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Kyoto Protocol Comes Into Force
Cally writes "The controversial Kyoto Treaty regulating CO2 emissions finally comes into force today. The BBC has several stories and backgrounders, and notes that international pressure is now mounting on the USA to take action as well, as the scientific consensus is well established. A key question is whether the US economy will benefit relative the rest of the world, with some arguing that new technologies such as clean power generation and energy efficient appliances will provide an economic boost."
The basic American claim that the treaty is unjust towards wealthier nations, while benefits countries like China and India, is true. There can be no argument that the US would be restricted much more than the #2 consumer of petroleum, China, under Kyoto. The question is, can the will of the world force the US into a position that it views as unjust towards itself? It's a thorny one, but recent history suggest that the United States will not be swayed by foreign legislation. Thus the financial incentive is the best hope of Kyoto ever being ratified by the US.
If Europe wants the US to ratify Kyoto, all they have to do is make the dollars and common sense will follow. One side is right here, and one side isn't. If Europe is right, and this does create a financial windfall, the US will follow. If the US is right, and Europe's economy suffers greatly, they will withdraw from Kyoto.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
How do you guys think the US would have reacted if the situation was turned around? (I.e. the US was pro-Kyoto).
Underholdning.info
Looking at the question of 'will USA gain a relative economical advantage' is missing the point - it IS clear that there are certain economic disadvantages
Agreed, and I feel that the economic disadvantages have been grossly overstated: for example, a pundit on the BBC suggested that with Kyoto compliance it would take the UK until 2056 to achieve the same level of prosperity it would otherwise attain in 2053. I suspect there's grounds for error there, but that it's not far from the truth.
This is where the serious fun begins.
US People => Tend to recycle, some buy hybrids and other good cars (some do buy SUVs though). So overall just people and in some cases pretty damned good.
US Legislature => A bunch of lazy pork riddled morons whose whole aim in life is to reject anything that comes from abroad and do what ever big business wants
US President => Commander in Chief of the "not invented here" syndrome: International Criminal Court (bad), UN (bad), Chemical and biological non-proliferation treaty (bad), Geneva Convention (bad), Kyoto (bad), Steel Tarifs (good) etc.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Fair?
FWIW, pressure is also mounting on the Australian Prime Minister to ratify the protocol.
He is arguing that "it would be against the national interest for Australia to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change". (quote from ABC.net.au)
"Until such time as the major polluters of the world - including the United States and China - are made part of the Kyoto regime, it is next to useless and indeed harmful for a country such as Australia to sign up," he said.
The headline for the article on the ABC site is "Signing Kyoto virtually worthless: PM".
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Indeed, it doesn't. Your #1 economic competitor is not China, it's the European Union (actually, the US isn't even the world's #1 economy any more, the EU is).
You should ask yourself why the EU is the main driving force behind Kyoto. Maybe because they found out Kyoto would actually be a boon to their economy?
Trusting people who have MBA's? Obviously all those with MBA's who ran or observed Enron got a free pass that day! In fact there is an amazing level of consensus as far as global warming is concerned, and the differences within the mainstream scientific community are about levels of dgree, not whethr humans are causing the warming in the first place. The problem with relying on the judgment of those in the business community is that they are in the business of making a profit, and often this makes them take a short-term view, especially where it may harm profits. However, there are many business leaders who are pushing for change, and many who will support them (such as the Rocky Mountain Institute), who see increased efficency and better ways of doing things as positive for business, as well as the planet. Pollution is waste, the cost of which is largely externalised to the rest of us. The US economy actually has the capacity to not only absorb costs from following Kyoto, but actually make a profit from it. Lomborg and his ilk have been shown to be wrong in their views, so lets look at what should be done, not why it cant .
India, China and Brazil are involved in Kyoto. They have an exemption until 2012, after that they are required to begin cutting emmisions.
However, I've been reading several news stories lately about China already putting in place several projects to cut current Greenhouse Gas emissions. They've recently cancelled many Government projects due to environmental concerns.
According to Greenpeace China's campaign director Lo Sze Ping, "[the] observation is that, compared with the 1980s, 1990s, the Chinese government's position has changed. They can now see their share of responsibility and they are working very hard."
Last month, the State Environment Protection Administration suspended 30 large construction projects, including the five-billion-dollar Xiloudu hydropower plant, for failing to get environmental impact assessments approved.
