NPR and The Kyoto Protocols

the net effect of Kyoto in Brazil is more pollution not less

How do you reach this conclusion? The net effect is Brazil emits less pollution every year even including pollution from cutting down the forests. That's a fact, measured according to stringent guidelines defined by Kyoto.

What people are upset about is that forests are reduced and their ability to produce Oxygen is reduced. Brazil however has more than enough forests to remove all the CO2 it produces many times over, so why should it nto be allowed to reduce them, especially if it also reduces CO2 emissions at the same time?

It's countries like the US who demand that Brazil maintain it's forests to remove their pollution that are the hypocrites. Expecially when they simultaneously increase the volume of CO2 they release.

Paul.

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I don't understand why one oversight by one country throws the credibility of Kyoto completely out the window? If America makes a mistake can we throw it out the window as some failed project? "I made a bigger mess while trying to clean-up. I guess cleaning-up is a bad idea" - is this the mentality I'm dealing with?

The underlining premise of Kyoto - to clean the mess we have made in the past century and to try and prevent global castastrophy - I think is quite noble. And if the protocols seem a little harsh and you realize you won't make as much money are can't drive around in your SUV's as much, well - TOUGH SHIT. Buck-up sonny! Everyone here needs a new value system if they believe that the American economy is more important than the whole goddam entire planet. I'd rather my children and children's children grow up healthy than wealthy - which one do you think leads to more happiness - wait... hold your tongue corporate America.

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Pardon? Where did you get this false idea from? Kyoto sets reductions required by all industrialised nations. The US reduction is less than that of the EU and lower than many other countries. The US is still allowed pollute far more than any other country under the Kyoto agreement. So the US definitely is not required to clean up more than other countries.

Try reading it first, before jumping to the wrong conclusion. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html

Pay attention to Articles 10, 11 and 12.

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Rainforest are a good thing and I'm saddened that they are being cut down.

What is wrong though is for industrialised nations like the US to expect Brazilian rainforests to remove their CO2 emissions, rather than planting their own forest or cutting down their own emissions. It's so two faced. "How dare you cut down down your rainforests, we need them so we can pollute more!"

I definitely agree with you that the US is hypocritical to act as the environment-friendly nation when it clearly isn't, but with such wanton destruction of rain forests and wildlife influenced by the standards set by the Kyoto Protocol, the Kyoto Protocol can't really be considered environment-friendly either. Unless CO2 is such an immediate and dangerous threat that any sacrifice is just, I don't see how the actions Brazil are taking in concordance with the Kyoto Protocol are going to help the world.

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I don't understand why one oversight by one country throws the credibility of Kyoto completely out the window? If America makes a mistake can we throw it out the window as some failed project? "I made a bigger mess while trying to clean-up. I guess cleaning-up is a bad idea" - is this the mentality I'm dealing with?

It is bad law. And it begets behaviour contrary to its intent. That is why it is bad. The ecology is not one thing, it is all things, and yet Kyoto only addressed one thing to the detriment of all others. It was a 'feel good' thing that in the end was as impotent as a gelding.

that is why it is bad. A bad law is worse than no law, for it gives a false sense of security, where no law does not give any indication.

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Dr Guy,
I am very familiar with the Kyoto agreement. Try read appendix B of your link. You'll note that the USA was suppossed to reduce emissions to 93% while all EU countries were 92%. That means the EU has to reduce emissions by 12.5% MORE than the US. This is exactly what I have said and contradicts your assertion that the US must clean up more than any other country. The fact is that the US was required to make fewer reductions under Kyoto than other Western industrialised nations, but still refused to join.

Paul.

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Helix,
the US is the largest polluter on the planet. It releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country. More than 1/4 of all CO2 emissions from the planet come from the USA. Twice as much as from China. Eight times as much as from India. Only the USSR comes close and the US still emites 25% more. But the USSR has signed Kyoto and is reducing it's CO2 levels.

Link

Paul.

