Europe Kyoto hypocrites

The Europeans talk big. They are always right and the US always wrong. They are smart and sensitive; we are dumb and brute force.

The US spoke clearly about the Kyoto treaty on the atmosphere. Before the conference the Senate voted 95-0 to reject it if developing countries were exempted. AlGore signed it anyway. President Clinton talked big about it, but never submitted the treaty to the Senate for confirmation. That tarnished our record, but Bush set it straight.

President Bush announced that we would not join the Kyoto protocol, though we would work on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

That really got the Europeans looking down on us. Well, if they look down they won't see the US. We are above them now.

None of the countries of Europe is meeting its "Kyoto commitment" to reduce greenhouse emissions. And the program they set up to trade carbon emission rights was cheated on by everyone except the believing British.

First, on CO2 emissions at Yahoo News:

New data has shown that the European Union (EU) remains embarrassingly off track for meeting its pledges under the Kyoto Protocol, the UN climate-change pact it championed after a US walkout.

Instead of falling, EU greenhouse-gas pollution actually rose in the latest year of monitoring, adding to the task of meeting the Kyoto goals, according to figures released by the European Environment Agency (EAA) in Copenhagen.

"Despite the various policy initiatives, this report highlights that the trend is still going in the wrong direction," declared EAA Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade.

Second, on carbon credit trading - Reason.org

Amidst much fanfare last year, European and other signatories to the Kyoto treaty adopted emission trading as their method of choice to tackle global warming – instead of economy-busting carbon taxes or draconian command-and-control regulations. Under this scheme, each participating country is given a carbon allowance, which it then divvies among its domestic industry in the form of pollution rights or credits.

Companies are allowed to trade these credits with each other on the theory that those able to cut emissions cheaply would have an incentive to do so --and sell their spare credits to others for whom cuts are more expensive, keeping overall program costs as low as possible.

But this so-called market-based scheme collapsed in May when prematurely released data revealed that there was a glut of credits. The per ton prices for these credits dropped from 31 Euros to 12 Euros in just three weeks, finally settling near 9 Euros.

If the credit glut – and subsequent market crash – had stemmed from dramatic emission reductions as some initially thought, it would be cause for celebration. In fact, it was the result of an overly generous allocation of credits.

And the author goes on the explain how every country except the UK "overestimated" their expected level of carbon use - read that "cheated." So the whole thing is a joke.

Via James D. Hudnall
Past: Nuclear for Kyoto Fears

Blair Kills Kyoto at Clinton's Summit