In December 1997 150 nations negotiated the Kyoto Protocol under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was designed to reduce six greenhouse gases (for example Carbon Dioxide) between 2008-2012.
The U.S. would be required to lower emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels while developing nations would be held to completely different standards-or as many argue, no standard at all.
According to Margo Thorning in her work the “Climate Change Policy, the Federal Budget Surplus, and U.S. Economic Growth” the total cost of implementing Kyoto would reduce U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by $2 trillion in 2008-2012-While the Office of Management and Budget already shows that the Kyoto agreement has cost U.S. taxpayers $11billion (FY 1998-2000).
Aside from the economic costs there are real political costs to be paid. In 1997 the U.S. senate, in a 95-0 vote, passed senate resolution 98. The ‘Byrd-Hagel Resolution’, as it is known, insists that Kyoto must not be ratified without including scheduled commitments by developing nations and to ensure that it does not cause “serious harm to the U.S. economy.”
Even the most liberal of senators voted against this-surprisingly even democrats like Teddy Kennedy. The political costs of implementing Kyoto are too much even for the environmentalists to contemplate-especially those from states where entire communities revolve around building cars or drilling oil. The Protocol never went to the senate to be ratified by the Clinton administration knowing that it would fail to pass the standards of Byrd-Hagel.
Making nations comply with Kyoto also failed to address the real problems nations such as the U.S. face-for instance, the independent Energy Information Administration estimates that world energy consumption will increase by 59 percent by 2020. In the U.S., to keep up with energy demands the nation will have to construct 65 new power plants a year for the next 20 years just to keep up.
Beyond the political posturing surrounding environmental issues are real debates involving global warming- as there really is no consensus on global warming yet.
In January the UN reported that the 20th century was the warmest in the last millennium. This even as the 11th-19th centuries were measured by tree rings while thermometers judged the 20th century.
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