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As for the Brazilian rainforests, I think we can all agree that destruction of these is not good. But individual countries need to start looking at their own emissions and not just blaming the Brazilians. Other countries need to start planting forests of their own and covering their land with as much forest as Brazil. It's very unfair to tell Brazil to stop cutting down trees while we use the maximum amount of our land to make money.

Paul.

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I'm sure Kyoto didn't specifically tell Brazil to cut down their rain forest. So why is Kyoto bad again - because it's not fair? Because you have to clean up slightly more than your negihbour? What a bunch of whiners. Its the future of the fuckin planet - stop nit picking over it and do something. I'm sure that's what Jesus would want (he'd also want you to stop bombing other countries too, I bet).

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Dr Guy,
I am very familiar with the Kyoto agreement. Try read appendix B of your link. You'll note that the USA was suppossed to reduce emissions to 93% while all EU countries were 92%. That means the EU has to reduce emissions by 12.5% MORE than the US. This is exactly what I have said and contradicts your assertion that the US must clean up more than any other country. The fact is that the US was required to make fewer reductions under Kyoto than other Western industrialised nations, but still refused to join.

Paul,that is sophistry. Article 3 clearly states they must reduce to 5% below 1990 levels just like the US. So Annex B only indicates that the EU has been more lax in controlling polution(and if you have ever been there, you would easily see why). The cost of the reduction is born equally among Europe and the US, however, the final nail in the coffin is when we go to subsidize the 3rd world efforts to clean up. As is clearly demonstrable, the US pays the lions share of the UN bills, and these bills would also be placed most heavily on the US.

We need look no further to the current world where we get slammed for contributing 15b for aids research, and the EU skates. Yet we are the ones being said to be niggardly?

But you did not really address the issue of the accord being bad law. Sure, Brazil has a right to do with its land as it sees fit. So do we, except if we sign that bad piece of legislation. For then our right to determine the optimal use is taken away from Americans and given to some clowns that put Sudan on the Human Rights Commission.

Finally, while everyone talks about tropical rain forrests, the US and Canada are home to the largest exta-tropical rain forest in the world. And it scrubs as much as the amazon (just not as much as all of SA). So we could do the same thing that Brazil did, and it would be just as wrong. So unless and until they come up with some good laws, bad law is worse than no law at all. And Kyoto is bad law.

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the US is the largest polluter on the planet. It releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country. More than 1/4 of all CO2 emissions from the planet come from the USA. Twice as much as from China. Eight times as much as from India. Only the USSR comes close and the US still emites 25% more. But the USSR has signed Kyoto and is reducing it's CO2 levels.

For the record, CO2, while called a pollutant, is not. For if it were, and we eleiminate it, plants will die. They need it to survive.

And finally, your statement about the biggest polluter is incorrect in many ways. As a single nation, yes. But in comparison to the EU, or even on a per capita basis, we are not.

One last item. While CHina does not pollute as much as the US, it is coming from a 3rd world economy to one of the 1st world, and as such is generating more and more pollution each year, both on a total and per capita basis. One day soon, it will pass us just from the shere size of its population. Yet Kyoto places no restrictions on them. Bad Law.

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For if it were, and we eleiminate it, plants will die. They need it to survive.

In a scientific sense that's not entirely true. Experiments have shown that plants will consume oxygen and produce CO2 instead when there is no CO2 to absorb. Sure it slowly kills them, but at the same time it creates the necessary resources to be reborn. One of those create and destroy things that are so common in nature.

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Yet Kyoto places no restrictions on them. Bad Law.

What a good reason to not sign a treaty in an attempt to improve the pollution situation. And such a childish one at that. If you expect reciprocity in everything then one wonders why the US even bothers pretending to be noble. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing, even if noone else does it purely because it is the right thing to do. Or don't they teach that in US schools?

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What a good reason to not sign a treaty in an attempt to improve the pollution situation. And such a childish one at that. If you expect reciprocity in everything then one wonders why the US even bothers pretending to be noble. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing, even if noone else does it purely because it is the right thing to do. Or don't they teach that in US schools?

