bigbird
28.12.05, 15:53
Kyoto Hypocrites
Environment: When world leaders met in Montreal earlier this month to discuss
global warming, one idea won near-universal agreement: Because it refuses to
sign or live by Kyoto, the U.S. is a villain.
The reigning mythology goes like this: Europe and Canada have heroically
struggled to save the planet by acting responsibly to cut greenhouse gases,
while an economically rapacious U.S. does as it pleases and leaves the
cleanup to others.
Turns out neither is true — a point we made at the time of the Montreal
meetings, and which has been reinforced by a new report showing how out of
whack global-warming rhetoric has gotten.
The study shows the U.S. is not the villain in Kyoto. It also shows that
Canada and the EU appear to be guilty of massive hypocrisy. Conducted by the
Institute for Public Policy Research, it found that Britain and Sweden are
the only European countries living up to their commitments under Kyoto. The
other 13 countries in the EU are not, and neither is Canada.
Yet during the Montreal conference, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin
had the nerve to accuse the U.S. of lacking a “global conscience.” EU
Environment Minister Stavros Dimas, boasted: “Europe has led, and will
continue to lead, the endeavor to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. . . . We
are set to meet our reduction target for 2008-2012.”
The reality is very different. Kyoto’s goal was to get rich nations by
2012 to cut their output of greenhouse gases by 8% from their levels in 1990.
Yet Canada’s output has actually increased by 24%, Spain’s by 41.7%,
Ireland’s by 25.6%, Austria’s by 16.5% and so on.
The U.S., by comparison, is up 13.3%.
Granted, some EU nations have cut back. In fact, the EU’s output overall
has been pared 1.4% since 1990. But on closer inspection, many of the “cuts”
were accomplished simply by shutting old, inefficient, communist-era
industries in East Germany or, in the case of Britain, switching from dirty
coal to clean natural gas.
The easy work, in other words, has been done and the EU, despite its
rhetoric, shows no signs of living up to its own commitments. The European
Environment Group, which monitors the EU’s Kyoto compliance, recently noted
that greenhouse gas output is growing across the board.
Europe hopes a new scheme of tradeable pollution permits will make cutting
easier. But recent research from the International Council for Capital
Formation says meeting Kyoto’s goals could cost the EU from 1.5% to 4% of its
GDP and kill over a million jobs.
Europe won’t incur those costs. It doesn’t have to. It’s found instead
it’s far cheaper — and more effective — to bash the U.S.
This is the hypocrisy of Kyoto laid bare. Europe, Canada and their
developing world allies never intended to make any of the sacrifices they
routinely ask of the U.S.
With Kyoto revealed as the sham it is, maybe we can now get down to
discussing — reasonably — what, if anything, must be done about our warmer
planet.