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This article isn't about science as a study, but rather about our environmental impact. The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to by 5.2% of 1990 levels by 2012. Using data between 1990 and 2006 an UN convention on climate change shows a drop in CO2 emission. However if we look at the data between 2000 and 2006 there is an increase of about 2.3% (about half of the decrease between 1992 and 2006). The reason for the decrease: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many plants and factories were shut down after the 1989 collapse, and as a result there were a few years of relatively low carbon emissions. Once those countries got up and running again the levels continued to increase. The goes on to discusses the inability of countries to follow a protocol that they all (minus the US and China, who declined). Most countries have increased their CO2 emissions, and even those countries that were allowed to increase did by too much. All in all only the U.K. and Monaco have been following the Kyoto Protocol and are on track to reach their goals by 2012.
This review was ~194 words. Anywhere between 175 and 250 is great. Please feel free to read the article and leave comments to this post.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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4 comments:
I don't know if we're allowed to ask questions, but it would be interesting to know why the US and China declined. Knowing they can't follow the protocol? Anyway, it's disappointing that so many countries did not keep their commitment. I wonder where these greenhouse gases will leave us in the future....
I'm not entirely sure. I kind of thought it had to do with our resistance to placing hard restraints on commerce and industry. Reading the wikipedia page (that's the Gospel, right?):
the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[70][71] 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 12 November 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.
So it sounds like our reason to not ratify is because there weren't hard dates set and that we didn't want to hurt the economy. Seems like the economy is in the crapper anyway.
It says something about our country that we don't even want to try. Many other countries didn't follow through, but they at least tried to follow the protocol to begin with. Hopefully with the new administration, this will change for the better. I think they could have possibly researched more of the effects to defend their stance that it would cost the US so much money.
According to the wiki that I posted, both the UK and Germany are have reduced their emissions by double digit percentages since 1994. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
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