POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
THE KYOTO CONFERENCE
There was a meeting that took place in Kyoto, Japan last year.
The United States held this conference.
Results:
- China flatly refused to join, telling visiting Reps, that it would
accept no limits within the next 50 years.
- Gave up its plan to exempt U.S military training and overseas
operations from fuel cutbacks that would be needed for the U.S to reach
its target.
- Offered steeper cuts in U.S emissions - - 7% below 1990 levels
instead of its initial plan to cut pollution to 1990 levels, but not below.
- Conceded to U.N bureaucrats some control over U.S agricultural
and forestry policies.
- In the draft treaty, only overseas military actions approved by
the United Nations would remain exempt as would training and combat in
international waters
ARE HUMANS CAUSING THE CLIMATE TO CHANGE ???
- By most accounts, man-made emissions have had no more than a minuscule
impact on the climate. Although the climate has warmed slightly in the
last 100 years, 70% of that warming occurred prior to 1940, before the
upsurge in the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial process.
- Ninety-eight percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions
are natural, only two percent are man-made.
THE GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE
In 1992 the United States and nations from around the world met
at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio and agreed to voluntarily reduce
greenhouse gas to 1990 levels by the year 2000. The Rio treaty was not
legally binding and, because reducing emissions would likely cause great
economic damage, many nations will not meet the goal.
The presidents position is based on the idea that global warming
is real and that it is caused by human activity. The potential damage caused
by global warming would greatly outweigh the damage caused to the economy
by severely restricting energy use.
WHAT ARE THE POLICY PROPOSALS ???
- The proposal with the most support in Europe is to simply capture
each nations CO2 emissions, such as demanding a 15% reduction of CO2 emissions
from what they were in 1990, and giving countries a deadline to achieve
this. Each nation would decide how to make those limits. Such a proposal
as this one would probably include a major tax increase on energy use and
an increase in government subsidies for new technologies.
WILL THE POLICY ACTUALLY STOP GLOBAL WARMING ???
- By all estimates, only severe reductions in carbon dioxide emissions
will alter the computer forecasts.
- If the policy does include developing nations the result will
likely be mere redistribution of CO2 emissions from developed nations to
developing nations, not a reduction of emissions at all.
