US Rejects Talks On Kyoto

This just hit the headlines in UK today and it might explain some things.

Guardian: Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush

June 8, 2005

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian.

The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy.

In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.

"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White House is being written by the world's most powerful oil company. This administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night.

Click the link to read the full article...

China and India are currently the world's number 2 and 3 largest producers of CO2. If present trends continue by the year 2015 they will be numbers 1 and 2, surpassing the U.S., yet they both have a total free ride under the Kyoto treaty. Canada, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece, among others, are all signatories to the treaty, yet have failed to accomplish the intermediate goals they agreed to and have taken no action meet the targets. Little noted in the rest of the media, but earlier this year (Feb?) the WSJ reported the EU voted to not impose any sanctions on member countries that failed to reach their targets.

Even the most ardent Kyoto supporters concede the treaty would not stop global warming. At best, it would imperceptibly slow the rate of change, and whether it would even slow the warming is in dispute. So, if the treaty does little or nothing, and would cost billions to trillions to implement, why sign on? The U.S. Senate was right in rejecting the treaty. For all practical purposes the Kyoto treaty is dead. R.I.P. It was a bad treaty, and the U.S. delegation, led by Al Gore, was snookered (didn't Al admit that in a 2002 interview?).

Russia is allowed to INCREASE their CO2 emissions under the terms of the treaty. They would be fools to reject it.