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In this article I will explain the main reason the Kyoto Accord does not make sense.
I am an environmentalist, arguing against Kyoto.

I will omit discussion about whether or not it is okay for a country to sign a treaty and then back out. It`s a discussion for another article. For what it`s worth, I see the international arena to be a zero-sum power struggle, so at that level nothing matters but cost-benefit analysis.

On to Kyoto...

They Kyoto Treaty makes absolutely no sense, for a number of reasons.
1) It Won`t Help Anything
The Kyoto Accord sets out goals for developed nations to lower their emissions to pre-1990 levels. Any time America slows production to this end, production will pick up elsewhere. The environment does not care if we shift the blame. In any case, in order to reverse global warming we need to lower world emissions by something like 85%.
2) The burden is unfair
The developing nations are the ones who stand to be hit earliest and hardest by global warming (by rising water levels, drought, etc..) Yet, it is they who are exempted from the precautionary efforts. So, in essence, America is told to curtail its own economic growth for negligible, if any, benefit to other countries.

Further, our problems cannot be solved by more government control. It is government controls that take us away from the real market forces that will bring sustainability. Waste is not efficient, and it should be costly. When the government subsidizes energy, it is asking us to conserve energy, and then making it affordable for us to waste it. If the true value of energy were reflected in the prices, people would conserve energy and act responsibly out of self-interest.

Ultimately, the answer is that America should not follow through Kyoto. In terms of efforts to do its part environmentally, America should encourage R&D in self-sustainability and let the price of energy represent it`s true value, so that more than just guilt keeps Americans from wasting energy.

Learn more about this author, J Kleiman.
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