It seems that many of the leading Chinese scientist agree that Global Warming is a major concern and the Chinese Government is listening to what they have to say. The government also believes that by cutting their own emissions they will have more "credits" to sell to other countries. In other words, the Chinese government has come to the conclusion that they can improve long term growth and profit by "being green".
Europe isn't a country.
Each country has pledged a given reduction target. Japan doesn't even think they can meet their target but at least they're willing to try.
Kyoto is a joke simply because of your unwillingness to change.
regarding the industrial outsoucing problem, how about re-calcuate the emissions based on the companies and their home country?
say, if Dell moves its manufacturing lines to China, the emissions produced by Dell in China should be counted as US's emissions since Dell's headquarter is in US.
There are reasons as to why some of the countries in the Kyoto treaty are finding it difficult to cut emissions: They haven't got much to cut. Here in Finland we have had strict rules on industrial pollution for wuite a while now, and now that they would need to cut emissions, they have little from which to cut. They must resort either to buying emission quotas from other companies, or to very expensive means of reducing pollution. This will undoubtedly hurt them economicly and help other competing businesses.
This has been discussed in the media quite a lot, and pretty much everyone knows about this. Then, why do most of Finns support the treaty? They know it will hurt Finnish businesses and the whole economy of the country as well.
There is the main difference between the American and the European thinking. Yes, it WILL hurt the economies of the countries involved. But the europeans are still willing to do it, since it WILL help the future of everyone, even if they have to be on the payers side of the fence.
Ah, but the Geneva Convention is completely different.
To paraphrase: "It's best if opponents in a war adhere to some basic ground rules of humanity and decency. However, there's no practical way to enforce such rules. Instead, the Geneva Signatories agree to adhere to such rules. The penalty for breaking the rules is that your opponent is now also allowed to break the rules--against you, the instigator--without fear of censure or retaliation by the other Geneva Signatories. You don't like it? Don't break the rules. Oh, and it should be obvious that non-signatories are entitled to No Geneva Protection At All."
It is, in fact, a core principle of the Geneva Convention that Signatories are entitled to retaliate IN KIND against terrorist attacks, nuclear/chemical/biological attacks, attacks against civilian populations, assassinations, torture of POWS[1], etc.
And at the same time, the Convention places no restrictions on initiating such attacks against non-Signatories (although other treaties and basic human decency may do so).
In fact, the Saddam Regime, not being Signatory to the convention, was a legitimate target for U.S. nuclear attacks, under the Geneva Convention.
The Convention was designed to encourage civilized nations to fight limited wars that both sides could conceivably recover from, once peace had been reestablished. Those who would prefer a "no holds barred" approach to warfare should expect no coverage from the Convention. Likewise, Signatories are not restricted by the Convention when warring with non-Signatories.
In reality, of course, the U.S. has been remarkably restrained, when measured against what both the spirit and the letter of what the Geneva Convention requires.
Personally, I think the Geneva Convention is an excellent treaty. I'm quite glad that the U.S. is signatory to it, and I believe it should be a model for other treaties.
Perhaps a "Kyoto Convention", that promoted good behavior amongst signatories, while promising non-signatories nothing more than a sharp stick in the eye, would make more sense.
On the other hand, maybe not. Nobody wants to be the first person to start playing nice. There's no way the U.S. (or China, or India, or Brazil, or anybody else) is going to seriously cripple their own economy unless they have some reasonable assurance that all the other nations will also scale back their economies, to preserve the relative status quo of geopolitical power.
Since the Kyoto Protocol explicitly promises the exact opposite: certain nations get a free pass, while others must scale back to some degree, the agreement was never going to get full support.
(And what the hell kind of plan is that, anyway? The world will suddenly become a happy place full of flowers and cheerful songs, once China becomes the dominant economic power--and the dominant polluter--in the world? Do you really think the Chinese government will be more sympathetic to the demands of the global environmentalists than the U.S. government is?)
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[1] Now, I'm not a big fan of torture, Geneva-sanctioned or not, and I think it's one of those things that shouldn't be indulged in even when permitted by the Geneva Convention. My point is, the Geneva Convention does permit torture against non-signatories. It also permits torture against signatories who first violate the Convention. In fact, it even permits torture against signatories who haven't violated the Convention, with the caveat that they are then free of their Convention commitment to not practice torture against you.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.