By: TheEnigmaMachine on Martedì 03 Settembre 2002 22:48
Un paio di notiziuole sul trattato di Kyoto e sull'ipocrita maximo, al secolo Bill Clinton, che ha astutatemente lasciato un paio di patate bollenti in mano a Bush, ovvero bolla finanziaria e trattato di Kyoto.
On July 16-27, 2001, representatives from more than 180 countries gathered in Bonn, Germany for a U.N. conference on global warming. The meeting was a followup to 1998 and 1997 meetings in Buenos Aires and Kyoto, Japan, respectively, at which the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty requiring signatories to reduce their levels of carbon dioxide and of certain pollutants to seven percent below 1990 levels, was developed and promoted. President Bill Clinton instructed Vice President Al Gore to signed the treaty, which ocurred in November of 1998, but the Clinton Administration never submitted it to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Without ratification, the treaty is not binding over the United States.
After assuming office in January 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would withdraw from the Kyoto Treaty, although it would continue to participate fully in the international meetings that developed the treaty. In doing so, Bush recognized numerous realities, among which are the fact that the Treaty would never be ratified by the U.S. Senate and the fact that the costs of meeting the treaty obligations would be very difficult for the American people.
Following his announcement, President Bush received a firestorm of criticism from political opponents at home and from Europe. Much of this criticism, however, was hypocritical in the extreme. Proponents of the treaty had already admitted that the treaty's provisions would not have the beneficial environmental impacts advertised, and that the costs of implementation would be much higher than the public had been told. The Europeans were especially hypocritical, as no European nation save Romania had ratified the treaty, nor were any expected to do so, even though complying with the treaty, for a variety of reasons, would be easier for most European nations than it would be for the United States.
1. Charge: George W. Bush killed the Kyoto Protocol.
Response: President Bush did not kill the Kyoto Protocol. It was dead when he took office. Senate Res. 98, passed by a vote of 95-0 on July 25, 1997, states that the Senate will not ratify any climate treaty that would harm the U.S. economy or fails to require developing nations to reduce emissions.1 Kyoto fails both tests. The President simply recognized these facts.
Response: President Clinton, himself, signed appropriations bills in 1999, 2000 and 2001 prohibiting the Environmental Protection Agency from using any funds to "issue rules, regulations, decrees of orders for the purpose of implementation, or in preparation for implementation, of the Kyoto Protocol" until the Protocol is ratified by the Senate.2
2. Charge: European countries and Japan are strongly in favor of the Kyoto Protocol and criticize the U.S. for not supporting it.
Response: Neither Japan nor any European Community nation has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, of the 84 countries that signed the Protocol, it has been ratified by only 33 undeveloped countries - all of which would be unaffected by the treaty - and Romania.3
3. Charge: Emissions reductions demanded by the Kyoto Protocol would have had few economic effects.
Response: The Kyoto Protocol would have a devastating affect on the U.S. economy, according to very conservative projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. They estimate gasoline prices would have risen 14 to 66 cents per gallon by the year 2010, electricity would have gone up 20 to 86 percent and gross domestic product would fall.4
Other experts have predicted the output of energy intensive products, such as steel, chemicals, paper and cars would have fallen by as much as 15 percent.5 Such sweeping changes world cost the jobs of millions of Americans. That is why responsible leaders, such as Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of American and James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union, have expressed grave concerns about the Protocol.
4. Charge: The burdens of meeting the demands of the Kyoto Protocol are distributed fairly.
Response: No, the burdens of meeting the demands of Kyoto would fall most heavily on minorities. A study commissioned by six African-American and Hispanic organizations found that the increased costs forced by the Protocol would cut minority income by 10 percent (white incomes would go down only 4.5 percent) and 864,000 black Americans and 511,000 Hispanics would lose their jobs.6
Response: Undeveloped countries such as China, India and Brazil are exempted from the Kyoto Protocol. However, these three countries alone are projected to produce 16 percent more carbon dioxide by the year 2020 than the U.S., even if the protocol is not in place.7
1 S. Res. 98, introduced by Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), passed 95-0, July 25, 1997.
2 P.L. 105-276 (Conference Report 105-769), P.L. 106-744 (Conference Report 106-379), and P.L. 106-377 (Conference Report 106-988).
3 Kyoto Protocol Status of ratification as of May 9, 2001, available at http://www.unfccc.int/resource/kpstats.pdf
4 Jay E. Hakes, Administrator, Energy Information Administration, Testimony before the Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives, October 9, 1998.
5 Margo Thornburg, senior vice president and chief economist, American Council for Capital Formation, Testimony before the Committee on Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, October 6, 1998.
6 "Study Says Global Warming Treaty Will Hurt U.S. Minorities," Associated Press, July 6, 2000, cited by John Carlisle, "Treaty to Combat Unproven Global Warming Threat Would Hurt Americans' Standard of Living," National Policy Analysis #309, September 2000, National Center for Public Policy Research, available on the Internet at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA309.html.
7 Heritage Foundation calculations, based on data from U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency Administration, International Energy Outlook 2001, Table A10