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Argument: Opposition to Kyoto strains US image in the world

Issue Report: Kyoto Protocol

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“Anger at US climate retreat”. BBC. 29 Mar. 2001 – Governments and environmentalists around the world have reacted angrily to the announcement by President Bush’s administration that it will not implement the Kyoto treaty on combating global warming.

Wayne Madsen. “America will be blamed for disasters that climate change will unleash”. National Center for Policy Analysis. 1 May 2005 – Washington – On the picturesque nine coral atolls that make up the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, global warming is having a disastrous impact.

Rising sea levels threaten to make Tuvalu the first nation in the world to become extinct as a result of the failure of the Bush administration to take seriously the problem of unchecked damage to the earth’s ozone largely arising from the emission of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

In 1997, the United States and 54 other nations signed the Kyoto Protocol with a view to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, which already is melting the polar ice cap and the world’s few remaining glaciers.

In one of his first acts as president, George W. Bush thumbed his nose at science and the international community by denouncing Kyoto and pulling the United States, one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, out of the global process of limiting the ozone-layer-depleting pollutants.

Al Gore – “The evidence of this worsening crisis continues to mount. A stunning display of moral cowardice.”[1]

“Push US to sign Kyoto: Opposition”. ABC News. 28 Mar. 2008 – this morning Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt said Mr Rudd should also urge the US to follow Australia’s lead and sign Kyoto.

“When George W Bush came to Sydney they forgot to raise climate change,” he told Channel Seven.

“There was a lot of talk about it and he didn’t discuss climate change with George W Bush.

“So, starting point – raise climate change, talk about how we can get the Americans into the system. I think that that would be a very important thing for them to do.”

Worldwatch Institute – “Kyoto’s ability to survive the near-fatal attacks of the Bush administration is testimony to the urgency of the climate problem.”[2]

Laurie David, Natural Resources Defense Council – “As the world celebrates the global warming pact’s debut, Bush continues to pander to the energy industry.”[3]