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Russia to Ratify Kyoto Treaty
Repran writes "The Guardian reports that politicians, industry leaders and environment groups across the world welcomed the news last night that Russia had rejuvenated international efforts to combat climate change by ratifying the Kyoto protocol."
In Soviet Russia, accord ratifys you!
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
too bad Bush abandoned this wonderful attempt to save our planet...
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Think about it. Kyoto has 1990 emissions for a baseline. Russia's heavy industry was still going ahead mostly full steam from the Soviet days. Since then, their economy has contracted quite a bit and a lot of industry sits idle. I'd wager they've already met their Kyoto requirements and the hard part will be keeping emissions down, rather than cutting more.
Britain is somewhat similar in their Kyoto targets. The government was converting coal fired plants to natural gas en-masse already, so cutting emissions by 10% was a trivial exercise.
The executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, Joke Waller-Hunter, said: "President Putin has given an inspiring signal to the international community. By giving industry, local authorities and consumers incentives to take action on climate change, Russia and the 29 other industrialised countries that have joined the protocol will set themselves on a path to greater economic efficiency."
Somehow I can't take a guy named "Joke" as someone that has a serious opinion.
Russia's move means that US business will be cut out of the new carbon trading markets which have already been set up in London. Countries and companies in the scheme have targets to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. If they exceed their targets they will be able to sell the extra carbon "saved" to other countries or companies which have failed to do so. The market is expected to be worth tens of billions of pounds a year.
Good, then maybe the US can stop sending insane amounts of foreign aid to Russia. Just a stop on the 2.8 billion they have gotten from the "Freedom support act" of 2001 would be enough. That money can go twards the US finding alternative fuel sources. YEY!
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
They were converting polluting plants to less polluting plants. And, what is the problem? This is all Kyoto is about. Why isn't US doing the same?
Each CO2 molecule released right now in the US, will stay in the world atmospher for 100 years, possibly generating changes all over the world in the countries of the 6 billions of people which are not American.
So we start with Kyoto. Then we demonstrate improvements without destroying economies. Then we make a new treaty, with new baselines, ratcheting up progress and dragging industry into a sustainable millennium. The alternative is no treaty, no baseline, more pollution, and destruction of the environment and the economies, not to mention people, that depend on it.
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Granted they had to throw in the requisite George Bush jab, who by the way wasn't President when the Senate rejected the Kyoto treaty 98-0. No President is going to get past that majority.
.7 of an inch? Glaciers? Ignoring the issue that some of them were bigger in times where the planet was hotter?
The key here is money. Russia has something they can sell. They need money and what better way to obtain it?
Which brings up the point, whats the use of a treaty if you can just buy yourself a pass? What use is a treaty that excepts certain countries from the requirements?
Also, sea level rise is how much in the last half century?
When the science behind Kyoto gets real proof then come back with the treaty. what we have is an anti-industrialist agenda which convienent opts out some of the upcoming bigger polluters.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Russia's interest in this treaty is based on its provision of credits for carbon sequestration. By growing trees, without burning them, Russia sinks scads of CO2 from the air they breathe into their woody flesh. The vast stretches of foresty Russia, which can be treed and cut for unburned products, would make Russia almost as rich in sequestration points as it is in burnable oil. The US, with our vast stretches of clearcut, would be positioned similarly, especially if much of the clearcut Federal lands weren't being kept as new, subsidized grassland for ranchers' grazing herds.
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BTW thanks for pointing out that thiese things were being done *without* kyoto..
So we get them into the regime when it's most attractive to them, then up the antes to eliminate their contributions to the problems. That's how the nuclear arms treaties worked, and most other successful international efforts. It's a process of diplomatic inclusion and education, as well as negotiated consensus, that replaces the policy vacuum of that lets people destroy everyone downwind.
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"Somehow I can't take a guy named "Joke" as someone that has a serious opinion."
I do not think that word means what you think it means (thanks Inigo).
Ms. Waller-Hunter is Dutch. In her language, "Joke" means "First Name", while "grap" means "jest".
It seems like you are being sarcastic, or at least sardonic, about Russia making money from joining an international pollution control club. It is worth celebrating their "going legit". Perhaps that can help persuade the US to follow suit. Otherwise we'll be spending a lot more than $2.8B on cleaning up the mess from the incessantly increasing pollution spewing from Russia's CO2 industry.
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Now all we need is the biggest polluter in the world, with 5% of the population generating 25% of the pollution to finally grow up and ratify it as well...
