Content area
Full text
ASIA
Over the last two decades, environmental issues, specifically those of climate change, have been imbued with an increasing sense of urgency, and as a result are occupying a more prominent space in the global political consciousness. Both the high incidence of sudden and devastating natural disasters in recent years and the incremental, yet significant, changes to ecosystems worldwide have lent credibility to this analysis, and have spurred strong reactions from concerned individuals around the world and somewhat more modest ones from the industrial sector. Given the general consensus regarding the importance of addressing climate change as a global issue, the lukewarm response to this problem from international actors appears on the surface both surprising and alarming. However, the relative inaction of the global community in the face of climate change obscures the diplomatic difficulties of addressing an issue that acknowledges neither governments nor borders, and in which accountability is obscured by regional politics and historical claims. Perhaps the best symbol of these difficulties is the Kyoto Protocol, the foremost international climate agreement. This accord, linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was to be a statement of intent of international cooperation in dealing with climate change and, symbolically, on environmental issues. Instead, it has been mired in structural problems that have hampered its legitimacy to this day.
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Japan in 1997 and enacted in 2005,...