Monday, June 06, 2011

Curtains for Kyoto

The UN conference on greenhouse gas limits will meet late this year in South Africa. The goal is to negotiate replacement CO2 emission targets--the Kyoto treaty's "first commitment period" expires at year end 2012.

The United States, of course, never adopted the Kyoto protocol. And at last month's G8 meeting in Paris, "Russia, Japan and Canada told the G8 they would not join a second round of carbon cuts under the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations talks this year and the US reiterated it would remain outside the treaty." For its part, the EU is keeping its options open--and greenhouse gas emissions in Europe rose last year. This makes European stated CO2 targets even less realistic.

Greenhouse gas limits are a cap on growth and a barrier to technological development. Especially during a worldwide recession, why would any country agree to mandatory de-carbonization? Oh yeah, because green "sounds good." Not good enough, hopefully, to continue killing the global economy.

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

5 comments:

Warren said...

Sayonara, Kyoto!

OBloodyHell said...

Something that SHOULD have been thrown under the bus a decade ago.

@nooil4pacifists said...

Agreed.

Whitehall said...

Unfortunately, the California legislature is even dumber than the US Senate AND State Department.

We're still sticking with our own greenhouse gas suicide law - AB 32.

@nooil4pacifists said...

Whitehall: That also is true; there's almost no hope for California.