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More expensive not to join kyoto?
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| St_Andrew |
So in like 4 hours, the kyoto protocoll will come into effect for all the industrialized countries except the US and Australia.
Anyway, I was reading a few articles and came across this:
| quote: | Push from businesses
The issue barely registered in last autumn's presidential elections, and an annual Gallup Poll carried out just under a year ago reported that global warming was "a bit of a yawn" to most Americans. The poll did, however, find that 51% of people did find it worth worrying about.
Professor Stephen Schneider of Stanford University predicts it will actually be the business community that will push this administration or, more likely, the next one into international action.
A number of multinationals, particularly those with operations that will come under the Kyoto protocol are in favour of action, he says.
"Reinsurance industries are strongly in favour of policy action, as are an increasing number of energy companies like BP, Shell, Chevron and the hi-tech sector."
He sees businesses pushing for change because of commercial opportunities in the growing market for clean and efficient technologies. And he says there are advantages to joining an emissions trading system earlier rather than later.
"If the US engages on an international level in say five or 10 years, under an ideologically different administration, much of the 'low hanging fruit' - the lowest cost opportunities to cut carbon dioxide abroad via trading mechanisms - will have already been bought up by Japanese and European firms."
It could actually prove more expensive, he argues, for the US to "sit on the sidelines... while its political machinery plays catch-up to the rest of the world".
Some companies are already setting voluntary limits.
A number, including DuPont, American Electric Power, Ford and Motorola have formed the Chicago Climate Exchange, which allows member companies to buy and sell emission "credits" to help them meet self-imposed cuts.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says he will press the administration to re-engage with other countries on climate change, during the UK's G8 presidency.
But some commentators say that Mr Blair would be better off looking to the next generation of US political leaders.
Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists foresees public pressure for action on climate change steadily building on the White House - but he does not envisage an early change of heart by the Bush administration.
"Mandatory cuts are inevitable," says the Brookings Institution's Nigel Purvis. "The trend is good - but the pace will be slow." |
Part of : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4254877.stm |
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| Sunsnail |
| Im too stupid to really respond in the PDD, but I have to say I never thought of it being more expensive in the long run. |
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| ShadoWolf |
China is industrialized, yet it's not subject to Kyoto.
Kyoto is merely a scheme by France and others to reduce the power of the U.S. economy.
It's a bit like the Lillipudians tying Gulliver down.
Kyoto actually has very little to do with the environment.
That's why even the most liberal and radical environmentalist Democratic senators did not vote for it. An American voting for Kyoto is tantamount to treason. |
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| LiquidX |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
China is industrialized, yet it's not subject to Kyoto.
Kyoto is merely a scheme by France and others to reduce the power of the U.S. economy.
It's a bit like the Lillipudians tying Gulliver down.
Kyoto actually has very little to do with the environment.
That's why even the most liberal and radical environmentalist Democratic senators did not vote for it. An American voting for Kyoto is tantamount to treason. |
Really?!?!.. I think you really went off base by saying the most liberal and radical environmentalist did not vote for it.. when Bill Clinton was the first to actually get into it.. with Bush then getting out.
I think that you got the picture wrong. The US is the biggest pollutant in the world, not China, not India.. or whoever.. so US should be leading in trying to cut back no matter what. |
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| ShadoWolf |
| quote: | Originally posted by LiquidX
Really?!?!.. I think you really went off base by saying the most liberal and radical environmentalist did not vote for it.. when Bill Clinton was the first to actually get into it.. with Bush then getting out.
I think that you got the picture wrong. The US is the biggest pollutant in the world, not China, not India.. or whoever.. so US should be leading in trying to cut back no matter what. |
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinio...20-oppose_x.htm
Kyoto is unfair to U.S.
By S. Fred Singer
In July 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution opposing any international treaty that would damage the economy by restricting energy usage, raising the cost of fuels for transportation, heating and electricity.
This unanimous vote included Sen. John Kerry, and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who are currently advocating just such restrictions. But the resolution was right. A treaty obligating developed nations but not China, India, Brazil and Mexico would produce huge U.S. job losses as industries moved overseas.
However, because of the initiative of then-vice president Al Gore, the U.S. signed just such a treaty, the protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. But President Clinton never submitted it for Senate ratification. And President Bush has consistently declared Kyoto "fatally flawed."
Neither Bush nor the Senate has pointed out, however, that Kyoto is not only costly and unfair to the U.S., but it is also ineffective in averting a feared global warming. Scientists all agree that at best it would reduce the calculated temperature rise in 2050 by an insignificant one-tenth of a degree.
Russia has been more outspoken. The Russian Academy of Sciences, in a May 2004 report, questioned the reality of substantial future warming, concluding that Kyoto lacks any scientific base. President Vladimir Putin declared Kyoto "scientifically flawed" and intimated that Russia would not ratify it.
Yet, ironically, Russia's parliament will likely ratify it before the year's end, making Kyoto binding on all ratifiers. Why? The reason may be short-term economic gain, as the protocol permits selling Russia's unused emission rights to Europeans anxious to ease the economic penalties of Kyoto's restrictions.
Russia's economic collapse after 1990 nearly halved its emissions — and the base year chosen for Kyoto is 1990. This arbitrary choice also favors Germany, which took over a faltering East German economy, and Great Britain, which switched its electric generation from coal to natural gas at about that time. We would lose out, and maybe that's why our economic competitors are so anxious to get us to ratify Kyoto.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and the author of Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate (Independent Institute, Oakland, 1999). |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
Neither Bush nor the Senate has pointed out, however, that Kyoto is not only costly and unfair to the U.S., but it is also ineffective in averting a feared global warming. Scientists all agree that at best it would reduce the calculated temperature rise in 2050 by an insignificant one-tenth of a degree. |
i dont know about the 0.1 degree, but what i do know is that it doesnt make sense to first say that it isnt enough and that the US must do to much, to then say that it is to litle! That is just to contraddicting! And exactly how is US treated unfair compared to all other developed nations? :conf:
Many scientists say that we must cut co2 emissions with like 60 percent instead of the 5% that the kyoto is about. What people dont seem to realize tho is that Kyoto is not the final solution, its a beginning of a solution, something that is made to start changeing, with realistic goals. |
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| ShadoWolf |
50,000 years ago the Earth was in the midst of an ice age.
The globe warmed out of that ice age on its own, without human interference. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
50,000 years ago the Earth was in the midst of an ice age.
The globe warmed out of that ice age on its own, without human interference. |
problem is that it is changing way to fast right now... |
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| Yoepus |
heh:
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
50,000 years ago the Earth was in the midst of an ice age.
The globe warmed out of that ice age on its own, without human interference. |
Bad logics there: Even if Earth managed to warm by itself, that doesn't mean that it cannot be (and isn't) warmed by humans. Furthermore, when Earth heated out of an ice age, there would most definately have been some changes in the landscape. Back then no civilized humans was present to moan about flooded fields, burning forrests, and destroyed buildings. This time there will. |
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