What difference did the Kyoto protocol make and that’s before you consider 3rd World development
04 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth miracles, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: climate alarmism clock, climate treaties, expressive voting, free-riders, Kyoto Protocol, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
The numbers behind any shift to a lower carbon economy simply don’t add up
24 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: carbon trading, climate alarmism, expressive voting, global warming, Kyoto Protocol, power prices, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Obama is doing a Clinton on climate change agreements
12 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, politics - USA Tags: climate alarmism, expressive politics, global warming, international law, Kyoto Protocol
Last week, I planned to write a blog about how Obama might do a Clinton: safe in the knowledge that Congress will never approve any of his climate change agreements, he will run round the world signing up to all sorts of ambitious carbon emission reduction goals.
The agreement Obama just signed today with the Chinese after the secret talks over the congressional election period is an example. This secret agreement goes to show that the Obama administration can actually keep a secret.
The agreement with China and any other futures similar agreements will win Obama brownie points with the Left of his party, but not bother anyone else in particular because they know they’ll never get through Congress.
The moment Bush took office in 2001, the Democrats started asking why wouldn’t Bush submit the Kyoto protocol to the Senate for ratification.
Bill Clinton had 801 days left in his administration after he signed the Kyoto protocol in December 1997 to submit it for Senate ratification. He did not lift a finger.
Clinton was safe in the knowledge that prior to the signing of the Kyoto protocol, the Senate voted 95 to nil in July 1997 to not ratify any treaty on climate change that did not impose mandatory obligations on Russia, China and other major developing countries.
President Clinton approved and signed into law appropriations bills for fiscal years 1999, 2000, and 2001 that included language prohibiting the Environmental Protection Agency from using its funds to “issue rules, regulations, decrees, or orders for the purpose of implementation, or in preparation for implementation, of the Kyoto Protocol” until the Protocol is ratified by the Senate and entered into force under the terms of the treaty.
The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent reduction against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.
Developing countries, including China and India, weren’t mandated to reduce emissions, given that they’d contributed a relatively small share of the current century-plus build-up of CO2.
The Europeans were happy to sign the Kyoto Protocol after the Americans pulled out because the emissions trading price in any such protocol would be very low because no American companies would have to buy emission credits.
The intriguing public choice history of the Kyoto protocol
21 Mar 2014 Leave a comment
in climate change, environmental economics, Public Choice Tags: Al Gore, Copenhagen Summit, expressive voting, Kyoto Protocol
The US Senate voted 95-0 in July 1997 that the Kyoto Protocol would not be ratified because it excluded certain developing countries, including India and China, from having to comply with new emissions standards.
Disregarding the Senate Resolution, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the Protocol on November 12, 1998.
Knowing that the Kyoto Protocol would not be passed without the inclusion of developing countries in some way, Clinton did not even send the Protocol to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Clinton had 801 days in office to submit it, but did not. As it was going to be rejected, it cost him nothing to sign it and he won the support of expressive voters. Bush was criticised for not doing what Clinton also failed to do.
The EU made demands that the USA would not accept so that the treaty would not include the USA. This allowed EU ministers to look good to expressive voters back home by standing staunch and not compromising.
US non-participation made participation cheaper for the EU because the USA would not be competing for carbon credits, so the price of carbon would be much less.
There was an emergency night time meeting to save the Copenhagen Summit called by Gordon Brown. He was joined by Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel and PM Hatoyama of Japan. To make a point, China sent a rather out-spoken vice foreign minister of foreign affairs. He was the smartest guy in the room.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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