For the first time in recorded history, humans are altering the planet in ways that endanger its basic life-support systems. Human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have changed the Earth's atmosphere, unleashing potentially catastrophic climate changes that threaten the survival of human civilization. "Saving Kyoto" focuses on international efforts to confront the crisis and provides a colorful overview of the history of global climate negotiations, explaining why international cooperation between poor and rich nations has become critical. The Kyoto Protocol is a historic agreement, the first of its kind to be based on the creation of a new market - a market based on trade in user rights to the global atmospheric commons. Detailing how the Kyoto Protocol originated, the debates and conflicts leading up to its signing in 1997, the main protagonists behind its creation and the current issues that threaten to undermine it, the book explains the importance of the carbon market - potentially the largest commodity market in the world - from an insider's perspective. After reading this book, readers will understand how the carbon market can help to close the global income divide while resolving the climate crisis. They will understand why we need to save Kyoto.