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EU Ratifies Kyoto Treaty
An anonymous submitter sends: "Yahoo! News is reporting that all 15 member states of the European Union have just ratified the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse emissions by 8% over the next ten years (the US agreed to 7%.)"
Really why is it the US, as the biggest polluter in the world can't they make a significant effort to ratify the treaty like the rest of the world. Why should the US be treated to a special treatment when they set the worst example ?
:)
Sometimes life just isn't fair
The pact would have required the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, to trim emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels. But the Bush administration has instead announced policy changes likely to push them up by 30 percent by 2010, the European Commission said.
The keyword here is "would." The US isn't ratifying squat, but who's surprised? Financing election campaigns is a costly business, and you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. Bush is just behaving like the good boy he promised to be."If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
I live in Canada, and we are being asked to reduce our emissions by stupid amounts in 8 years. I think its on the order of 10% (i'm probably way off, but correct me if i'm wrong). Now Canada has about 30M people in it. China has over 1 Billion. China is NOT bound by the Kyoto treaty in any way. If each member of their population increases their CO2 usage by a few percent, it will totally wipe out any benefits that Canada, the US, and many other countries could make happen.
If this is a global question, why isn't their anything approaching global participation? Shouldn't the largest country on earth be bound by it as well?
And for a 2nd perspective, there is a lot of controversy in my Province over a proposed Alternative strategy to CO2 reduction being developed in Alberta. Most people supporting Kyoto say "NO! Do Kyoto NOW! It's the only way!" Well Mr and Mrs Environmentalist, if other plans don't reduce enough, fast enough, then you must be in favor of mass genocide of all polluters! In fact, wipe out 99% of the world's population! That'll put a big dent in CO2 production! Or if not mass deaths right away, how about banning the use of all types of fuels that produce CO2! "Sorry Mr Freezing person. Your wood campfire doesn't follow Zero Emmissions Guidelines. You'll need to freeze in winter. Sorry." Anybody can see both of these are unreasonable (well i HOPE everybody thinks these are unreasonable...), but we have to realize that Kyoto is not necessarily the best way of doing things.
There ARE better ways that reduce CO2 emmissions, perhaps not as fast, but not as devastating to economies traditionally dependant on "dirty" fuels. And ignoring other countries that aren't developed yet, just makes them more dependant on CO2, and doesn't help long-term. Get solutions for them implemented right away, because it is easier to change an infrastructure that isn't there yet, rather than try and make a dramatic shift.
Erioll
Not nearly so much as you think. Every time environmental regulations are imposed, people say that the economy will tank as a result. It just doesn't happen.
For instance, when CFCs were banned, some companies discovered they could use water or lemon juice in place of CFCs and actually wound up saving money, and the economy wasn't hurt by the end of CFCs either. Congress imposed new mileage restrictions during the oil crisis and while Japanese car makers innovated to meet them, American car makers sued and didn't. The result was it helped the Japanese to seize a huge portion of the global car market, causing major harm to the American economy. Business has cried wolf too many times about this sort of thing; everytime it turns out it's better for them to quit their whining and find a way to make money and help the environment.
The long-term trend is toward getting more and more $GDP out of a certain amount of fossil fuel anyway, and a large portion of Kyoto is just to give this an international shove forward. A lot of fossil fuel is burned pointlessly in the US. Emissions could be reduced substantially IMHO if SUVs had to meet real fuel economy standards and the nation's railways and mass transit systems were adequately funded and upgraded. Also, US reliance on foreign oil has never done anything good for it, and alternative energy sources offer the only way out. Kyoto would definitely encourage them, so from a political as well as environmental standpoint Kyoto makes sense. The treaty is good for the US, it just takes foresight to see it.
I posted and all I got was this stupid sig
Nope, Clinton and Gore put us exactly where we are today by killing any program related to nuclear power, including but not limited to:
- Killing the Integral Fast Reactor program at Argonne Nat'l Lab. This reactor design would recycle fuel, reducing the amount of waste produced.
- Killing transmutation experiments which might have been used to treat existing waste.
- Stalling waste disposal programs e.g. Yucca Mountain.
Are you for real? I love the bit about the road deaths, and the vision of oppressive governments forcing people into tiny cars.
I'm glad to say that there's currently a long US waiting list for the BMW Mini, which is a truly fun car to drive (hint: it doesn't roll over when you go around corners).
To return to matters vaguely relevant to Kyoto, the nihilist "it's hopeless so why bother" argument IS dealt with by the treaty - Kyoto is part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, not a single set of regulations but a mechanism to establish fair rules as required. The hard part is establishing the level playing field, not playing the game.
The USA is the world's biggest polluter, both in total and, by a huge margin, per capita - it has a responsibility to lead. Do you really think that the US, Europe and Japan would be unable to bring remaining countries into line when necessary?
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Europe has recently engaged in many meaningless gestures in order to enhance its "moral" standing over the US. Europe has yet to understand that it is no longer the center of world affairs. It has no military worth discussing, and no will to create one. It has a living standard 2/3rds that of the US. It has a demographic problem that is causing its population to rapidly age and diminish relative to most of the rest of the world.
