Kyoto, the next step

As usual, the US position is totally illogical. The US has resisted joining the UNFCCC process because it claims that third world countries were exempt from obligations in the original framework, yet the US does not want to discuss extending the first framework to include those same third world countries.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Last Updated: 11:04 pm, Sunday, November 28th, 2004

Next global warming round nears By Associated Press . The ice is melting and the heat is on for international delegates assembling in Buenos Aires next week to find new ways to confront global warming under the 194-nation treaty on climate change. . The treaty's Kyoto Protocol, requiring initial cuts in 'greenhouse gas' emissions by 2012, finally comes into force in February, seven years after it was negotiated. Next, European governments want the annual treaty conference — Dec. 6-17 in the Argentine capital — to get down to talks on steps beyond 2012 to limit heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. . 'We are, in fact, only at the beginning of what we need to do,' Margot Wallstrom, the European Union's outgoing environment chief, recently told European Parliament members. . But the United States, which rejects Kyoto and its mandatory controls, balks at that idea. 'We think it's premature to be discussing post-Kyoto 2012 arrangements,' said Paula J. Dobriansky, the undersecretary of state who will lead the U.S. delegation.

The rest of this article is here:

This is what I keep saying. The us has shot itself int he foot. Both because of its refusal to sign kyoto, but also because the extreme consequences of global warning. The people in orlando, florida evidently didn't get the message, sicn ethey basically voted for bush, even though he's one of many responsible for the town being visited by three major hurricanes.

Amos

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ < Rising from the ashes: Phoenix Green Earth > < http://www.midnight-fire.net/phoenix > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ ¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤ 'To celebrate wilderness was to celebrate the wolf; to want an end to wilderness and all it stood for was to want the wolf's head'. Barry Lopez - Of Wolves and Men

What a load of rubbish! Kyoto is only calling for a 10% cut which could easily have been achieved by fuel economies. This would have reduced your costs and help beat off foreign competion.

Now you will be faced by much larger cuts than other developed countries in the next round which was always planned to follow Kyoto. Kyoto has now been agreed, so the negotiations for the next round will start soon. Since the US did not sign Kyoto I don't know if they will be invited to the next set of discussions.

China has signed up to Kyoto, and has reduced it CO2 output by being more efficient. No doubt they will have a big say in the next round. I doubt they will have much sympathy for the US.

Cheers, Alastair.

True! Bush's gain is obviously a computer error

Cheers, Alastair.

It will bother you in twenty years when the stronger storms, the rising sea and desertification have become absolutely impossible to ignore.

Amos

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ < Rising from the ashes: Phoenix Green Earth > < http://www.midnight-fire.net/phoenix > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ ¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤Â¤ 'To celebrate wilderness was to celebrate the wolf; to want an end to wilderness and all it stood for was to want the wolf's head'. Barry Lopez - Of Wolves and Men

There's enough wind energy in Kansas or Nebraska to run the entire US economy, and it's cheaper than nuclear fission right now, and getting cheaper every year, while fission gets costlier. California gets about 2% of its electricity from wind right now, and we've built turbines on less than 0.1% of the viable sites. The current generation of long blade turbines turn so slowly that they don't even kill birds.

That's not to say the grid should be 100% wind powered. Solar thermal concentrators are even *more* cost effective than wind, and there are plenty of viable sites in the southwest. The best source on that subject was the US Dept of Energy's Web site, but that section was taken down during the final years of the Clinton Administration.

Conversion to wind, solar, and biomass would be a full employment program for the US, and bring about unprecedented prosperity, which is why our rulers won't even consider it. With abundant high wage construction jobs, there wouldn't be enough burger flippers and Walmart checkout clerks, much less enough destitute teenagers desperate enough to give up all their civil rights by joining the army. And of course the incumbent fossil (including nuclear fission) fuel producers would rather see the US economy decimated than lose their incumbency.

Don't they have a pill for this chicken-little disease, yet?

Grow up, dude. They were saying the same thing thirty years ago, twenty years ago, etcetera. Doomsayers throughout the ages have died, and turned to dust in the wind.

Of course, if you just *have* to worry about something, do a search on 'Yellowstone Park Volcano' That should keep you awake at night for awhile. All the Kyoto treaties in the world won't protect us from nature itself.

Oh yeah- and then there are nuclear weapons. Why are you idiots obsessing about flimsy hypothesi like 'global warming', when there are so many things we know will kill us dead, that probably WILL kill us all dead, and we won't even have to wait twenty years to see?

Wrong. The U.S. is a signatory and ratified partner in the UNFCCC process. Long time now.

That is about the Kyoto Accord which is merely a negotiated schedule for reductions and specificaiton of international cooperation. Failing to plan is one way that fools get out of commitments. 'aginst fools, the gods themselves contend in vain' And so we see the U.S. as being led by a fool. 'was that today? I was busy filing my nails.. '

Lie.

Lie. US commitments could be met merely by upgrading the various coal fired power plants ( 27% of total energy use ) from 30% effiicient 50 year old plants long past their 'expiry date' to modern 44% efficient planst for a saving of about 18% of emissions. With no real 'cost' since the plants have to be replaced anyway and the 40% savings in fuel costs will be a bonus!

Another simple lie. The Kyoto accord did not even exist when the procedural vote agreed to suspend talking about it until there was something concrete to talk about. The Kyoto Accord has NEVER been presented to the Senate for ratification because Shrub knows too well that it could be passed.

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The gov't in Ottawa stubbornly refuses to allow it's subjects to enjoy the benefits of lower greenhouse gas inventories. . Canada should pass Kyoto enacting laws. .

Get a clue.