Europe Gets Free Pass on Global Warming, Kyoto - Deck Tilts at W. Hemi

[jbg]

The selection of 1990 as the Kyoto "base year" from which to measure GHG reductions was hardly arbitrary. It is a baseline year that is grievously unfair to the US, Canada and Australia, since that was a recession year for us. By contrast, Europe was at a peak, and immediately after end of 1990 Germany was re-unified, closing many factories in the former East Germany. Similarly, without subsidies, many factories in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic closed, placing Europe immediately well under the 1990 baseline. Also, some countries have base years other than 1990. Countries with base-years other than 1990 are Hungary (average 1985-1987), Poland (1988) and Slovenia (1986) (link). I cannot believe that those variations give these countries more ambitious targets. If a year such as 2000 were picked as the US's base, it would be a fairer treaty. There's also not a chance in h*ll that European countries would have ratified such a treaty. Any government actually proposing to lower living standards to try to change the weather would be laughed out of office.

Seeking to add insult to injury, apparently (or to ensure that at least some countries would vote to ratify the treaty), the Kyoto sponsors are so serious about the environment </ sarcasm> that they granted Iceland a free pass to emit more GHG's. Clearly, Kyoto's a tilted deck that has nothing to do with science, climate or environmental betterment, and made an exception for Iceland (link), specifically, some aluminum smelters it wanted badly to develop. Excerpts below:

February 4, 2007

Smokestacks in a White Wilderness Divide Iceland

By SARAH LYALL

NORTH OF VATNAJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland —

*snip*

This is the $3 billion Karahnjukar Hydropower Project, a sprawling enterprise to harness the rivers for electricity that will be used for a single purpose: to fuel a new aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminum company. It has been the focus of the angriest and most divisive battle in recent Icelandic history.

The culmination of years of effort by the center-right government to increase international investment in Iceland, the project has already begun to revitalize Iceland’s underpopulated east. But it has also mobilized an angry and growing coalition of people who feel that the authorities have sacrificed Iceland’s most precious asset — the pristine land itself — to heavy industry from abroad.

Now, with proposals on the table for three more power-plant-and-aluminum-smelter projects, environmentalists say the chance to protect Iceland’s spectacular, and spectacularly fragile, natural beauty is running out.

*snip*

Icelanders tend to view their unpredictable environment — carved from volcanoes and ice and full of stunning waterfalls, geysers, fjords and glaciers — with respect and awe. The air is so pure that the Kyoto Protocol gave Iceland the right to increase its greenhouse emissions by 10 percent from 1990 levels.

*snip*

They are also allowed to pollute: another Kyoto exception gave power-intensive industries that use renewable energy in Iceland the right to emit an extra 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year until 2012.

[Canuck E Stan]

They are also allowed to pollute: another Kyoto exception gave power-intensive industries that use renewable energy in Iceland the right to emit an extra 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year until 2012.

jbg,

Seems to all quiet on the western environmental front from the Kyoto hot doggers.

[B. Max]

There's also not a chance in h*ll that European countries would have ratified such a treaty. Any government actually proposing to lower living standards to try to change the weather would be laughed out of office.

http://inhofe.senate.gov/floorspeeches.htm

As it turns out, Kyoto's objective has nothing to do with saving the globe. In fact it is purely political. A case in point: French President Jacques Chirac said during a speech at The Hague in November of 2000 that Kyoto represents "the first component of an authentic global governance." So, I wonder: are the French going to be dictating U.S. policy?

Margot Wallstrom, the EU's Environment Commissioner, takes a slightly different view, but one that's instructive about the real motives of Kyoto proponents. She asserted that Kyoto is about "the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide."

Addition :

The treaty would have required the U.S. to reduce its emissions 31% below the level otherwise predicted for 2010. Put another way, the U.S. would have had to cut 552 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2008-2012. As the Business Roundtable pointed out, that target is "the equivalent of having to eliminate all current emissions from either the U.S. transportation sector, or the utilities sector (residential and commercial sources), or industry."

[Canuck E Stan]

There's also not a chance in h*ll that European countries would have ratified such a treaty. Any government actually proposing to lower living standards to try to change the weather would be laughed out of office.

http://inhofe.senate.gov/floorspeeches.htm

As it turns out, Kyoto's objective has nothing to do with saving the globe. In fact it is purely political. A case in point: French President Jacques Chirac said during a speech at The Hague in November of 2000 that Kyoto represents "the first component of an authentic global governance." So, I wonder: are the French going to be dictating U.S. policy?

Margot Wallstrom, the EU's Environment Commissioner, takes a slightly different view, but one that's instructive about the real motives of Kyoto proponents. She asserted that Kyoto is about "the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide."

How can those who are so concerned with the environment,not see that Kyoto does so little for the actual solution to remedy problems in the environment?

[August1991]

Do we really need another thread about Kyoto? (I know, I know. I'm guilty too of thread proliferation.)

There are two issues here: global warming as such and Kyoto as a solution.

Although I started a thread questioning whether global warming poses a threat, I'm inclined to believe that on the balance of probabilities it does and we have to find a collective solution in the near future.

Is Kyoto the solution? In principle, yes. The basic idea of Kyoto is good but this particular Kyoto agreement is deeply flawed. As you note above jbg, it is "unfair" to the US in particular and would represent a massive transfer of wealth from the US to other countries.

Limiting worldwide GHG emissions must be kept separate from solving world poverty. Kyoto must be renegotiated.

[Canuck E Stan]

Limiting worldwide GHG emissions must be kept separate from solving world poverty. Kyoto must be renegotiated.

Excellent point, I think more countries would be on side if it was strickly about GHG emissions and nothing else.

Kyoto should die and in it's place a true environmental treaty excluding all of the non environmental aspects of Kyoto like credits,ect.,are removed.

Make it about the environment and solutions that solve only the environment problems.

More people will accept then the environment issue.

[jbg]

Do we really need another thread about Kyoto? (I know, I know. I'm guilty too of thread proliferation.)

:lol: (click on smileys)

[jbg]

Deleted. Meant for PM

[jbg]

Kyoto should die and in it's place a true environmental treaty excluding all of the non environmental aspects of Kyoto like credits,ect.,are removed.

Make it about the environment and solutions that solve only the environment problems.

More people will accept then the environment issue.

And that would have zero chance of ratification or being observed, since the extent to which it would impoverish leading industrialists, and the overall cost, is too great