Meanwhile, China and India are still exempt and have absolutly no restrictions and can emit all the greenhouse gas they damn well please. Looks like your policy vacuum is alive and well.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
>>Which brings up the point, whats the use of a treaty if you can just buy yourself a pass? What use is a treaty that excepts certain countries from the requirements?
To answer you, I suppose that having to buy the pass is a slight impediment. Money will go to a nation where the industry is required to be more green, hopefully this encourages the development of green technology. Though I acceed that even so, this agreement is not a step forward.
>>Also, sea level rise is how much in the last half century? .7 of an inch?
??? What?
Antarctica's Larsen B ice shelf has collapsed. Sea levels are up 6 to 10 inches. Mountain glaciers have been reduced by about half. Severe heat waves have become more frequent.
In New York, last summer was HOT. Our winters have become more mild. My reference to my state is anecdotal - to be sure - but climate change IS happening. It's like credit card debt.. you can ignore it for a while, but eventually it will bite you in the butt. We'd be smart to preserve our future.
>>Granted they had to throw in the requisite George Bush jab
What "Bush jab"? They said that this event left him isolated, which is politically true. A "jab" would have been to call him names. All they did was note a political reality. Or did you mean the part where they mention Bush "repudiated the treaty on taking office."? Again, just reporting reality. It's not an attack.
>>When the science behind Kyoto gets real proof then come back with the treaty. what we have is an anti-industrialist agenda which convienent opts out some of the upcoming bigger polluters.
I was going to say something in anger, but I think I've made my point.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
This is bad for the welfare of humanity. The Copenhagen Consensus has ranked climate measures, especially Kyoto, as "bad", dead last behind AIDS, Malaria, malnutrition, free trade, clean water, economic freedom, and migration measures in ratio of social benefit to cost. The more climate research that is done the more evidence we find against human caused global warming. But once an environmental movement is started, no amount or reason can stop it.
Kyoto will help the environment by at most 0.02 Celsius by 2050. It will also be bad for the environment as more people worry more about CO2 and less about real air pollution that causes acid rain and other environmental damage, and less about more significant greenhouse gases like dihydrogen-monoxide and methane. Many Americans have already been completely ignoring the reductions in pollutants like NO2, O3, SO2, CO, and PM in the U.S. before and during the Bush administration when attacking him for not supporting CO2 reductions. Also Kyoto will increase energy prices in clean energy-efficient countries shifting more manufacturing to dirty inefficient energy-consuming developing countries like China, causing more global pollution.
I think it's a particularly childish view that the senate has taken in not backing Kyoto. I would rather suspect that there is a bit more to it than complaining that China and India aren't involved so we're not playing either. I suspect that that bit more is something to do with senators being involved in the oil business to a greater or lesser degree and the high price of oil is suiting them very nicely, thankyou. The USA *should* be leading the world in alternate sources of energy, and then selling it to the world (or at least the research). That the developing nations are contributing to an increasing greenhouse gas level is an invalid argument - what choice do they have if they are to develop? They don't have a big budget for research and a lack of scientists probably doesn't help the problem. If the developed western powers were to ratify and then start actually moving on it, the developing nations could use the new tech and not produce the pollution. That Russia has ratified is a small step, it really needs to be a world movement. At the moment we're being held up by a bunch of oily plutocrats in Washington. (If they changed their minds, so would many other countries' governments) They need to understand that this fledgling industry is as good an investment opportunity as Texan donkies, probably better if lots of money is pushed into it quickly. Well, that's my view anyway.
No, the vacuum is smaller, and endangered. It will be a lot easier for the US to get China and India under the sustainable schema after the US actually signs the treaty, which is now at least 4 years overdue.
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Does anyone know what the penalties and/or fines would be to a country that signs it, but then does not follow through and continues to pollute at the same or higher levels? I don't think there are any past a slap on the wrist. Slap might me too strong a word here.
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Our economy sucks so we need to find a way to limit American economic power.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Um, actually, the Russia will have to cut down on the emissions. Which emissions are those? Nope, not the industry. Its the emissions, that keep people from freezing during winters (read 7/12 months).
:-/ And a bad one at that.
Russian scientists from Russian Academy of Sciences (however it is called in english, I mean RAN - Rossiskaya Akademiya Nauk) was against signing of Kyoto treaty, since there is no solid proof about greenhouse theory.
Russian signing of the treaty was entirely a political move.
Bush did not reject Kyoto. Kyoto was rejected before Bush was even in power.
Pinheads. This is by far the dumbest site on the internet.