Despite substantial international pressure, U.S. President Bush announced in March that the Kyoto Protocol for the control of greenhouse gas emissions was unacceptable to the United States. He said the protocol’s requirements were fundamentally unfair because they exempt developing countries from the emissions reduction scheme and would impose high economic costs on the United States. For example, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the official forecasting arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, predicts meeting the Kyoto greenhouse gas limits would:
In addition, economist Stephen Brown of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank compared the estimated costs and benefits in terms of reduced human and environmental harm caused by global warming if the U.S. met its Kyoto commitments. Brown found:
Under pessimistic assumptions, compliance with Kyoto would reduce U.S. GDP by from 3.6 percent to 5.1 percent, representing a loss of $1,105 to $1,565 per person, per year by 2010.
Finally, emission reductions under Kyoto will have at best a negligible effect on global warming because developing countries are not obligated to cut their emissions – and they produce nearly half of all greenhouse gases.
Source: H. Sterling Burnett, Reality and Climate Change Policy, Brief Analysis No. 367, August 15, 2001, National Center for Policy Analysis.
For text http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba367/ba367.html
For more on Global Warming http://www.ncpa.org/hotlines/global/gwhot.html
FMF\21 August 2001
