I agreed with the Kyoto Accord. What was wrong with it?

Answer 1

The problem was that "developing" countries like China and India wouldn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

And any environmental treaty that exempts China and India is a rather worthless environmental treaty.

Bush opposed it because it would be bad for U.S. producers. American companies would have to follow more rules than Chinese and Indian companies, and their prices wouldn't be as competitive.

I'm no Bush fan by any means, but I suspect that he did the right thing on this (perhaps for the wrong reasons, but still). It's not that I don't support environmental protections - I do - but perhaps the U.S. refusal to sign will push countries to propose a new treaty that makes EVERYBODY play by the rules.

Answer 2

This is going to sound partisan, so I apologize in advance. Given the White House's approach to global warming (deny its existence by filling all the science positions with its detractors), it's never really had a compelling reason to agree to it. In truth, however, global warming is actually still not a proven fact - it is still speculative because there are places on the planet that has experienced a cooling phase as other parts have warmed up. In fact, there are actually places in the Antarctic where the ice sheets has actually gotten thicker/longer. Hence, Bush doesn't really want to sign the Kyoto Protocol (KP); he doesn't feel the need either.

The Protocol itself is superior to his own plan for environmental protection. The KP actually sets targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases, while his plan wants to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced per GDP unit; the reason why his plan is stupid is because even though we pollute less for what we produce, the growth of the American economy would actually rather quickly negate the benefits of lowered emissions. In more concrete terms, consider this: if I have to dump 3 units of methane into the environment for every dollar of GDP now, Bush wants to make it so that eventually, for that same dollar, I now dump 2 units of methane. That sounds really nice, but GDP grows in such a fashion that it takes a really short while to jump up to two dollars of GDP, which means I now dump 4 units of methane; in other words, what we save per unit, we offset by sheer volume.

As I understand it, the KP was killed because of ignorance, policy mistakes, and shortsightedness. Ratifying the KP would NOT hurt us that much in the long run, as the technology exists to make cleaner factories and powerplants; it's just that people have never really had sufficient impetus to implement them. Some of the cheaper clean-air technologies actually make a big difference, if used en masse. Moreover, the KP has some pretty low-tech solutions too - such as creating carbon sinks (i.e. planting trees to capture atmospheric carbon). Apparently, that wasn't as attractive as chasing the ephemeral and ever-fleeting ideal of the fuel cell, which needs 4x the energy to make as it will ever be able to produce.

So that's basically my two cents. Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Just that it would cost us billions to come into compliance with it and ruin our economy

Answer 4

what was wrong with it .............. IS THAT IT'S NOT IN THE INTEREST OF BIG OIL COMPANIES

Answer 5

money , money, money and money