Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 30,949
Get ready to WALK into the future! Your leaders just made that so in this bogus, unproven, scientific punishment of prosperous, free nations. Like the UN, this will be another form of world welfare to the non-productive countries to keep their people in poverty. And we are going to follow them! Soon, not to far into the future, the powerful will be driving the autos, we will be walking, for the good of the earth! Are we that conceited to believe we impact the global environment? We haven't had the technology until ten years ago to even monitor the environment! Now the arrogant bastards claim to know what the climate baseline is (it takes thousands of years)! I give up, I'll be glad to leave this planet to the fools that want to control it. Where's that killer asteroid?
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - All 15 European Union nations ratified the Kyoto protocol against global warming on Friday and goaded Washington -- which has turned its back on the treaty -- to reverse course and do its part.
The Kyoto pact, which grew out of the historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (where thirty tons of garbage was left by attendees-LC) and was signed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, is aimed at cutting emissions of the polluting greenhouse gases blamed for rising global temperatures.
It requires industrialized nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5 percent over the period 2008-2012.
But Washington, the world's largest polluter, shunned the treaty shortly after President Bush took office last year, arguing it would harm the U.S. economy.
The pact would have required the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, to trim emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels.
But the Bush administration has instead announced policy changes likely to push them up by 30 percent by 2010, the European Commission said. Over the last five years, U.S. emissions rose more than 8 percent, said Margot Wallstrom, European commissioner for the environment.
At a ceremony at U.N. headquarters in New York, representatives of all 15 EU nations and the European Commission handed papers from their respective nations to U.N. Chief Legal Counsel Hans Corell, signifying their national legislatures had approved the pact.
Wallstrom called the ceremony "an historic moment for global efforts to combat climate change" but said Washington had to pitch in.
'ALL COUNTRIES HAVE TO ACT'
"The United States is the only nation to have spoken out against and rejected the global framework for addressing climate change. The European Union urges the United States to reconsider its position," she said. "All countries have to act, but the industrialized world has to take the lead."
The ceremony came while ministers representing the United Nations ' 189 member-nations worked in Bali to complete preparations for a follow-up meeting to the Earth Summit opening in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August.
A top goal of the coming World Summit on Sustainable Development is to ratchet up the fight against global warming, but environmental groups accuse Washington of trying to water down the action plan to be adopted at the summit's close.
Michel Raquet of Greenpeace called the EU move "very significant" as it brought the Kyoto pact closer to entering into force while giving the EU "the political credibility to put the Johannesburg train back on the right track."
To take effect, the pact must be ratified by at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of developed countries' carbon dioxide emissions. Seventy nations have now ratified, representing 26.6 percent of wealthy nations' emissions.
Of the 41 nations that have signed but not yet ratified, Japan has given notice it would ratify shortly and Russia was expected to ratify by the end of the year, which would give the protocol the necessary 55 percent, Wallstrom said.
Netherlands Environment Minister Jan Pronk also pressed Canada to ratify, saying it was key to the effort.
The European Union as a bloc is on course to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gases by 8 percent from 1990 levels, but the picture is patchy across the bloc.
Total EU emissions were down 3.5 percent in 2000, according to data issued last month by the European Environment Agency.
But many member states are finding it tough to meet their individual targets as set under a "burden sharing" agreement.
That agreement allowed Spain to increase its emissions by 15 percent, but its emissions were already up 33.7 percent by 2000. Eight other EU countries were also falling short of the necessary emissions cuts, the agency said.
The biggest EU cuts have been made by Britain and Germany, two of the biggest EU economies, which have reduction targets of 12 percent and 21 percent respectively,
Britain has slashed carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 percent by using less coal and more natural gas to generate electricity. Germany's emissions fell by 19 percent, largely due to the closing of inefficient and dirty industry in the former communist east.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - All 15 European Union nations ratified the Kyoto protocol against global warming on Friday and goaded Washington -- which has turned its back on the treaty -- to reverse course and do its part.
The Kyoto pact, which grew out of the historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (where thirty tons of garbage was left by attendees-LC) and was signed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, is aimed at cutting emissions of the polluting greenhouse gases blamed for rising global temperatures.
It requires industrialized nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5 percent over the period 2008-2012.
But Washington, the world's largest polluter, shunned the treaty shortly after President Bush took office last year, arguing it would harm the U.S. economy.
The pact would have required the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, to trim emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels.
But the Bush administration has instead announced policy changes likely to push them up by 30 percent by 2010, the European Commission said. Over the last five years, U.S. emissions rose more than 8 percent, said Margot Wallstrom, European commissioner for the environment.
At a ceremony at U.N. headquarters in New York, representatives of all 15 EU nations and the European Commission handed papers from their respective nations to U.N. Chief Legal Counsel Hans Corell, signifying their national legislatures had approved the pact.
Wallstrom called the ceremony "an historic moment for global efforts to combat climate change" but said Washington had to pitch in.
'ALL COUNTRIES HAVE TO ACT'
"The United States is the only nation to have spoken out against and rejected the global framework for addressing climate change. The European Union urges the United States to reconsider its position," she said. "All countries have to act, but the industrialized world has to take the lead."
The ceremony came while ministers representing the United Nations ' 189 member-nations worked in Bali to complete preparations for a follow-up meeting to the Earth Summit opening in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August.
A top goal of the coming World Summit on Sustainable Development is to ratchet up the fight against global warming, but environmental groups accuse Washington of trying to water down the action plan to be adopted at the summit's close.
Michel Raquet of Greenpeace called the EU move "very significant" as it brought the Kyoto pact closer to entering into force while giving the EU "the political credibility to put the Johannesburg train back on the right track."
To take effect, the pact must be ratified by at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of developed countries' carbon dioxide emissions. Seventy nations have now ratified, representing 26.6 percent of wealthy nations' emissions.
Of the 41 nations that have signed but not yet ratified, Japan has given notice it would ratify shortly and Russia was expected to ratify by the end of the year, which would give the protocol the necessary 55 percent, Wallstrom said.
Netherlands Environment Minister Jan Pronk also pressed Canada to ratify, saying it was key to the effort.
The European Union as a bloc is on course to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gases by 8 percent from 1990 levels, but the picture is patchy across the bloc.
Total EU emissions were down 3.5 percent in 2000, according to data issued last month by the European Environment Agency.
But many member states are finding it tough to meet their individual targets as set under a "burden sharing" agreement.
That agreement allowed Spain to increase its emissions by 15 percent, but its emissions were already up 33.7 percent by 2000. Eight other EU countries were also falling short of the necessary emissions cuts, the agency said.
The biggest EU cuts have been made by Britain and Germany, two of the biggest EU economies, which have reduction targets of 12 percent and 21 percent respectively,
Britain has slashed carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 percent by using less coal and more natural gas to generate electricity. Germany's emissions fell by 19 percent, largely due to the closing of inefficient and dirty industry in the former communist east.
