And then there was one…
Australia is well on its way to becoming the 173rd nation to ratify the Kyoto accord, which sets binding international reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions. Incoming Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has pledged to ratify the agreement “as soon as possible”. The significance on this side of pond? Huge. Conservative John Howard, trounced in yesterday’s landslide Labour victory, has been a staunch ally of the Bush administration in its opposition to Kyoto. Without Howard’s support, the Bush Administration will find itself in the awkward role of last remaining holdout among industrialized nations.
What’s more, the timing could not have been better. Rudd, who has repeatedly called on the U.S. to step up its commitment to Kyoto, plans to personally attend next week’s global climate change summit in Bali. He has called climate change “the great moral, environmental and economic challenge facing the world”.
Australia has been coping with its worst drought in over a century, and a strong climate change platform was a key factor in Rudd’s decisive victory. Let’s hope that the issue proves equally critical in our own upcoming presidential elections. Meanwhile, Rudd has his work cut out for him domestically. The Aussies are prodigious burners of fossil fuels, with highest per-capita emissions in the world. The geographically spread-out nation will need to scramble to play catch-up, and a story in London’s Daily Telegraph demonstrates the perils of delay –
Meeting the country’s original 2012 target would entail stringent, costly and probably unpopular measures in raising energy efficiency and switching to renewable sources. Australia had originally pledged to keep emissions growth to eight per cent above 1990 levels. As of 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, it was 25.6 per cent in excess of the 1990 benchmark, according to UNFCCC figures issued last week.
Still, better late than never. We hope that Congress and the 2008 presidential contenders are paying attention.
2 Comments
As usual, nicely written, Dan. Clever subtitle and good opening line.
Just to clarify, Bush didn’t reject the Kyoto treaty. The U.S. Senate did, by an overwhelming vote (95-0), during the Clinton-Gore administration.
And they were right to do so as Kyoto places no limits on the growth of carbon emissions from China, the fastest-growing major industrial economy in the world and the world’s largest producer of carbon emissions.
177 parties have ratified the protocol. Of those, only 36 countries plus the European Union as a party to the treaty in its own right are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels specified for each of them in the treaty.
More than 130 countries that have ratified the protocol have no obligation to reduce their emissions, only to monitor and report their emissions. Included on that list are some of the most rapidly-growing and industrializing economies on earth, including China and India.
On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”.
On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.
The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.
Repeat: The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.
Early in his first term, President George W. Bush said he would not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification, and cited the same reason as that previously cited by Sen. Lieberman, Vice President Gore and the Byrd-Hagel resolution - that the treaty must require participation by developing nations.
Specifically, Bush said this:
“This is a challenge that requires a 100% effort; ours, and the rest of the world’s. The world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is the People’s Republic of China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto … America’s unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change … Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.”
Kyoto is a flawed treaty that the U.S. should not ratify.