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Bush Win Could Cripple Global Warming Treaty
Paris (AFP) Nov. 8, 2000 European greens feared Wednesday that a win by George W. Bush in the US presidential elections would wreck a marathon effort to build a treaty to stave off global warming. UN talks resume next week in the aim of constructing the machinery of the Kyoto Protocol, the most ambitious and arduously-fought environmental agreement ever conceived. But Bush, an oilman like his running mate Dick Cheney, has already declared his opposition to the protocol -- a position unlikely to be challenged by a re-elected Republican-majority Senate, in charge of ratifying any deal. In that case, Kyoto would be deprived of the world's biggest carbon-gas polluter, a scenario that could hole the eight-year-old process below the waterline. "It was always going to be difficult, and it has just got a whole lot more difficult if it is confirmed that Bush is elected," Greenpeace campaigner Bill Hare told AFP. "Bush has a position against the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, that's clear. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are even more virulent than that. They don't even believe in the science of the issue." Despite Senate opposition, the Clinton-Gore administration has been an enthusiastic backer of Kyoto, a skeletal agreement sealed in 1997 that set down targets but left it to subsequent negotiations to flesh out. If ratified, the treaty would commit developed countries to reducing outputs of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other "greenhouse" gases by an average of 5.2 percent by 2012. A growing mound of scientific research says that the gases, mainly a byproduct of burning oil, gas and coal, will be calamitous for the world's climate if allow to build up unchecked. They act as an invisible shroud that hangs in the lower levels of the atmosphere, preventing heat from the Sun from radiating back safely into space and gradually forcing up the atmospheric temperature. Hare insisted Kyoto could be saved even if the United States baled out. The protocol can take effect if it is ratified by 55 countries accounting for at least 55 percent of emissions by developed nations at 1990 levels. The EU, which accounts for 24.2 percent, Japan (8.5 percent) and Russia (17.4 percent) would be sufficient "to create critical mass," Hare said. The key would be to make the treaty's core mechanism -- a market to trade in carbon emissions -- so effective and lucrative that US companies would lobby Washington for the United States to sign up too. But others cast doubt on whether a treaty could work without the United States, which by itself accounted for 36 percent of developed-nation pollution in 1990. "It would unravel a hell of a lot of things," commented climate-change expert Sam Fankenhauser, a principal economist at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. "In the short term, it would work, but in the long term, any protocol that doesn't have the US in it is incomplete... the biggest polluter wouldn't have any obligations." Even before the elections cast their shadow, Kyoto was deeply mired in squabbles between the United States and the EU. Despite the current US administration's avowed support for the process, the US repeatedly insisted on "flexibility" instruments to soften the economic cost of meeting emission targets. Under Kyoto, the United States would have to cut emissions by seven percent by 2012. But this target had already widened in 1998 to 11 percent because of economic growth. US Republicans have repeatedly questioned the scientific evidence to support global warming and say any emissions reduction should be a voluntary undertaking by industry. If the Kyoto process does unravel because of a Bush win, the cruel irony will be that indirect blame lies with environmentalists themselves. In the deciding state of Florida, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader lured tens of thousands of votes from Al Gore that would have placed the vice president's win beyond any doubt. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Dirt, rocks and all the stuff we stand on firmly
Magnetic Reconnection Region Larger Than 2.5 Million Km Found In The Solar Wind
Paris (ESA) Jan 12, 2006Using the ESA Cluster spacecraft and the NASA Wind and ACE satellites, a team of American and European scientists have discovered the largest jets of particles created between the Earth and the Sun by magnetic reconnection. This result makes the cover of this week's issue of Nature. |
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