In US schools, they teach us that bailing water with a sieve is fool hardy. If we cut our emisionns, and the rest of the world increases theirs, tehn nothing is accomplished. THAT is what we are taught.

You want to cut emmissions? Get a good law. Bad law is worse than no law for it not only does not accomplish its goals, it gives people an unwarranted feel good attitude, about doing nothing.

Is that what they teach you in your schools? That bad law is better than no law?

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I'm sure Kyoto didn't specifically tell Brazil to cut down their rain forest. So why is Kyoto bad again - because it's not fair? Because you have to clean up slightly more than your negihbour? What a bunch of whiners. Its the future of the fuckin planet - stop nit picking over it and do something. I'm sure that's what Jesus would want (he'd also want you to stop bombing other countries too, I bet).

It does not matter what Kyoto said, it was what was left unsaid in that regard. Bad law is worse than no law, for it accomplishes nothing, and just stops people from pursuing the right thing.

And it is not the future of the planet. Earth survived billions of years without man. It will survive many more billions without them, and thrive. Dont confuse the 2.

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Dr Guy,
5% is the minimum but 7% (US) and 8% (EU) are the targets. the point is that your earlier statement that the US must clean up more than any other country was wrong.

Yo are correct that I have not addressed any issues of bad law and I will do so now.

(a) carbon sinks: The Kyoto accords do deal with the issue of maintaining or creating carbon sinks. Reduction or creating of carbon sinks are included in emissions targets with the net aim to use sinks to meet targets. Furthermore as I mentioned above Kyoto specifically allows trading in sinks so that rich countries can pay poorer countries to maintain their forests and thus reduce the target the rich country needds to meet. The US could therefore pay Brazil not to cut down forests and in return not reduce it's emissions. Good Law actually, just not yet in effect (next Feb), so at the moment Brazil is free to cut down all it's rainforests. the sooner Kyoto starts the sooner Brazil has to maintain it's rainforests.

(

3rd World: The Kyoto accords exclude developing countries from having to meet target reduction in this round. They do have to put in place the monitoring and legal apparatus to ensure that they can meet reduction targets in the next round though. This includes China and India, the two largest polluters in this category. While not ideal (many including the US wanted China to meet reduction targets) the nature (large factor is population based and low tech heat and power generation) and level of their pollution (still a tiny fraction compared to the population generating it)defined it a development and thus not yet ready for reduction. All these countries have agreed that in the next round they will meet reduction targets. So while people can complain that China gets to increase polluting, it has agreed to atart putting in place strategies (such as nuclear power stations) to allow for reductions in the next round. Not bad, just not as nice as you may want.

(c) Kyoto targets greenhouse gas emissions and not pollutants. This is because it is designed to focus on climate issues and these are felt to be a major problem. it's nto a bad law because it doesn't deal with these, just a single law in what eventually needs to be a much bigger package. It's a start and a good start.

So I would say that Kyoto is not a bad law. It does have weaknesses and it is only a start. But we need to start somewhere and with or without the US the rest of the world will make a start.

Paul.

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Dr Guy,
5% is the minimum but 7% (US) and 8% (EU) are the targets. the point is that your earlier statement that the US must clean up more than any other country was wrong.

I will address your other issues when more time presents itself, however the above is wrong. Annex B states the base year, which is the year the agreement was created, not 90, and represents the fact that Europe has worse polution controls than does the US. The 5% below 1990 levels is the target. The 92 and 93% are the amount that will need to be cut to achieve those levels.

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It does not matter what Kyoto said, it was what was left unsaid in that regard. Bad law is worse than no law, for it accomplishes nothing, and just stops people from pursuing the right thing.

Are we right calling it a law? I agree that a bad law is worse than no law but I haven't hear why it is a bad law. I don't see how reducing pollution in any way can be bad. Even in the Brazil case they are a least taking steps to be more enviromentally friendly, even if they do have some set backs. And if there is inadaquaces in the "law", why would you just drop out instead of trying to ratify the problems??? Just say you don't care a lick about the environment and stop hiding behind this "bad law" arguement - because with EVERY law there is going to be people who get around things with loop holes and unfortuante events that occur. No law is perfect - try to give me one instance. You give me a particular law and I will tell you that it has been broke or that it is possible to side step it - this doesn't mean we should throw away this law. Your reasoning is flawed.

