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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."
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.
Too bad 98 senators sent a letter to Pres. Clinton saying they'd vote against ratifying it.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
98 Senators voted not to ratify the treaty, and 2 did not vote at all. Thats right boys and girls not one US senator (Democrat or Republican) Voted for Kyoto, so how is this bushes fault?
Kyoto is seriously flawed, China (one of the worlds most industrial nations) and India (very quickly growing) are exempt for emissions requirements, its a joke aimed at the west..
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.
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...
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.