Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Kyoto no go?

We all know that the U.S. did not elect to sign the Kyoto Protocol, a UN agreement to decrease the emissions of six greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, though, of the EU countries that are participating in the protocol, only the UK and Sweden are on target to meet the required decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. Out of 15 European countries that signed the protocol, 10 will fall short of their agreement unless they take immediate action. France, Germany and Greece (but of course) are among the countries in the latter category.

Which brings me to the question: why sign the protocol if you don't take the appropriate measures to follow through? The world has berated the U.S. for not participating (and rightly so), but what good does signing do if you fail to meet the requirements in the end?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As Mom used to say, "If all the other countries jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?"

Anonymous said...

Indeed. And why do people blame Bush for not signing the Kyoto Accords when they were unanimously voted down by the Senate either 95-0 or 98-0 under Clinton's watch? Feh.

Anonymous said...

The US took a lot of heat for not signing the Kyoto Protocol, but Australia did not sign it either, for the same reasons the US did not and you never hear about them.
That,plus the fact that most European nations that signed the Protocol are not even close to it's emission cuts leads me to believe that anti-Americanism is prevalent