And it is not the future of the planet. Earth survived billions of years without man. It will survive many more billions without them, and thrive. Dont confuse the 2.

This is sort of my point. I know that the earth will survive after we are all gone - sorry, the future of MAN. For me it is a matter of trying to keep our race - and life in general - on the planet for as long as possible before the pollution hides the sun and were are unable to breathe the air - you know, the little stuff. But by all means concern yourself more with the size of your GDP or whatever.

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Draginol

Join Date 03/2001

+137

Kyoto is an example of where warm fuzzy feelings trumped common sense.

Kyoto was unfixable. It was based on a flawed premise - return emissions to the level they were on some arbitrary date. A date picked by European nations who calculated the easiest date for them. Europeans who haven't been to the US are probably unaware of this but European air quality is deplorable. It's a heck of a lot easier for Europeans to reduce emissions than the US. Given how urban Europe is, it's a travesty that their per GDP CO2 emissions are even close to a continent spanning distributed population nation like the US. Especially given that a LOT of CO2 emissions come from the processing of natural resources (like refining oil) -- the US is the world's largest producer of oil (most people seem to think Saudi Arabia is -- check out THEIR CO2 emmissions some time).

But let's say the premise was somehow workable. It gave a free pass to China and India. China is almost certainly already the world's largest polluter in terms of REAL pollutants. Calling CO2 a pollutant is just bizarre. But even there, China will likely be the world's largest producer of CO2 within the next decade or two and they were totally left off this list.

It's hard enough for US industry to compete against Asian and European nations who have relatively lax air quality laws, but Kyoto would have been a straight jacket on it. The more I read it, the more blatant it seemed to me that it was designed as a way for other countries to gain an economic advantage on the US.

I've also wondered how they track CO2 emissions. You can't do it accurately with satellite monitoring. It's gotta come from industry sources. And I have serious doubts on the accuracy of eastern European, Russian, and Chinese data on these kinds of things.

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Dr Guy,
While this is a complex issue, I don't believe you are correct. Both the US and the EU are using 1990 as their base year and Appendix B lists their target reductions below that level. To my knowledge only Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland have used different base years (as allowed because they are in transition towards market economies). A base year of 1995 can be used for some minor green house gases, but NOT for CO2.

So to reiterate and clarify, the EU has agreed to reduce it's emissions to 8% below the 1990 level. The USA was suppossed to reduce its emissions to 7% below the 1990 level. Therefore your earlier statement that the US must clean up more than any other country was wrong.

Link

Paul.

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Brad,
the US is the largest emitter of CO2, CH4 and N2O on the planet. No amount of accusations about European air quality changes that fact. Yes Europe needs to reduce it's emissions and that is exactly what is is going to do. No amount of excuses from the US changes the fact that it is the biggest polluter and that it has no intention of every changing from that.
The suggestion that the EU 'fixed' the date at 1990 as it suited them the best is laughable. That's an awful excuse without one shread of evidence. This is a worldwide document and despite the EU having a strong voice the date for base year was agreed among all nations. the US had as much input at this stage as every other nation and also agree on this date.
Your arguements about China and India are dealt with in my reply to Guy above. Yes China and India do need to start comntrolling emissions, and yes they have agreed to that for a second round. In the meantime issues such as accurately measuring emissions and putting the framework in place to make industry reduce emission have been agreed and are to be implemented as part of Kyoto. Come round 2 China and India will be set targets.
Kyoto was not designed to punish the US industry capacity, but to make a start towards controlling the quantity of industrial gases we emit into the atmosphere. The US is not being asked to go any further than other industrialised nations, but if you wish to feel victimised and remain alone then that is your choice. Do not be surprised though is round 2 of Kyoto adds trade tariffs to any country not meeting emission targets.

