Allies hope to press US into climate talks Thu Dec 1, 2005 10:49 PM ET By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent MONTREAL (Reuters) - Major U.S. allies expressed confidence on Thursday that they could persuade a reluctant Washington to consider new ways to fight global warming at a 189-nation environmental conference. The United States, the biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, has ruled out joining any U.N.-led talks in coming years on ways to rein in rising temperatures. Such talks are favored by many at the U.N.'s November 28-December 9 climate conference. Host Canada and the European Union reckon they can allay U.S. fears that any discussions would inevitably lead to binding targets, opposed by Washington, which has pulled out of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming. "This would be the start of discussions ... that do not mean commitments to a future course," a senior Canadian official said. "We think the United States could find a way to join such discussions." "We believe that it's possible to come up with a process, a dialogue that has something of interest for everybody," echoed Sarah Hendry, head of the British delegation which holds the European Union's rotating presidency. Washington bluntly told the conference on Monday that it was not interested in discussing new commitments, saying it was focusing on domestic measures to brake a rise in emissions and investing heavily in clean technologies like hydrogen. Still, Canada and the European Union hope the Montreal talks will launch a twin track -- new talks among Kyoto nations about what to do beyond 2012 and a wider set of discussions also involving developing countries and the United States. Kyoto, by contrast, requires about 40 developed nations to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. President George W. Bush pulled out in 2001, branding Kyoto an economic straitjacket. Environmentalists said many nations were lowering expectations about any big steps to combat global warming, widely blamed on emissions from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars. The 10 hottest years since records began in the 1860s have been since 1990. "If that's all that comes out of here then it's not enough," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at Greenpeace, of hopes for vague discussions on what many environmentalists call the biggest long-term threat to life on the planet. U.N. reports say the buildup of greenhouse gases may cause catastrophic climate shifts with more powerful storms, droughts and floods. Icecaps could melt, raising sea levels and drowning coastal cities and low-lying Pacific islands. A paper submitted by a group of 77 developing nations and China urged rich nations to consider new commitments for cutting greenhouse gases beyond 2012 and aim to complete their negotiations in 2008. It did not mention any commitments by developing nations. _____________________________________________________________ I doubt anything will come of this. But it does appear that more and more Americans are getting over the bull**** rhetoric and realizing that this truly is a problem, and truly needs to be dealt with. C'mon Bush, stop being a douchebag.
Remind me, what was the tally on the BBS vote re: you and your brother's weird and made up accusations against Major and 95? Thanks in advance! For running away... Again... There's an example of completely ignoring the issue and instead poking at some entirely unconnected weak wound. (Sorry! You guys must be so embarassed about all that business...) Stop doing it. If you're going to post in a thread about global warming, either admit you were wrong or keep up your hilarious (and even more pathetic) campaign against science. You guys aren't cute anymore. People are dying all over the freaking globe on account of the arrogance of people like you. One liners won't cut it anymore.
LOL...you're the one running away here. What was the vote, Batman Jones? Are you also ashamed to admit that it garnered almost unanimous support against it? Bipartisan unanimous support? Are you ashamed to admit that? Kyoto simply does not make sense for America.
You're right, texxx. We have so much money around here we're exempt from global warming. Even though we're mostly causing it. I'm not running away at all. I think we should take responsibility for our actions and for the results of our greed. How bout you? And meantime, while I've got you here, why did your brother run away from RM95 like a skinned chicken?
Nice dodging of the question. I figured that you could not provide a reasoned reponse to this. Please educate yourself on this topic before claiming that Kyoto would be good for America. TIA
I'm not inclined to take education advice from someone that not only believed the lies the WH put forth to trick this country into war (and out of Kyoto) but actually still adheres to them. Is global warming real, texxx? Your party's been saying it wasn't for years. Your party (and you) mocked Gore over it. Where are you now on that? Is global warming real or not? And, while we're at it, is the world flat or round? Also. Dinosaurs: real or hoax? I'll make you a deal. I'll educate myself on whether or not Kyoto is good for America (versus the rest of the world, I trust) and you educate yourself on whether or not any single thing the Bush admin has done is good for America. Start with Iraq. I'll expect a detailed report by morning. Nah, let's make it afternoon. Even if you stay up all night, it'll take that long to type all the mea culpas.
The US is a failure when it comes to reducing greenhouse emissions. Unfortunately, there is bipartisan resistance in this matter and the local automobile industry doesn't think efficient and "cleaner" cars are what Americans want. Repost, but it fits more about the subject, and the politics of Kyoto. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1895038,00.html Why Kyoto will vanish into hot air By Bronwen Maddox THE United Nations conference that began yesterday in Montreal and will stretch on for nearly two weeks will fail in its aim: to devise a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. That does not matter; in fact, it is the best outcome. Kyoto has been an extraordinary piece of work. A treaty that its most important signatories have found impossible to meet, and which has changed behaviour very little, has still become a resonant global symbol. The best way forward now is not a "successor" to Kyoto, which covers the years until 2012. Another treaty that attempted to set fixed targets for cutting emisssions could be economically very damaging — in the unlikely event that countries ever reached agreement. The better answer is in the plethora of bargains between a handful of rich and poor countries, which some are already exploring. It is also in the development of new technology to combat global warming, and in deals to spread these quickly to poorer countries. Some of these new suggestions for life after Kyoto have come from the US, China and India, which all found Kyoto unpalatable. For just that reason, they are more valuable than son-of-Kyoto would be. It is no surprise that European Union countries became so enamoured of the Kyoto Protocol, which finally came into force in February this year. They have found its targets fortuitously easy to meet. For them, the treaty coincided with a revolution in energy supply. Kyoto set the EU a target of cutting "greenhouse gases" by 8 per cent from 1990 levels by the period 2008 to 2012. Members divided up the reductions between themselves; some could see that they would find big cuts easier than others. They are slightly off course, but not by so much that they think they have surrendered the moral high ground. The figures tell the political story. In 2003 Britain’s emission of greenhouse gases was 13 per cent down on 1990 levels, slightly ahead of its EU-appointed target of 12.5 per cent. Of course, emissions are likely to rise between now and 2008. Britain is also missing the Government’s own target of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010. All the same, these drops have been made possible by the shift from coal-fired power stations to gas in the early 1990s. Germany, similarly, is almost in line with its Kyoto targets, with an 18 per cent drop in 2003, on its target of 21 per cent. France is down by nearly 2 per cent, ahead of its target of no change. True, many smaller EU countries are not doing so well. But many of the new eastern members show sharp drops well ahead of target, because of the closure of old industries. Those "achievements" of the EU have made Kyoto an irresistible tool with which to berate others, notably the US. But extending Kyoto would be difficult for the EU too. The EU would be well advised to look more sympathetically on the new proposals coming out of the US, Britain and the conference hosts, Canada. These include "intensity targets" — cuts in emissions per dollar of economic output. They are more attractive than Kyoto to poor countries as well as to the US. So are proposals for rich countries to invest in technology to filter out emissions and to share it with developing countries. Other suggestions include sector targets, which would set emissions standards for some of the biggest industries, such as steel and cars. Under most of these systems of new, flexible targets, it might still be possible to set up markets in pollution, in which countries or industries could trade the right to release emissions. Any agreement to curb greenhouse gases is worth little if the US, China and India do not sign up. Kyoto failed in that basic requirement. For all the rhetorical mileage which some European countries have found in Kyoto, at the US’s expense, their own "success" — such as it is — is due to a quirk of history rather than to selfdiscipline or the powers of their leaders. That gloating is no basis on which to move forward.
