kyoto Protocol is the setting of targets for the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. These targets range from –8 percent to +10 percent of a given country's emissions levels in 1990, with a view toward reducing the overall emissions in a country by at least 5 percent below their 1990 levels in the period from 2008 to 2012. The treaty provides multiple ways for countries to meet these targets, from creating carbon 'sinks' in the form of forests to funding foreign projects that result in a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Although 150 nations agreed to adopt a treaty on controlling greenhouse gas emissions in 1997, many countries dropped out of that initial agreement, including the United States in 2001. Negotiations continued after the end of American involvement, and in 2005 the Kyoto Protocol went into effect. However, the lack of American participation has loomed over the agreement ever since, and in 2011 Canada renounced the treaty, citing a lack of participation by the United States and China. In December 2012, the Kyoto Protocol was extended through 2020 by the Doha amendment. There are currently 192 participants in the Kyoto Protocol.
Although critics have deemed the Kyoto Protocol a failure, the treaty actually appears to have led to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively, nations bound by the treaty reduced their emissions by 16 percent as of 2012. According to a 2012 report from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty also led to billions of dollars in sustainable, green infrastructure investments. The report also pointed out that some of this money involved foreign investments into developing nations and led to 110,000 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity.
One of the biggest disadvantages of the Kyoto Protocol is the economic burden it places on countries that rely, in part, on industries that produce high amounts of emissions, for example, the energy sector. Some supporters of an emissions treaty admit that a future agreement should give more consideration to the economics of the world's biggest emitters. Although supporters of the Kyoto Protocol have pointed to a drop in emissions over the past several years as evidence that the treaty has been effective, critics have said that these emissions cuts are more the result of the recent global economic downturn than the treaty itself.