Kyoto Compromise Still Not Good for U.S., World

Washington, DC, July 23, 2001—An 11th-hour compromise on how to address climate change reached among 178 countries in Bonn, Germany is a major defeat for global warming alarmists, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said today.  It is largely a symbolic agreement designed to put pressure on the U.S.  It will have no effect on global temperatures.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

“Hypocrisy seems to be the national currency for international treaties these days,” said CEI president Fred Smith in response to the compromise.  “President Bush has stood up against a lot of pressure from other countries trying to force us back into Kyoto, and hopefully he will continue to do so.”

The deal, struck over the weekend, differs from the original Kyoto global warming treaty in two areas:

According to some Kyoto supporters, the compromise reduces the amount industrialized countries need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 5.2% to about 2% below 1990 levels over the next 11 years.  The compromise does give more freedom to countries in the number of “carbon sinks” they can use, a major concession to Japan by the European Union.  “Sinks” include trees and other vegetation that absorb carbon.

“This is a lesson to President Bush that when you claim to walk away from a treaty, you need to actually walk away from it.  In this case, that means to remove the signature that’s still on the treaty,” said Chris Horner, adjunct analyst at CEI and counsel to the Cooler Heads Coalition, which studies the science, economics, and politics of global warming.  Horner has been attending the climate change talks in Bonn.

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