Saying You'll Reduce CO2 Doesn't Make It So

The next time somebody/anybody proposes some new law in the name of reducing CO2 emissions they might want to pause and consider this:

The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998.  A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government. If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.  Below are the growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions, from 1997 to 2004, for a few selected countries, all Kyoto signers.  (Remember, the comparative number for the U.S. is 6.6%.)

Maldives, 252%.
Sudan, 142%.
China, 55%.
Luxembourg, 43%
Iran, 39%.
Iceland, 29%.
Norway, 24%.
Russia, 16%.
Italy, 16%.
Finland, 15%.
Mexico, 11%.
Japan, 11%.
Canada, 8.8%.

Comments

[David]

I know this is nit-picking, but please don't call it the Kyoto Treaty, it is a protocol. A treaty has finite conditions that must be met, whereas a protocol is just a fancy word for process. There is a reason that the Kyoto Treaty was rejected 99-0 by the Senate back in 1998. Basically, it's not worth the paper it's written on.

[Greg Decker]

Kyoto is an agreement negotiated as an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which is an international environmental treaty. The US is a signatory of the UNFCCC treaty.

So, I suppose you could argue its incorrect to call the protocol a treaty because it only an addendum not the entire agreemnt. However, for the protocol to take effect it needs to be ratified by the individual parties to the UNFCCC treaty at which point the protocol becomes part of the treaty.

The process of ratifying (or rejecting) an amendment to a treaty follows the same procedure as the ratification of treaties themselves. (i.e presidential signature followed by ratification by Congress).

My thoughts are that once a nation adopts the protocol it could be appropriate to refer to it as a treaty. However in the case of the US, who rejected the protocol, I would agree its inappropriate. So far as the US is concerned the protocol is nothing more than a rejected proposal to modify an existing agreement.

As for the correctness of the text I quoted in the post -- I would argue Its OK to call it a treaty because the statement is made in the context of those who signed it. "Kyoto treaty was AGREED upon..."

[David Thurlow]

The Senate did not reject Kyoto in 1998 99-0. They did agree, 95-0 in July 1997 - prior to the Kyoto conference, that if an agreement were to be struck, it should have binding GHG reduction commitments from non-Annex I (developing) countries, and should not harm the US economy.

This was NOT a resolution. It was a "sense of the senate" vote, worded in general non-specific terms so that anyone could sign it and not offend their base. Who wants to "harm" the US economy? One side could say that regulations harm the economy and one side could say that lack of regulations harms the economy. Plus, the developing world should do their part-but how and how much is a very complicated debate (as seen in Bali).

This vote, though cynical, is a common legislative maneuver. The Kyoto treaty or protocol (doesn't matter) ratification never came to the congress! This sense of the senate vote was actually in response to the "Berlin Mandate," (I think) a precursor to Kyoto. The claim of a 99-0 senate "rejection" of Kyoto is just another urban legend that gets conflated into truth and used over and over as some kind of point.

But, the main point that Kyoto didn't "work" is true. It was a weak and flawed plan - conservationist new that all along. And make no mistake about it. The fact that the right refuses to make the economic case against regulation and a "green" economy, and instead resorts to arguments like "the sun did it" or "the senate voted 99-0 against it," shows that the economic harm argument really isn't there. Follow T. Boone Pickens and throw your money behind wind and solar, and dump oil. The oil economy will go away, and mandated 75 percent GHG cuts by 2050 will be law by the end of Obama's second term – no doubt at all.