story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=106&ncid=742&e=4&u=/nypost/20031228/cm_nypost/kyotoprotocolrip

KYOTO PROTOCOL, R.I.P.
Sun Dec 28, 3:34 AM ET

The Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on greenhouse-gas emissions has apparently been rejected by Russia, a major blow to the treaty's hypocritical European proponents.

President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)'s chief economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, said in Moscow this month: "Of course, in its present form, this protocol cannot be ratified. It is impossible to undertake responsibilities that place serious limits on the country's growth."

A Russian junior minister responsible for Kyoto later qualified this statement, saying that "There are no decisions about ratification other than that we are moving towards [it]."

But the truth is that Kyoto is dead, and has been for some time.

If the Russians officially reject the 1997 accord, it will simply put it utterly beyond any form of resuscitation - fortunately for the world economy and the prosperity of billions of people.

Without Russian ratification, the treaty can't enter force among its signatories, because by its own provisions it can't take effect until ratified by countries whose combined greenhouse-gas production accounts for at least 55 percent of emissions from industrialized nations.

Russia accounts for 17 percent of greenhouse emissions; the United States for 36 percent. (Australia, like the United States, has already withdrawn its provisional signature of the treaty.)

And the plain fact is that without the participation of the United States, the treaty is a dead letter.

President Bush (news - web sites) is constantly pilloried by his opponents here and abroad for rejecting his predecessor's signing of the Kyoto treaty, even though the protocol was essentially rendered moot when the U.S. Senate voted against it 95-0 even before the Clinton administration had signed it.

Fifty of the 120 countries that signed the treaty have yet to ratify it, and many of those that have done so may have little intention of following its dictates.

(France, for instance, has a long history of choosing to ignore economically inconvenient European Union (news - web sites) environmental regulations.)

The Russians were smart to say no to a treaty that, if followed, would have crippled Putin's efforts to rebuild the country's ailing economy.

Remember: It isn't even proven beyond a reasonable doubt that global warming is actually a product of human economic activity.

Then, too, the Kyoto Protocol was always rigged to give its European authors an economic edge over the United States.

More important is that the protocol exempts India, China and other key developing nations from its strictures even though they are among the world's biggest polluters. (Indeed, Kyoto exempts nine of the top 20 emitters of carbon dioxide.)

The further development of these two countries, with their billion-plus populations all craving the refrigeration and air conditioning that's taken for granted in the West, will make them huge producers of so-called greenhouse gasses.

And there is no doubt if the United States had accepted Kyoto's rules it would have had a huge negative impact on American jobs.

Kyoto was a bad idea in 1997, and it's a bad idea today.

If President Putin's government scotches all remaining hope for its coming into effect, Russia will have done the whole world a favor.

Wonderful.  Now the countries that were foolish enough to sign it, like New Zealand, can get around to repeal their job-killing legislation they passed to support Kyoto.

Another mush-headed liberal fantasy destroyed by cold hard reality. I love it when a plan comes together.

Glad to see the Russians got their heads out of their asses on this one.

Hey!  I wonder what our home-grown liberals...aka "one-world, fellow travelers" will have to say about this!  How ironic...that their old pals kill it.  No wait...they'll blame it on BushCo for coercing the new capitalist pigs in Russia into killing it.

What a stupid thing that Kyoto POS was.

Good riddance!

Here's some funny shit!

[b]Bad Religion[/b] - "Kyoto now!"

It’s a matter of prescience -no, not the science fiction kind
It’s all about ignorance, and greed, and miracles for the blind
The media parading, disjointed politics
Founded on petrochemical plunder, and we’re it’s hostages

If you stand to reason you’re in the game
The rules might be elusive but our pieces are the same
And you know if one goes down we all go down as well
The balance is precarious as anyone can tell - this world’s going to hell

Don’t allow this mythologic hopeful monster to exact it’s price
Kyoto now!

We can’t do nothing and think someone else will make it right
You might not think it matters now but what if you are wrong
You might not think there’s any wisdom in a fucked up punk rock song
But the way it is cannot persist for long

A brutal sun is rising on our sick horizon
It’s in the way we live our lives
Exactly like the double edge of a cold familiar knife
And supremacy weighs heavy on the day
It’s never really what you own but what you threw away - and how much did you pay?

Don’t allow this mythologic hopeful monster to exact it’s price
Kyoto now!

[u]We need a fresh and new religion to run our lives
Hand in hand the arid torpor of inaction will be our demise[/u]

Oh, Kyoto now!

[>(]NOT

The greenies/liberals like to say that the USA creates the majority of these gases and consumes  a major portion of the world's petroleum, while only a small portion of the world's population. But those folks leave out the very important details such as the USA is a major dominate force in trade with all of the other countries in the world. Plus we GIVE away more money in foreign aid etc.