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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Jan-06
Kyoto protocol is evidently dead as European countries fail to comply

Web Log - January, 2006

Kyoto protocol is evidently dead as European countries fail to comply

Among the EU countries, only UK and Sweden are on target to meet requirements, according to a study by a UK-based environmental think-tank.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), all of the 13 other EU countries are either coming no closer to their targets, or are actually slipping farther behind by increasing, rather than reducing, their carbon dioxide emissions.

In fact, Britain itself has recently been increasing its carbon dioxide emissions, but is still on target because of a quirk in the way the treaty was set up, according to the BBC World Service: It's based on 1990 carbon dioxide emission levels, and Britain decreased its emissions in the early 1990s when it made a major switch from using coal to using gas in producing energy. However, since that switch, emissions have been increasing.

The irony about this is that United States has been repeatedly condemned by countries around the world, including the EU countries, for refusing to sign the Kyoto treaty. (Among the major developed countries, only America and Australia have failed to sign.)

The drama was really great at an international meeting early in December, when America refused to even participate in meetings about signing the treaty, and was skewered by country after country, including most EU countries.

Adoption of the Kyoto protocol has been fraught with problems. In mid-December, New Zealand scrapped the protocol as unworkable. Interestingly, about half of its greenhouse gases come from the methane and carbon-dioxide emissions generated by more than 50 million sheep and cattle.

The Kyoto protocol treaty has been a cynical political joke. Russia signed the protocol in 2004, but only because Russia stands to make billions of dollars from the treaty. Once again, this is because of the same quirk in the treaty, because Russian industries have been converting from coal to oil.

China and India also signed the treaty. They produce enormous amounts of pollution, but they're excused from the treaty requirements because they're "developing countries."

And so it goes. Another ridiculous display by politicians around the world.

Indeed, the Kyoto protocol requirements could never have been met. Generational Dynamics shows that energy usage grows exponentially over time, and it's impossible to stop with a tax. Only new technologies will solve the problem. Politics will have no effect whatsoever.

It reminds me of the G-8 meeting last June, where the "richest" countries of the world vowed to cure poverty in Africa during the next decade. But the sheer size of Africa makes that impossible, as I explained at length at the time, and the politicians know it. But they all patted themselves on the back for making promises that they knew could not be fulfilled.

Or, how about the genocidal war in Darfur, Sudan? From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, it was clearly a genocidal crisis war, based on fault lines defined by race, skin color, religion and ethnicity. When the news broke last year in June, 2004, I predicted that the UN would fail to stop the war before it runs its course. This kind of genocidal crisis war is a force of nature, and that the UN can no more stop it than they can stop a typhoon.

As I predicted, the United Nations did absolutely nothing to stop the genocide. but the U.N. solved its political problem a year ago by declaring that the Darfur was was "not genocide," despite the mass murders and rapes and forced relocation of millions of people. It was a sickeningly cynical political act by the United Nations, an organization that's evidently incapable of doing anything that isn't sickeningly cynical.

As I've said before, Generational Dynamics and this web site do not take political sides. I think that pretty much all politicians -- Republican or Democrat, left or right, liberal or conservative -- act like idiots most of the time.

This political paralysis is occurring around the world, especially in the countries that fought in WW II. The effect of this political paralysis is to allow political decisions to be made by younger generations of terrorists and extremists. If anything good comes out of this morass is that the ridiculous Kyoto treaty may finally be shown to be dead, but the demise of the Kyoto treaty shows how world paralysis is leading to a new world war. (4-Jan-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Jan-06 Kyoto protocol is evidently dead as European countries fail to comply

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Jan-06
Kyoto protocol is evidently dead as European countries fail to comply