The Kyoto Protocol: How Far Have We Come?

In Kyoto, Japan, in December of 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) did something remarkable. After much deliberation and bitter compromise, a coalition of over one hundred countries, including the United States, finalized negotiations on a document that set out specific, concrete, inescapable regulations on the future carbon emissions of all signing countries with the express goal of stabilizing the world’s greenhouse gases; called the Kyoto Protocol, the agreement was intended to capture the spirit of change and progressive idealism prevalent during this fateful conference. . Almost ten years later, the effects of this bold action can be seen around the steadily warming globe, with moderate to dramatic emission reductions in hundreds of nations, from Japan to France to Brazil; unfortunately, America is notably absent from the list of signatories who have actually ratified the treaty, and thus is not obligated, nor, apparently, inclined to honor the guidelines set out by the Kyoto committee.

Despite widespread support for the ratification of the treaty since its inception, Washington has carefully sidestepped the seemingly simple decision to support the treaty; the current President has refused to submit it to Congress for its official approval, citing several aspects of the agreement he views as “unfair.” Among the White House’s more commonly used rationalizations is the higher reduction requirements bestowed upon America as compared with China and India, nations exempted from Kyoto but which are independently pursuing aggressive alternative energy policies despite their status as developing nations. The President has stated that although the United States is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the burden of fixing the planet “is a challenge that requires a 100% effort; ours, and the rest of the world's.”

Although the treaty has been criticized by the American political machine for being “flawed,” and although America pledges to be behind efforts to stop Global Warming, very few efforts to pass significant environmental legislation, “fair” or otherwise, succeeded in Washington for several years; indeed, only after Al Gore’s return to prominence did it become passé to dismiss global warming as an unproven anomaly without scientific basis. While much of Europe has mandated that alternative energy be a government sponsored growth industry, and that cars should have an average fuel economy of 43 miles to the gallon, America remains patriotically stubborn, arrogantly aloof to her responsibilities as a world leader.

Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, this is not America’s first time being the odd man out on the world stage. Woodrow Wilson’s Treaty of Versailles was a similarly radical and progressive document when it was hammered out at the end of World War I; with the promising League of Nations, it provided both a glimmer of hope to war-torn Europe, and a possible solution to the ever-growing problem of violence in an increasingly complicated world. Sadly, the treaty was born without teeth, claws, fists, or other means of enforcement of its ideals, since America, who had emerged from the war unscathed as the world’s newest superpower, refused to support it. The League, though well-intentioned, was thus severely handicapped and was doomed to fail; if it hadn’t, if the US had been wise enough and noble enough to do the right thing and sign the treaty, the further conflicts that led to World War II could arguably have been prevented. But America’s judgement was clouded by egotism, much as it is today, and although many Americans believe that they have a duty as privileged and civilized citizens of the planet to do their part to save it, much as many pacifists did in the years after the Great War, the US government, with its close ties to the energy industry and its allergy to conservation spending, has once again sabotaged the planet through ignorance and arrogance..