Would more hurricanes help?
by Volker Weber
Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might've been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal, according to a source involved with the negotiations who spoke to New York Magazine on condition of anonymity.
Oh dear, theCheneyBush government continues to inhabit a different universe to the rest of the world. While over 150 countries seem about to agree to move forward on the Kyoto protocol to limit global pollution, the USA is still conviced that global warming is an evil communist theory that does not apply in their universe. (And Blair doesn't come out of the affair much better, since he has claimed all along that he could convince the American government of the error of their ways.)
Comments
We should'nt forget, that the content of the Kyoto protocol is nothing more than a political agreement. If there ever were any scientific content in the way of debating about it, it's gone. It's sad that almost all media report as if it was the one and only truth.
The real truth is following: we just don't know!
We don't know, why it's getting warmer, why there are stronger storms, why there's anything with the weather ... and we don't know if it's nature or if it's us or rather how much it is us.
We even don't know if Kyoto will have any effects (or would have, if ALL countries of the world signed and realised it).
It's kind of ridiculous how much believe in that sheet of paper is established.
I don't blame America for not signing the Kyoto protocol or not signing the new agreement - there are many more other things they should be blamed for at the moment.
And remember Clinton didn't sign it neither.
Actually, Clinton did sign it.
But Congress didn't ratify it.
The real point is that the USA has not put in place measures at federal level to limit its emissions - whether as part of the Kyoto protocol or through any other mechanism. Kyoto may not be a perfect solution, but with 157 nations supporting it, the USa is definately the odd man out.
So what if it's only a political agreement? If the multinational corporations don't care about warming and ecology, then it's better that politics agrees to do something about this, than just letting things run wild. Sure the political process is slow and cumbersome - but even a slow train arrives some day.
Left to their own devices, corporations only do something, if the market demands it. So political pressure is a "better than nothing" thing.
And there are enough studies, that link CO2 emissions to warming - and warmer it is getting.
So Yes, we can and should blame all politicians that yield to pressure from corporations. WE voted them and they should further our agendas, not the others.
I didn't talk about politics against corporations - I talked about political content versus scientific content!
It's no agreement with scientific background, it's an "political" agreement.
In principal I agree with Martin and I get angry that at every natural catastrophy people immediately blame it on global warming. That shouldn't keep us however from working on tougher anti-pollution measures.
My understanding of the Kyoto treaty is that it leaves undeveloped nations exempt from regulation. In practice, that means that anyone who wants to do any ecologically nasty stuff just moves their processing to one of those nations, turn it into a toxic waste dump, and they haven't violated anything.
@2 - John Keys: the US does heavily regulate industries that emit any kind of gasses, I don't understand how you say there are no federal standards on it. Are you referring to universal standards, automobiles, etc?
Hmm, well I have reservations as to the Kyoto protocol myself. It's been terribly watered down (ironically, by the american adminisitration mostly), so I think the US do have a right to object to it. What does, however, worry me, is that the US administration is just continuing to act so unilaterally, destroying a lot of the international infrastructure which they had so actively built up. Don't get me started on the Geneva convention, "rendition", and the ricean "i cannot confirm nor deny" nonsense. Brrrr!
@Jon - there is always the possibility of "eco-dumping", but there are ways to avoid this - look at for instance what is happening to the ecologically disastrous practise of dismantling old ships - all was exported to india, pakistan and bangladesh. But the European commission are now stipulating that the ships must be dismantled in an environmentally friendly manner. This is leading to new european industries (e.g. Ecodock). We can legislate for certain standards to be met, we can increase customer awareness, and then modify bad practises (think nike and sweatshops), and we can offer incentives that can be priced in money - like energy and pollution taxation, for instance. That can work. Here in Germany, for instance (although largely serendipitously) beverages in cans have disappeared. Or look at the way rubbish gets recycled in switzerland (very well, because you have to pay a high price for each individual bag) - people start behaving environmentally friendly if you attach a price tag to the environment.
I am also sure that we could win the argument i people started to realise that it is not out of a flimsy high ideal for flowery togetherness that one should be environmentally conscious, but out of simple self interest.
@Jon: The USA regulations are, as far as I know, not aimed at reducing pollution compared to past levels.
The problem is, that the USA (which has 4% of the world population) emits 25% of all global pollution.
The trend is that production and thus pollution increases each year. So to reduce the absolute amount of pollution, an increasingly tough pollution limit is needed. That isn't happening in the USA (in fact, most countries that signed up for Kyoto aren't likely to reach the pollution reductions that they have signed up for either, but at least they are trying).
... correction, I think the 25% referred to CO2 emissions, not all pollutants. But the problem remains similar.
/J
