INDEPTH: KYOTO AND BEYOND
The U.S. drops out
CBC News Online | Feb. 16, 2005
It seemed liked a major blow at the time. In March 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush announced his administration was opposed to the Kyoto Protocol.
Bush said he would not submit the treaty to Congress for ratification, because opposition in the Senate meant it stood no chance of passing. Bush said global warming issues are very serious, but the country's energy shortages and economy are more important.
American supporters of Kyoto claimed it was Bush's close ties to the energy industry that meant the protocol was dead in the water in the U.S.
When it comes to greenhouse gases, the U.S. is not just a key political player, it's also the biggest offender. The U.S. produces more carbon dioxide than any other country, about 20 tonnes of airborne carbon per person
per year, according to the International Energy Agency.
The Kyoto protocol was agreed upon through international co-operation under the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was created in 1992.
Simply put, the UNFCCC has one goal: to deal with the fact that human activity is changing the way energy from the sun affects the Earth's atmosphere. More specifically, the Kyoto accord aims to reduce greenhouse gases, such as the carbon dioxide released from automobiles and smoke stacks, which scientists say are linked to rising temperatures and changing weather patterns around the world.
However, global warming remains a heated debate. Other scientists oppose linking greenhouse gases to rising temperatures, saying climate change is a natural part of our planet's evolution.
The Kyoto protocol came out of the UNFCCC's December 1997 meeting held in Kyoto, Japan. Under the agreement, industrialized nations must reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 per cent (from 1990 levels) by the period 2008 to 2012.
The Kyoto treaty was then brought to New York and, on March 16, 1998, it was opened for signatures. Within a year, 84 nations had signed.
| CO2 Production by Country in 1997 |
| Country |
CO2 Produced
(tonnes of carbon) |
Total
(millions) |
Per Capita |
| U.S. |
1,489.6 |
5.48 |
| China |
913.8 |
0.75 |
| Russia |
390.6 |
2.65 |
| Japan |
316.2 |
2.51 |
| India |
279.9 |
0.29 |
| Germany |
227.4 |
2.77 |
| UK |
142.1 |
2.41 |
| Canada |
133.9 |
4.42 |
| Italy |
111.3 |
1.94 |
| Ukraine |
100.4 |
1.97 |
| Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee |
Canada signed the Kyoto protocol on April 29, 1998. On that same day, Japan, Brazil, and most of western Europe signed as well.
However, the Americans weren't so quick to adopt the treaty. The problem was that while other nations had come to terms with the idea that cuts to greenhouse gases had to be made, the Americans were still getting a grip on the economic impact the Kyoto protocol would have on their fossil fuel industries. The U.S. was afraid that companies producing products such as coal would be forced to abide by rules that their competitors in developing nations didn't have.
The U.S. did finally sign the Kyoto protocol in November 1998.
But signing, which represents a nation's agreement to the treaty's principles, is only the first step. The treaty must still be passed (or ratified) by the government of each nation before it becomes legally binding.
In the U.S. this would take at least another two years, which meant if it was to pass it wouldn't be until after the 2000 election, after Bill Clinton was no longer president. And Kyoto's chances of being passed through the Senate were already not very good.
The day before the U.S. announced it wouldn't ratify the treaty,
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman said the reason
President Bush wouldn't back the Kyoto protocol was not that he didn't care
about global warming, but that he simply wasn't interested in a treaty that
Congress was unlikely to ratify.
Indeed, how to implement the promises made in Kyoto is still a question that's yet to be answered – so much so that some argue the treaty is doomed to fail.
The UNFCCC conference held in The Hague, the Netherlands in December 2000 ended without a solution. And Canada seemed part of the problem.
Canada was criticized by environmentalists for what they described as trying to use loopholes to undermine the commitments it made in Kyoto. Canada, along with the U.S. and Japan, proposed a plan that would allow it to get credit for what are called "carbon sinks" – forests and lands that absorb carbon dioxide pollution – which would help Canada meet its Kyoto obligations.
Canada formally ratified Kyoto on Dec. 17, 2002, and committed to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 240 megatonnes a year by 2012.
Washington's decision to pull out of Kyoto, did not kill the treaty. A European push paid off. On September 30, 2004, Russia approved Kyoto and later formally ratified it, giving it enough support to come into effect on Feb. 16, 2005.
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