[Fwd: Re: SB: RE: Kyoto]

[Mark and/or Jan Bigland-Pritchard <hyphen@dial.pipex.com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: SB: RE: Kyoto
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 17:56:43 +0100
From: Mark and/or Jan Bigland-Pritchard <hyphen@dial.pipex.com>
Organization: Low Energy Design Ltd
To: Valle Kincaid <vkincaid@TreanorArchitects.com>
References: <238E7F52BF05D511885F00105A9AF8770AE1C7@MERCURY>

Valle Kincaid wrote:
> 
> uh, have you seen the skies over places like Cairo, Egypt?  They have 
> Los Angeles beat hands down for air pollution. There are other 
> polluters in the world besides us.
> 
> I think that making America bear the majority of the burden is 
> ridiculous. Thtas basically what the treaty says, "its all America's 
> fault so they must fix it."  that's why Mr. Shrub hasn't signed it. It 
> isn't fairly written.
> 
> just my two cents.
> 
I wouldn't pay that much for it, I'm afraid.  The visible pollution over
Cairo or anywhere else is totally irrelevant to this debate, which is
about carbon dioxide emissions.  The point that you cannot avoid is that
the USA is by a considerable margin the world's premier emitter of
carbon dioxide, responsible for about a quarter of the global total. 
Some other countries which also chuck out a lot (but not _as_ much) of
the stuff have recognised not only that there is a problem but that we
need to do something about it - and have started to do so (admittedly
rather feebly and with varying degrees of commitment).

Nobody - absolutely nobody - has suggested that the US bear "the
majority of the burden".  At Kyoto, the US negotiators managed to get
your country off pretty lightly, considering the vast scope for
reductions that you have (compared to European nations which have
already started to shoulder their share of the responsibility).  For
what it's worth, here is a list of the reduction commitments agreed at
Kyoto:

EU (as aggregate)      minimum 8% reduction
Bulgaria               minimum 8%
reduction                               Czech republic         minimum
8% reduction
Estonia                minimum 8% reduction
Latvia                 minimum 8% reduction
Liechtenstein          minimum 8% reduction
Lithuania              minimum 8% reduction
Monaco                 minimum 8% reduction
Romania                minimum 8% reduction
Slovakia               minimum 8% reduction
Slovenia               minimum 8% reduction
Switzerland            minimum 8% reduction

USA                    minimum 7% reduction

Canada                 minimum 6% reduction
Hungary                minimum 6% reduction
Japan                  minimum 6% reduction
Poland                 minimum 6% reduction

Croatia                minimum 5% reduction

New Zealand            maximum 0% increase
Russia                 maximum 0% increase
Ukraine                maximum 0% increase

Norway                 maximum 1% increase

Australia              maximum 8% increase

Iceland                maximum 10% increase

(These targets are pretty inadequate as they stand, and were further
diluted by agreements to permit forestry / agriculture to be deemed to
offset emissions.)

I don't see any evidence in the above list for the claim that the US
would bear "the majority of the burden".  Do you?

Mark Bigland-Pritchard
Bristol, England

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