Al Gore has taken his Power Point show on the road and is now criticizing the U.S. for standing in the way of progress.
In a 48-minute speech, Gore urged the delegates to "go far, quickly" in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saying they should forge ahead with a consensus statement and leave "a large open space in your document" to allow a future U.S. president to work more aggressively to curb global warming.
"My country's been responsible for obstructing the process here in Bali, we know that," he said to a crowd that overflowed the hall, forcing some people to sit on the floor. "Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere where it is not now. You must anticipate that."
It is a rather striking thing for a former Vice President to urge other nations to ignore the current U.S. Administration and just wait for the next one. But given Gore's obvious belief in this cause, I suppose he has to do what he has to do.
But it is also striking to compare the record of nations that ratified the last global treaty on climate change, the Kyoto Protocols, with that of the U.S. Here from Randall Hoven at American Thinker is the comparison (ht to Powerline):
The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998. A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government. If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.
- Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
- Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
- Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
- Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.
In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.
So the percentage increase in carbon emissions in the U.S. was a third of that of the rest of the world, and closer to a quarter of the average increase among nations that signed the Kyoto treaty. President Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty, but never submitted it to the Senate. The Senate voted on it anyway, in 1997, and by a 95-0 vote rejected any treaty like Kyoto that did not include major players such as China and India. Nonetheless, the U.S. has a better record on controlling its own carbon emissions than three quarters of those nations that did sign the treaty. It is characteristic of international politics that actual outcomes are considered less important that pious statements of intention.
The world is almost certainly warming. That human industry plays an important role is likely, but far less certain. The really inconvenient truth is that it is impossible to stop the growth in world greenhouse emissions without bringing global economic growth to a halt, especially in the rising economies in the East. It looks like China has now passed the U.S. as the single largest contributer to such emissions, and China is just getting going. A reduction in the growth of future emissions may be possible, and perhaps that is something to be worked for. Stopping the growth of green house emissions, let alone reducing global emissions, is just not going to happen in any reasonable time frame.
A rational and honest policy would face these facts, and would include planning for the future in light of those facts. Bear in mind that the low growth of greenhouse emissions in the U.S. coincided with a remarkable period of economic growth under President's Clinton and Bush. This had a lot to do with the increased productivity in American industry. The only way out of the problems created by technology is through better technology, shared around the globe through trade. And honest and rational policy would take that into account as well. Don't expect anyone to win the Noble Prize by proposing such a policy.
Recent Comments