The Kyoto Protocol, which served to provide a contemporary reference point for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in 1997, has acted as a benchmark for global carbon emissions targets and environmental policy, for the last twelve years. At the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December, new benchmarks will be agreed, and new goals will come to dominate the carbon emissions policies of the world’s most influential countries.

It is now being argued that the richest nations in the world, who, almost relationally, are the most industrially developed, should take close to 40% cuts in their emissions, in order to reduce global carbon emissions, and to allow poorer countries to continue with fossil fuels as they improve living standards and technology, and hope to fight their way out of poverty.

But the U.S  Climate Department has argued that a reduction of this kind – which would take emissions levels in the targeted countries below that of 1990 – is relatively unlikely, in the time frame granted by the upcoming talks in Copenhagen; it is expected that the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit will make provisions for targets to be met by 2020.

Todd Stern of the US Climate Department stated that, “I don’t think you are going to see a 25-to-40 percent aggregate number…It’s possible when you add everything up that you won’t be that far away from it.”

That the US are reluctant to subscribe to such measures is a damaging prospect for propagators of the 40% target, as it will be countries like the US, China and India who, as large, industrial nations, might have most to lose, in pure terms, from such a large percentage reduction. The European Union itself has agreed to 20% or 30% if other influential nations make the same commitment, but France is in line with the notion of a 40% cut.

Certainly, with the substantial press coverage that the Copenhagen Climate Change summit is receiving, and the discussions that continue amongst leaders and lobby groups, the agreements that are reached in December will have widely publicised, and hugely influential ramifications. It is hoped, then, that leaders and lobbyists will come to a practical and beneficial framework.