In essence, the Kyoto Protocol establishes conditions for implementing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC was approved in June 1992. The Kyoto Protocol represents a potentially binding international treaty that stipulates actions to be taken by the signatory nations to combat global climate change. The protocol, an addendum to the UNFCCC, entered into full force in February 2005. Its main goal, to be achieved in 2012, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent of the values recorded in 1990 for industrialized countries (called Annex I countries). Greenhouse gases defined by the Kyoto Protocol are carbon dioxide (CO_2), methane (CH_4), nitrous oxide (N_2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF_6).
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