No Kyoto Protocol for the United States: a minority of Americans don’t want it
As the lines at the Bella Center get longer, so do the prospects for any agreement in Copenhagen.
The crowds are growing substantially in numbers as the week goes on.
The developing world, including China, India and Brazil, insists that a modified Kyoto Protocol with new binding emissions targets for the industrialized nations, but not including the emerging industrial powers, is the only agreement they are willing to negotiate.
In the coming week there may be some movement and compromise concerning their own emissions by China, India and notably Brazil with its huge 1,000-member delegation (number 1 in size at COP15) to persuade the industrialized nations to strengthen the Kyoto Protocol—but the discussion is moot.
Delegates working into the night at the Bella Center
The industrialized nations in the current Kyoto Protocol, led by the European Union and likely most every other developed country, have no appetite and will not agree to new binding limits without the United States joining the Protocol—and in my opinion that is not going to happen.
There is no possible chance that the United States can join the Kyoto Protocol—the people, not the government, will simply not allow it.
The world may think that the government of the United States is the bad boy here. But as far as climate change is concerned, the people controlling the United States’ position are the growing minority of voters in the United States who want nothing to do with climate change negotiations. I’m talking about the skeptics, those people who do not believe climate change is happening and even people who just don’t want to know, and who like everyone else have direct access to their elected leaders. They tell their elected leaders what they want, not the other way round.
Concerning climate change negotiations the most important elected body is the United States Senate and its 100 Senators. They serve at the will of the people and risk losing their elected status if they do not adhere to the wishes of the people. This is known as democracy in action.
Activity in the area of Denmark's pavilion
Now you might ask “why doesn’t the President just override them?”
Here’s where it gets tricky. The founding fathers gave the voice to the people in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States stating that while the President can make Treaties, he can do so only with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. If the constituents of enough Senators wish to stop a Treaty they can do so. The Kyoto Protocol is just such a Treaty and can only be ratified by the Senate. As currently composed there are not enough votes in the Senate, driven by the will of a minority of Americans, to even contemplate joining the Kyoto Protocol.
The U.S. Senate will require at least the commitment of the developing world to binding emissions targets outside of the Kyoto Protocol to consider a new Treaty but even that is unlikely at this time.
A regulatory mechanism does exist, and based on a recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, it has the potential to severely restrict greenhouse gas emissions from new sources. This is currently under rule development by the Environmental Protection Agency. At present it may be the best hope the world has to involve the U.S. in binding greenhouse gas emissions targets.
But it remains that the Kyoto Protocol is a non-starter for the United States no matter what the Parties might want at COP15.
14. December 2009 at 10:03 AM
This angers me – that you say a “minority” of people in the US don’t want to join the KP. I thought majority ruled.
A question: those opposing ratifying the KP in the US, are they really individual citizens who reached this decision on their own, or are they part of a larger petitioned group initiated by corporations who want business to remain as usual?
14. December 2009 at 11:18 PM
The inconvenient truth is that the majority of Americans are very susceptible to rumors, inuendo and sophisticated, well funded marketing and propaganda campaigns. Most Americans do not have the life experience nor the academic training to understand the fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics that control heat transfer in our atmosphere and oceans. It takes knowledge, discipline and expertise to separate relevant facts from plausible spin, rational theory from mindless opinion. Throw in charges of conspiracy created with selected quotes from pilfered private correspondence amoung frustrated or angry scientists and you have political gridlock created by a minority of US Senators who mouth the talking points created by pollsters controlled by party ideologues and their big-money sponsors. Welcome to representative democracy in America.
15. December 2009 at 10:17 AM
Dear Karen and Dave,
I can empathize with your frustrations, however I don’t believe that “analysis” of what the other side of the climate debate might be thinking or doing is productive toward a solution in the short term. And the short term has now become critical in terms of limiting the prospects of abrupt climate change.
I wrote specifically about the U.S. position toward the Kyoto Protocol in the context of COP15. But there are many other reasons why the Senate would hold up debate on any climate change treaty, Kyoto Protocol or otherwise, including Senators from the President’s own party.
For example, as The New York Times reported this morning (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/science/earth/15climate.html?hp), a group of 10 Democratic Senators wrote to the President two weeks ago. They warned, in effect, that if border carbon tariffs are not imposed on imports from foreign countries that have no requirement for limiting their emissions, a treaty could not be ratified.
They argue that American jobs would be at stake and their case is directed toward Chinese imports in particular. How that plays out at COP15 is anyone’s guess and might come down to an eleventh hour negotiating session between the U.S. and China, the main protagonists.
The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not just the Kyoto Protocol at stake in driving the actions of the Senate.
My position all along is quite different from assigning analysis to the problems of debate about climate change.
My position quite simply is to make the case for application of a precautionary principle. The engineer in me says that if I want to insure against possible losses caused by climate change I don’t have a chance of securing insurance unless I can demonstrate that every precaution has first been taken to protect the investment.
If 80% of the science tells me global warming is happening and 20% tells me it’s not, I have enough common sense to take a precautionary stance on climate change and do everything in my power to stop it. To ignore it given the balance of evidence to the contrary is not only reckless, it’s just plain stupid.
15. December 2009 at 1:12 PM
How sad. People living on small islands of and other places vulnerable to global warming are to be sacrificed for the comfort/economic security of a developed nation?
Yay to China for its duty of care to the planet with a sizeable commitment to CO2 reductions; couldn’t America forego its own interests for the good of the whole?
15. December 2009 at 6:53 PM
Hello Mona,
Most Americans are very concerned about climate change. It is a smaller percentage who are not. Even the United States is threatened by coastal inundation but the threats are largely ignored by the press and therefore not communicated to its citizens. Third Planet is making some progress on public awareness but we are a small organization and it is not enough. For example my local newspaper, The Florida Times-Union, did publish the following letter I wrote them in November:
Protect the buffers
Although “Rising seas could soak taxpayers, study says” is a news story that no one wants to read, it is a subject we might ignore at our peril.
The prudent approach for government in their planning scenarios is to take a much harder look at the 100-year floodplain, existing wetlands and low-lying agricultural lands, and consider these as ground zero upon which all future development must be based.
Ultimately the reinsurance industry will have a much louder voice about which developments can be insured. It just plain makes sense to give tidal wetlands, and the valuable services they provide to humans, the room to retreat with the possible onset of rising sea levels.
In Louisiana, for example, coastal wetlands and the buffer they provide against hurricanes are being eroded at a rate of 1 acre every 30 to 40 minutes.
It is time we started applying the precautionary principle to the expensive development decisions we are making, particularly in light of the Reality Check development exercises that have been underway in Northeast Florida for the past six months. (see http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters_from_readers/2009-11-10/story/letters_from_readers?page=1)
We don’t know if our concerns will be considered by our local planning community in their development decisions, or not. We only know that while Florida is threatened it is not our survival that is at stake–for the time-being.
We can only hope that we all come to our senses on the global implications of climate change before it is far too late.
18. December 2009 at 9:41 AM
Mona’s comment above is incorrect. China is making no commitment to CO2 reduction but only to “carbon intensity” reduction of 40% – since their GDP will continue to grow rapidly, even with more efficiency, their carbon contribution will sky rocket. The same thinking used to create the problem will not solve the problem. Efficiency is not enough by itself. We need paradigm shift to carbon negative living, which I call EcoLiving. In fact it is solutions that get families and communities products for carbon negative living that is the answer. In this way growth is no longer the enemy.