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K. Hiltgartner:
"The Kyoto Protocol and beyond; Did its new mechanisms of international law meet the expectations in fighting Climate Change?";
Vortrag: International urban planning and environment association, 8th international symposium, Kaiserslautern; 22.03.2009 - 26.03.2009; in: "Parallel paterrns of urban growth and decline", (2009), S. 66.

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ranges among the top-instruments of international law, both considering the introduction of new instruments of international law, as well as concerning the number of parties participating. It has also created novel forms of cooperation between states, such as the mechanism for clean development, joint implementation and emissions-trading. The aim of this paper is to explore in how far these innovative "Kyoto-mechanisms", as established by the Protocol have been accepted and thus been used by the countries participating in the regime of the Protocol, as well as if these new instruments have actually been efficient to achieve the aim of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases so far. Currently, negotiations for emission-reduction-limits within the second Kyoto period are on the agenda, still, no formal evaluation of greenhouse-gas-reductions achieved so far under the Protocol has taken place. Due to the concept of "common, but differentiated responsibilities", only some countries party to the Protocol have actually agreed to reduce their emission-levels, whereas the majority of states only agreed to non-binding measures to limit emissions. This paper will give an overview about the Kyoto-Mechanisms and how they have been made use of, present emissions-levels and future strategies of states participating in the Kyoto-reduction-targets, as well as predictions about the future utilization of instruments provided by the Kyoto Protocol. It will also discuss how the principle of "common, but differentiated responsibilities" has influenced the reduction-commitments of participating states and the discussions provoked by it concerning the Kyoto-periods to come.
My presentation aims at giving the audience a more comprehensive knowledge of the working tools of the Kyoto Protocol, as the keyword "Kyoto-Protocol" is generally well known, but very often information about the Kyoto Protocol tends to be either one-sighted or limited to certain aspects of the Protocol only. I would like to show, what an extensive instrument the Kyoto Protocol was designed, but also how different states reacted during negotiations of reduction limits and what broad influence these varying commitments already have and will have even more in future for the universal target of fighting climate change.