Europe Slips on Kyoto Greenhouse Targets

covertlaw writes "Emissions of greenhouse gases from the European Union increased in 2001 for the second year running. According to the unratified Kyoto Treaty, the EU as a whole is committed to reducing emissions by 8% on their 1990 levels by between 2008 and 2012."

Comments

Re:If Europe was never planning to follow the trea

[MerlynEmrys67]

Ok, I have to ask...

Who would you pay the fine too ?

I mean you break a city law, you pay a fine to the city government, you break a state law, you pay a fine to the state government...

What is the group that you would pay for breaking a "global law". Or do we just have a country go and invade you to shutdown your polluting industry

Unratified!?

[Pentagram]

According to the unratified Kyoto Treaty

Is this the same treaty that has been ratified by more than 100 countries?

Re:Seems the US got it right

[Tune]

... And then again...

The USA would have ratified Kyoto automatically if only they would have been driving European cars.

Yes, Kyoto is "unfair" in the sense that exceeding levels can be traded with third world countries. Kyoto is "unfair" in that it starts from emission/surface instead of emission/population.

But ratifying Kyoto might at least have shown the USA's intention to do something about its mass consumption. It might have shown they feel responsible for burning over 25% of worldwide resources, while constitutin less than 10% of its population/surface. And, ultimately, it might have led to some form of responsible and respectful behaviour - or it migh have not...

Not that tired old nonsense again...

[Spamalamadingdong]

But ratifying Kyoto might at least have shown the USA's intention to do something about its mass consumption. It might have shown they feel responsible for burning over 25% of worldwide resources, while constitutin less than 10% of its population/surface.

You might have missed this point, but the US also pays for the resources it gets from other countries. It returns value in the forms of goods and services.

There are a lot of good arguments against the USA using so much oil, and producing such a large fraction of humanity's excess CO2. However, the "over-consuming society" argument is logical junk. If the USA consumed 50% of the world's human-handled energy but produced it all from solar and wind, the "mass consumption" claim would still be true! That just goes to show how little sense it makes. Find another argument.