Comment & Debate
Leslie Evans. “Kyoto Protocol Said to Harm Effort to Stop Global Warming–But There Is Something Better”. UCLA International Institute. May 25, 2007 – 3. It is unlikely the Kyoto Protocol will be expanded. The defenders of the Protocol, Verweij said, “have always argued that it is only the first step. The problem is that there may not be a second step. There may not even be a first step. A leading Brazilian civil servant has told me that there is no chance there will be a second Kyoto Protocol. The second step would have to bring in the United States as well as the developing countries, which are not included in the first Kyoto Protocol. The developing countries argue that they did not create the problem in the first place. They say, we have much more important problems to deal with, such as drinking water, polluted cities. We don’t contribute much to the problem.
“The U.S. Senate doesn’t like that argument. The Bush government says that China is the second biggest emitter and that the U.S. will not participate if the developing countries do not.”
There are serious obstacles to getting the first Kyoto Protocol from the planning to the action stage. Even should all the governments get together and agree on what the problem is and what needs to be done, this does not put the Protocol into force. “This solution would have to be taken to the parliaments of each country. Government change, as in the change from Clinton to Bush, and the agreements fall apart. This does not make this a reliable vehicle to solve this environmental problem.”