Post-Kyoto negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions

The Kyoto Protocol, the world's first treaty to attempt to address global warming by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, is due to expire at the end of 2012. Although the treaty only came into force on February 16, 2005, post-Kyoto negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions began in earnest at the meeting of the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue in February 2007. Working in parallel, various bodies under the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are also meeting to prepare the ground for a new agreement

February 2007 Washington Declaration

In the non-binding 'Washington Declaration' agreed on February 16, 2007, Presidents or Prime Ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa agreed in principle to a global cap-and-trade system that would apply to both industrialized nations and developing countries, which they hoped would be in place by 2009.