Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
their people was economic growth, and growing they
were, and still are. They said,
They said that
they did not cause the problem, they were poor and
needed to grow their economy to improve their standard
of living, and they were right.
The Europeans said,
“
You
rst.
”
s stick to the Kyoto Protocol
and bring the developing world in later.
“
Let
'
There may have
been some hypocrisy in their position. Europe had a
smaller economic growth spurt during the
”
s than
did the United States, and it was easier to meet the Kyoto
goals. Nonetheless, Europe said it was willing to do hard
things to meet the CO
targets, the problem was urgent,
and the industrialized world should begin to do some-
thing immediately, and they were right.
Among all this
the United States was the
least right because the others were willing to do some-
thing while it did nothing and proposed nothing, and the
Protocol was dead in the United States throughout
the entire Bush administration. The Obama administra-
tion has been committed to action, but there has been no
action in the two attempts to renew the Protocol, which
I will call Kyoto-
“
rightness
”
.
.
Kyoto-
: The Protocol of
The Protocol was regarded by all its signatories as a
rst
attempt at control of greenhouse gas emissions.
It was
recognized at the beginning to be an imperfect instru-
ment and so had a
finite duration; it was expected to be
replaced by a better instrument where experience would
