Then there was one: US now alone as Kyoto holdout
by Richard Ingham
AFP
Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol were gleeful on Saturday after Australian elections left the United States in the wilderness as the only major economy to boycott the UN's climate pact.
The ouster of Prime Minister John Howard stripped President George W. Bush of a key ally barely a week before a conference in Bali, Indonesia, on the world's response to climate change beyond 2012, they said.
"It's great news for the Kyoto Protocol," Shane Rattenburg, Greenpeace's political director, told AFP.
"It's a very important event in the international climate debate, and for Bali. It will leave Bush and the United States more isolated."
Industrialised countries that have signed and ratified the Protocol are required to meet targeted curbs in their greenhouse-gas emissions by 2012.
In March 2001, in one of his first acts in office, Bush declared he would not submit the deal to US Senate ratification.
He has been steadfastly supported by Howard, a fellow conservative who argued that Kyoto was a waste of time as it lacks the world's biggest emitter and tougher commitments from China and other emerging giants.
(Continued here.)
AFP
Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol were gleeful on Saturday after Australian elections left the United States in the wilderness as the only major economy to boycott the UN's climate pact.
The ouster of Prime Minister John Howard stripped President George W. Bush of a key ally barely a week before a conference in Bali, Indonesia, on the world's response to climate change beyond 2012, they said.
"It's great news for the Kyoto Protocol," Shane Rattenburg, Greenpeace's political director, told AFP.
"It's a very important event in the international climate debate, and for Bali. It will leave Bush and the United States more isolated."
Industrialised countries that have signed and ratified the Protocol are required to meet targeted curbs in their greenhouse-gas emissions by 2012.
In March 2001, in one of his first acts in office, Bush declared he would not submit the deal to US Senate ratification.
He has been steadfastly supported by Howard, a fellow conservative who argued that Kyoto was a waste of time as it lacks the world's biggest emitter and tougher commitments from China and other emerging giants.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
Although Bush has taken the lead on the Kyoto treaty, isn’t really the Senate that has failed to confirm it?
Do you know that the US has failed to confirm the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a landmark international treaty which outlines basic human rights integral to the protection and advancement of women’s equality ? The last word that I heard was that roughly 170 countries have become party to CEDAW, however according to Senator Biden, the United States has joined an Axis of Shortsightedness --- in the company of Syria and Iran.
According to Senator Klobuchar “This is not simply a foreign problem that does not exist in our own homes. An estimated 30 percent of American women experience some form of assault in their lifetime. And even if women do not experience violence, discrimination can take many other forms. Hundreds of millions of women across the globe are living their lives facing oppression.”
So the Senate has failed to act on the environment and human rights … what have they approved … oh, yeah … granted India an exception to a U.S. law that bans nuclear trade with countries that have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Thanks Norm and all your buddies.
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