Support for Kyoto

 Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol claim that reducing these emissions is crucially important; carbon dioxide, they believe, is causing the earth's atmosphere to heat up. This is supported by attribution analysis.

The governments of all of the countries whose parliaments have ratified the Protocol are supporting it. Most prominent among advocates of Kyoto have been the European Union and many environmentalist organizations. The United Nations and some individual nations' scientific advisory bodies (including the G8 national science academies) have also issued reports favoring the Kyoto Protocol.

An international day of action was planned for 3 December 2005, to coincide with the Meeting of the Parties in Montreal. The planned demonstrations were endorsed by the Assembly of Movements of the World Social Forum.

A group of major Canadian corporations also called for urgent action regarding climate change, and have suggested that Kyoto is only a first step.

On 3 January 2006, after the Montreal accords a group of people assembled a petition with the goal to reach 50 million signatures supporting Kyoto Protocol and its goal by January 2008 - the starting date set by the Kyoto Protocol to show average 5% reduction in emissions. This petition was set out to give civil support and ratification to the international fight against Global Warming on a base of world wide active cooperation. Many US and Australian citizens are signing the petition and thus criticize their leaders' choices on this matter.

In the US, there is at least one student group Kyoto Now! which aims to use student interest to support pressure towards reducing emissions as targeted by the Kyoto Protocol compliance.

As of June 20, 2006, seven Northeastern US states are involved in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) RGGI, which is a state level emissions capping and trading program. It is believed that the state-level program will indirectly apply pressure on the federal government by demonstrating that reductions can be achieved without being a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol.

* Participating states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware.
* Observer states and regions: Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Eastern Canadian Provinces.
* Formerly participating states that have dropped out: Massachusetts, Rhode Island

As of December 2, 2005, 192 US cities representing more than 40 million Americans support Kyoto after Mayor Greg Nickels of Seattle started a nationwide effort to get cities to agree to the protocol.

* Large participating cities: Seattle, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Denver, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Austin, Portland, Providence, Tacoma, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, West Palm Beach, Annapolis, Madison, Wisconsin
* Full list of cities and mayors: US Climate Protection Agreement Home Page