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Europe will not change its behavior as a result of the signing, so it is a no-cost effort.
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The EU is a bureaucracy, not a democracy. The Brussells bureaucrats are far removed from the votes of individuals in Europe, and acts on its own. Bureaucracies have significant intertia and often do irrational things just because they appeared rational when the process was started (see Laws of Bureaucracy).
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It is not clear that the US will never sign the treaty. We have had previous fits of insanity, and as long as the treaty is out there, it could be signed in the future if we ended up with a sufficiently foolish senate. Furthermore, European signing of the treaty makes it easier for US environmental organizations to pressure the US into signing it. It is a no cost effort by Europe that could pay off big in the future.
Oh, btw... I am not a Europe hater. I have spent much time in Europe including living in France. I am, however, distressed at the irrational behavior of Europe in recent times.Furthermore, Europe has been losing other moral edges it had over the US. For example, the violent crime rate in Britain and France is now significantly higher than that in the US. The recent anti-semitism should be a source of great shame in Europe, but the rapidly rising percentage of muslims in France and England (see demographics above - the muslims are having more children) has muted the reaction to this.
Due to all of these factors, Europe is humiliated, and is reacting by attacking the United States wherever it can in the realm of ideology and international affairs.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Kyoto is nothing more than another European inspired attempt at hobbling the United States and improving European competitive position. Europe, because of its much greater population density, needs less fuel than the US.
This is such a bullshit, that I can't resist. Europe isn't pushing the Kyoto protocol, because they want to "hobble" the US. Come on guys, it's not always about you... Europe is pushing Kyoto, because they actually care about the environment! What many Americans don't get is that environmental concerns are far more common and usual in Europe than in the US. And I'm not talking about environmental extremist. People DO care about pollution and the environment in general here. BY FAR more than in the US. (Yes, and I've been and worked in both places...)
Furthermore, its citizens already drive in tiny cars (due to extortionate fuel taxes and other laws)
Bullshit Nr. 2. Yes, people drive smaller cars. (I do, for sure.) But it's not only because of the fuel taxes and "other laws", but more because most Europeans don't feel the need to have two meters of steel around you. I (and no European I know) never understood the American affection for SUVs (especially in Texas. Why do you need all that trucks??). And people look for cars with high mileage not only because of the costs, but mainly because it's perceived as bad for the environment, if the car uses to much gas.
There's actually a lot of research going in this field. VW just presented the first one-liter-car (translates to about 230 miles per gallon) as a prototype.
and already suffer a much higher traffic death rate per mile.
Would you care to back this claim with some official numbers?
Folks,
No matter what happens over the next 20+ years we will require industry to produce and transport the consumer goods we can no longer live without.
Subsequently, we will need factories and low labor cost countries to produce our 'necessities'.
Germany cut emissions? Guess what? It moved to China/Malaysia/Eastern European States, etc.
Analogous to the so called 'drug problem' in South America. We require drugs, they are farmed in S. America.
Then we spend tens of millions of dollars going after farmers who supply demand to. Then it shifts to another region.
Guess what? We still use the drugs: squeezing the balloon.
?sp
Not to mention the fact that they actually make a genuine effort to implement cleaner public transport infrastructure. If Bush really wants to reduce US reliance on Middle Eastern oil why not go the extra mile and start taking some initiatives to reduce reliance on oil all together. Notice I said take initiatives, not abandon it all together tomorrow morning. Oh right, I forgot his administration cares about issues like that.. there's an abundance of evidence in his National Energy Policy to support that.
Furthermore, its citizens already drive in tiny cars (due to extortionate fuel taxes and other laws) and already suffer a much higher traffic death rate per mile.
So how about driving midsized cars rather than the tanks you're accustomed to? They also have more options when it comes to choosing fuel efficient cars (hybrids) because there is demand in the region, as compared to North America where the majority seem content consuming more and more resources.
"The science behind climactic change is beyond any serious dispute."
Nothing in science is beyond serious dispute; as that is the nature of science. Good science, anyway. Even someting as simple, elegant, and obviously correct as Sir Newton's theory of gravity was improved upon, and will likely be further refined in the future. I certainly think the science behind climate change is in its infancy, and if our present models of it are correct enough to make predictions centuries into the future then it is so only by some bizzare coincidence. We do not have nearly the amount of data we need to have refined our models that well through deliberate efforts.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal that I am not a computer scientist. I worked for 5 years as an environmental enginneer doing research on air pollution from stationary sources. I now work for the "evil" oil industry (the one that builds the giant Gaia destroying, oil spraying robots that Capt. Planet fights in the cartoons... you may be surprised to discover that besides fighting the forces of Mother Nature, we also have a small side business providing the fuel that powers almost all the transporation in the modern world).
It's funny to see that everybody here is so concerned about this issue but a recent slashdot poll had the car as the top form of transportation chosen by /.ers.
If you want to do something you need to change yourself and the sytem will bend to accomodate your need.
To start with stop buying V8s till there will be more enviromental friendly and powerfull vehicles on the market. On the other hand stop purchasing products that involve high polution in their creation.