Press Release: Climate change: Commission hails entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol

The European Commission joined 140 nations in celebrating the entry into force on 16 February 2005 of the Kyoto Protocol, which gave the international community its most powerful instrument yet to combat global climate change. Industrialised countries that had ratified the Protocol were legally obliged to meet their targets for limiting or reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The EU had already made this binding for Member States under EU law.