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After the recent unprecedented increases of oil prices on international markets and the rippling effects that followed causing higher prices across many sectors of the economy, very few would argue, from an economic viewpoint, against the need
to diversify away from fossil fuels. From an environmental position, the need to reduce carbon emissions worldwide to slow global warming and as a consequence, manage climate change has been widely accepted.
The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated by more than 160 nations in December 1997, aims to reduce net emissions of certain greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide (CO2)). Each of the participating developed countries must decide how to meet its respective reduction goal during a five-year period (2008-2012); but specific ground rules remain to be worked out at future negotiating sessions. Under a climate change Bill announced in the Queen's Speech in November 2006, the British Government promised to monitor annually progress towards the five-year milestones, in order to deliver a sixty (60%) percent reduction on 1990 levels by 2050.