Kyoto required tough action by all industrialised nations and a change in outlook. The US has failed to join this crusade for the environment but it will go ahead without the US. The rest of the world will start putting the environment into our decisions and reduce our emissions even at the cost of productivity. We believe that is important and we will care for the planet without you if need be.

Paul.

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You see any attempt whatsoever as better than no attempt..and theoretically that would be correct..but the problem has to be in the fine print. Sometimes the fine print will hang you.

For me, it is about a mentality that needs to be spread. It's not about attempting a cleanup at any cost but merely about starting the cleanup. Because it is only begining of course it is not going to be completely efficent. But that does mean we give up before we start, we modify and improve our reproach. What I am hearing is that since its not perfect "why bother". It has, in my mind, nothing to do with what's on paper but developing an urrgence in people to realize that something desperately needs to be done.

If the US has to lower its emissions by 200,000 pcm and the EU only 159,000 pcm..which one is cleaning up, more? I guess that's nitpicking, but..

This goes beyond nitpicking. I personally don't care about the numbers as they are meaningless in a pragmatic sense. How is the enviroment declining? What can we do to prevent it? These are REAL and IMPORTANT question that go beyond the level of politicals and enters into the realm of life and death. Also the attitude that "Johnny doesn't have to why do I" is beyond childish.

I have mixed feelings for both sides of the arguement. While I understand Solitair's position, I also hear the "If you don't agree we will punish you" in the message.
I agree with Draginol's position and I hear the "If we agree you're going to hamstring us" in his message. Neither method will help the atmosphere we all breathe or reduce the amount of ozone we inhale on a daily basis out of ignorance.

I don't see this at all, but I guess people can read into things what they want. There definetly should be a punishment for over polluting, don't you think?

Where are the animal loving activists? I was expecting to hear from them how deforesting Brazil is bad..

Of course it is bad!?! But what does that have to do with the validity of the Kyoto accord? This could and does happen with or without Kyoto. Bad things happen under EVERY type of system, not just so called 'bad' ones.

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Of course it is bad!?! But what does that have to do with the validity of the Kyoto accord? This could and does happen with or without Kyoto. Bad things happen under EVERY type of system, not just so called 'bad' ones.

What does it have to do with Kyoto? It's the fact that it's Kyoto's blind policies that promote these kind of environment-friendly acts of deforestation. Hell, you said it yourself:

I don't see how reducing pollution in any way can be bad.

So, reducing pollution can't be bad, even at the cost of tons of wildlife and forest?

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This is sort of my point. I know that the earth will survive after we are all gone - sorry, the future of MAN. For me it is a matter of trying to keep our race - and life in general - on the planet for as long as possible before the pollution hides the sun and were are unable to breathe the air - you know, the little stuff. But by all means concern yourself more with the size of your GDP or whatever.

And we have. The US has been cleaning up their air for decades, and the Europeans are just starting. yes, we put out more pollutants, but not on a per capita basis. So this is a good start for Europe to get serious, but it is bad when there are so many loop holes that it defeats the purpose. And that is why it is bad law.

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Kyoto targets greenhouse gas emissions and not pollutants. This is because it is designed to focus on climate issues and these are felt to be a major problem. it's nto a bad law because it doesn't deal with these, just a single law in what eventually needs to be a much bigger package. It's a start and a good start.

No, itis not a good start. besides, as demonstrated by Nasa, the computer models are flawed that these greenhouse gasses are even warming the planet. All of them predicted a much warmer planet, and it did not materialize. Instead of worryabout greenhouse (which just 30 years ago was ice age) gasses, lets try to get the harmful pollutants out of the air. And the US has. CO2, as you correctly stated is heavier than O2, so it sinks, and if that is the case it cant be a green house gas as they have to rise to keep in the heat.

In the end, if the world adopted our environmental laws, it would do a lot more than Kyoto ever will. Kyoto is flawed and bad. itis time to throw the baby out with the bath water and start over. And this time stop worrying about scaremongers and do what is good and healthy, not politically correct.

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NPR and The Kyoto Protocols

Sometimes they don't proofread their own stuff.