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darendt on 10 June 2007
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elprincipe said:
Godsmurf said:
elprincipe said:
 

1. Kyoto is a horrible treaty that, even if implemented, would have little effect at best on global temperatures.

2. This is because most of the increase in pollution in future years is coming from developing countries, especially China and India...the very countries that are exempted from pollution controls under Kyoto!

3. Europeans are especially hypocritical on this issue because they bemoan the U.S. for stating the obvious (Kyoto would do little to nothing on global warming and have a huge economic cost) while quietly failing to meet their own emissions levels promised under Kyoto.

This is probably better discussed in the other topic, however.

Your arguments care little about logic or facts.

1. Kyoto, if implemented, does reduce CO2. If the reduction is not enough, which indeed it isn't, then we need more reduction.

2. The CO2 emmission per capita was 3.2 metric tons for China and 1.19 for India in 2003 (most recent figures). It was 19.8 for the USA. It was not unreasonable to exempt developing countries that now pollute 5 to 15 times LESS than the USA, but these countries will be included in the next treaty.

3. Europeans bemoan the US for being the world's biggest polluter and contributor to global warming yet refusing to participate in the effort to avert a global disaster. This is pure freeloading behaviour, and discourages the whole world from making a big effort. The USA 's CO2 emmission per capita is more than DOUBLE the EU average. In the ranking of economies by CO2 efficiency (GDP / emmission) the top 8 countries are all European while the USA ranks 39th with a ratio of 2.1 compared to a EU average of 3.8 .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_GDP_to_carbon_dioxide_emissions


Firstly, do not cite Wikipedia as supportive of facts.  It often fails in that regard.

1. If implemented, Kyoto would reduce CO2 levels by a whopping 5.2%:

"Even if the Protocol were implemented by all parties to the Kyoto conference, it would result in a just a 5.2% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels, reducing anthropogenic emissions from around 7.2 billions tons per year to about 6.8 billion tons per year. From an environmental standpoint, this agreement falls woefully short of measures needed to head off the warming of the earth."

http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/kyoto.htm

Of course, this is because China and India and other developing countires are unaffected.  Kyoto is flawed because of that.  If we want an agreement, we should go back to the drawing board and include all countries, since pollution in China is still pollution.

2. This doesn't matter in the least since the U.S. will not be increasing its pollution output significantly in the near future, but China and India will.

3. Europeans committed to Kyoto pollution-reduction levels and haven't met them, simple as that.  The U.S., more honestly, didn't agree to a reduction and then just ignore the promise when the going got tough.

The bottom line is that Kyoto is a deeply flawed agreement that will never be agreed to by the U.S.  Since the U.S. is essential to include in any agreement on this subject to have a real effect, going back to the drawing board and scrapping Kyoto is the logical option. 


It may fall short but at least its a start. Thats like saying " Ive been smoking for 10 years, why stop now...the damage is done." It still helps regardless. Waiting for everyone to adopt the same thing is not how to make change. We need to lead by example and convince the other countries over time that change is good.