22 November 2004
Unfriendly climate
And CNN has a report stating that Climate report leaves U.S. policy unchanged, referring to the report I originally spoke about here.
The AP writer for the CNN article points out some wacky inconsistencies in Bush's policy:
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality said President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost.
Mike Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency said Kyoto was a bad treaty for the United States.
Nothing like the administration's representatives of the evironment defending said environment. Will Kyoto kill that many jobs? Any jobs? Is Kyoto a bad treaty? Bad in what ways?
Russia, by contrast, can increase its pollution substantially under the treaty with a positive rather than detrimental impact on its job market, the officials say.
From 1990 to 2002, U.S. greenhouse gases increased 13.1 percent while Russian greenhouse gases decreased 38.5 percent, partly because of shrinkage in its industrial base after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the latest U.N. figures.
What was Russia's output after 2002? What part of that decrease is from lost industry and what is from Kyoto requirements?
Critics say Bush's opposition is ironic because the treaty was modeled after the market-based U.S. program for cutting acid rain created in 1990 by Bush's father and often pointed to by the current administration as a success story.
"Indeed, it would be very, very surprising if this instrument were not used by the people who invented it," Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the Kenya-based U.N. Environment Program, said in an interview.
Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for New York-based Environmental Defense, ... said the White House estimates of Kyoto's costs do not appear to include the cost savings from trading pollution rights.
- Posthuman dystopia posted by sstrader on 22 March 2015 at 10:21:25 AM
- Today's reading list posted by sstrader on 19 January 2014 at 12:10:54 PM
- Closing posted by sstrader on 18 January 2014 at 9:51:27 AM
- Info wars 2010 posted by sstrader on 13 February 2010 at 11:50:50 AM
- Limiting noise posted by sstrader on 15 December 2009 at 9:58:00 AM