All Parties (developed and developing) to the Convention also undertook commitments taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development objectives and circumstances, to periodically update, publish and make available national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and the removal by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol.

The developed country Parties (Annex 1), in addition, aimed to bring down their greenhouse gases emissions to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. During the first Conference of Parties (CoP 1) in 1995 in Berlin, it became clear that most of the developed countries had not initiated measures to achieving their current aim of returning greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. In fact, a number of highly industrialised countries had increased their greenhouse gas emissions by 10-15 percent from 1990 levels. The Global NGO Meet in Berlin during CoP 1 in March 1995, thought that ‘Rio is not enough’ and called for higher commitments by developed countries. The Convention had been silent on measures and action for stabilization of concentrations of greenhouse gases beyond 2000. During the third Conference of the Parties at Kyoto in 1997 (CoP 3), the message of the Secretary General, UN, delivered by Maurice Strong was significant: "The world’s richest countries acknowledge their principal responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; leadership on their part is clearly the way forward, and I urge them to commit to cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions that are significant, binding and verifiable. The position of developing countries requires special consideration and I sincerely hope this issue will not be a stumbling block to the agreement here in Kyoto."

Some 10,000 delegates, observers and media persons participated in this high profile event hosted by Kyoto, Japan in December 1977. The conference resulted in a consensus decision and adopted a Protocol known as the Kyoto Protocol to the Convention on Climate Change, under which industrialised countries would reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions at least by 5.2% compared to 1990 levels by the end of the commitment period 2008-2012. USA and Australia have not joined the Protocol process. When the Protocol is fully implemented by 2012, this would mean an important step forward in producing a historic reversal of the upward trend in emissions that started in these countries from the days of the industrial revolution (in the North).The process took seven long years of negotiations from the day the Protocol was opened for signature on 16th March 1998 to come into force on 16th March 2005, ushering the Kyoto Protocol Era. The Protocol has been ratified by141 Parties to the UNFCCC across the globe.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one of the innovative features of the Kyoto Protocol. It encourages investments in projects that promote sustainable development in developing countries while limiting emissions at the same time. The active involvement of the private sector is critical for the success of the CDM, which is now fully operational.

Signals of climate change are already visible around the world. Some of the projected impacts which could adversely affect our life, economy and eco systems are its impacts on the Asian Monsoon (the main source of fresh water), agriculture and on many other life saving systems (such as rivers). Climate Change would increase vector borne diseases. It would also enhance extreme weather events — their intensity and frequency — as well as cause unprecedented loss of life and property in the coastal areas due to inundation. The Protocol is an important step forward towards the stabilization of the concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with our climate system.

India has reasons to be concerned about the adverse effects of climate change very seriously as a large proportion of its population depends on climate sensitive sectors, like agriculture and forestry for livelihoods. Adverse impact on the rainfall pattern (both temporal and spatial) and the recession of glaciers, due to global warming, would affect water availability and our development goals related to systems like habitat, health, energy and infrastructure. In fact, climate change would have a negative impact on our entire development process.

The Kyoto Protocol requires the signatory Annex 1 countries to bring down their emissions mostly by the domestic actions and by changing their life style. But to make the process cost effective and to supplement their domestic efforts, the Protocol also included three flexibility mechanisms. These are: