Law of the Sea in Dialogue

Abstract

The excessive man-made greenhouse effect that is generally supposed to bring about climate change in the form of global warming has a number of different reasons. There is a balance sheet of greenhouse gas emissions and of the sequestration of these gases by sinks. The Kyoto Protocol deals with this problem by selecting, in order to reduce the greenhouse gas concentration in the global atmosphere, a particular part of the problem, namely emissions of greenhouse gases from the territory of the developed industrial States listed in Annex I to the UNFCCC and sinks which function due to measures taken by these States. These emissions and activities are a significant contribution to the problem of climate change, but not the only one.