Climate Politics and the US

The US is now the greatest obstruction to the World Battle against Climate Change.

Climate Change urgently requires globally coordinated action to effectively bring it under control : so far the United states of America, the most powerful nation in the world, has proved the greatest force acting against any such globally coordinated action.

The only attempt so far made to achieve the globally coordinated action urgently needed to fight climate change has been the Kyoto Treaty, which took many years of hard work and complicated negotiations to achieve. In March 2001 the then new Republican President of the US, George W Bush, dumped the Kyoto treaty in an act of arrogant and high-handed irresponsibility that shocked the world . Though the Kyoto treaty is nothing like as strong as it needs to be it makes some kind of a start to putting the brakes on the slide towards catastrophe, and embodies the principle that there must be mandatory limits to the greenhouse gas emissions of all the nations round the world.

The Kyto Protocol was an agreement reached in 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, by which industrialised nations would initially cut their 'greenhouse gas' emissions by 5%. The climate talks in the Hague, in November 2000 were supposed to finalise the treaty and put it into action, but the US - then under the Democrat Clinton administration - tried to find excuses and loopholes, essentially to avoid doing their share, and as a result the talks broke down without making any progress. The following March the new Republican President George W Bush declared outright that the Kyoto agreement was of "no interest'' to his administration. The rest of the world agreed to go ahead with the Kyoto Treaty, in Bonn, in July 2001, in defiance of the US, but the action of the US strengthened the hand of those who wanted to weaken the treaty and thereby caused it to be (even) weaker than it would otherwise have been.

But many nations subsequently ratifed the treaty, culminating with Russia in November 2004. The ratification by Russia meant that the essential 'quorum' of ratifying countries had now been reached (that is 'countries accounting for 55% of global emissions in 1990') and the Kyoto Protocol therefore came into force (90 days after Russian ratification) on 16th February 2005.

But the USA continues to refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and has, indeed, dragged one other major developed country, along with it. Australia (which has a huge coal industry), under the US-leaning administration of premier John Howard, has also refused to ratify the Protocol. These are the only two major developed countries not to ratify, but their short-sighted intransigence is blocking any really effective progress towards dealing with the climate threat, by the world community.

Some Facts About the U.S.

The US is responsible for about one quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, with only about 4% of world population. Since 1990 emissions in the US have increased by 20% while experts warn that industrialized nations must reduce their CO2 emmisions by 60% by the middle of this century. Furthermore, while other countries are working to reduce their emissions, Bush's energy plan ensures that US emissions will continue to rise

What is behind the US opposition to Kyoto and any meaningful action to control Climate Change ?
The answer to this lies in the fact that the Bush adminstration is more transparently and overwhelmingly controlled by special interests - wealthy corporations that fund the Republican party and wield immense power in the US political system - than any before it. These wealthy corporations include many from the fosil fuel industry which has especially strong and close links with the current administration. Those who control the fossil fuel industry fear that their profits will be cut if action is taken to reduce the CO2 emissions (created by the burning of fossil fuels - oil, coal and gas) that cause global warming. They lobbied hard to get Bush to dump the Kyoto treaty and dictate his current energy policies. Chief amongst these is the world's biggest oil company, ExxonMobil ("Esso" in the UK) and many environmental organisations, like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, are now urging a boycott of this company on the basis that it has done more than any other corporation to sabotage progress in tackling Climate Change. They have launched the 'Stopesso' campaign : check out their website at :

More About Kyoto

The Kyoto agreement was only ever meaningful as a "starting point". It proposes reductions of 5% - though the many loopholes in the agreement mean that even that is not likely to be achieved. Meanwhile the experts warn that reductions of 60% are needed by mid-century, or around 90% for developed countries, which have a higher target since they are responsible for the bulk of emissions to date. (Though given the fact that new research is continually revising the speed at which the climate is changing in an upwards direction, even that might be optimistic !) So even with Kyoto - as agreed - up and running there is a vey long way to go, and essentially a revolution in the way we produce energy to bring about. There has been proposed a model by which deeper emissions cuts could be made, on an equitable basis, progressing towards an ultimate goal of emissions-allowance allocation on a per capita basis (ie every person on earth has a right to emit the same amount of CO2). This is known as 'Contraction and Convergence' : see www.gci.org.uk for more info on this.

Ironically the weakness of the Kyoto Treaty is actually used as an argument against it by those who would like to weaken it yet further ! But in terms of internationally coordinated action - with agreed mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions - the Kyoto treaty is "the only show in town",....or "a fragile talisman of hope" (as Jeremy Leggett of 'Solar Century" has put it).

Another complaint made about the Kyoto Protocol is that it only obliges indstrialised countries to reduce their emissions: developing countries like China and India do not have to. But this is only fair because by far the greater part of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now, has been put there by the industrialised countries - not to mention the fact that it is naturally much easier for richer nations to take action and make sacrifices, than poorer ones. It is entirely right that they should take the first step and lead the way. However the rapid increase of greenhouse gas emissions from the rapidly developing countries, like China and India poses a huge threat to the stability of global climate. That makes it all the more urgent that the long-industrialised countries set a good example, point the way to a low-carbon model for development and take the first step towards the coordinated international action to fight climate change, that we need.

Whilst it is important that the Kyoto treaty and all it stands for is kept going and kept alive it cannot form the basis for effective globally coordinated measures against climate change without the participation of the U.S. By refusing to cooperate with the international community on this the US has effectively put a stranglehold on all progress towards dealing with the climate change threat at a global level. It is often said that the US will have to come on board the treaty eventually but in the meantime we are losing precious time in the race against escalating climate change : we simply do not know how much irreperable damage we have done already and the consequences of further delay in taking effective action, in terms of the suffering and loss of life of future generations, is quite incalculable.

The preoccupation of the US with its own selfish short term interests to the exclusion of any concern about this potential catastrophe of quite unparallelled scale for all the peoples of the world, may come, in due course, to rank as the most staggeringly criminal folly of all time.