Forbes article - Bye-Bye Kyoto

In the Jan. 9, 2006, Forbes' issue, there is a couple great articles. The 1st deals with Wealth and Growth not being zero sum games - Rich Karlgaard, and an article on the Kyoto accord by Dan Seligman.

Rick Karlgaard's article can be accessed through Forbes.com. Bye-bye Kyoto discusses the true failure of the 1997 Greenhouse gas reduction accord. Some key points are:

• Tony Blair, once a strong supporter, is no longer. He states that no country is going to cut its growth. Since no country knows how to cut emissions without cutting growth, those words can be taken as proof of failure for the Kyoto agreement.
• The goal was to get emisions lower than the 1990 levels, the results are (change since agreement was signed) :

1. German: has reduced carbon dioxide (not sure what %)
2. France: +7%
3. Italy: +11%
4. Spain: + 29%
5. Europe overall: + 5.4%

• China & India are exempt but produce more carbon dioxide than all of western Europe
• The USA (lots of industry for the world) produces more than all China & India combined.

Bottom Line: Be thankful that this flawed agreement was never signed by the USA. Our congress rejected it as did our leader, GW.