Kyoto

The Anchoress blogged about several "reality based" pieces on Kyoto:

1. Britain Considers Energy Rationing to Meet Kyoto Obligations
   British residents could face a form of energy rationing within the next decade under proposals currently being studied to reduce the U.K.'s carbon dioxide emissions to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. Under the proposals, known as Domestic Tradable Quotas (DTQs), every individual would be issued a "carbon card," from which points would be deducted every time the cardholder purchased fossil fuel, for example, by filling up a car or taking a flight. Over time, the number of points allotted to each card would decline. High-energy users would be able to purchase points from low-energy users, with the end result being a trading market in carbon similar to the one already in place in the U.K. for industrial users.
2. Gassy Senators
   If the U.S. had ratified the Kyoto treaty, it would have had to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Bipartisan opposition sank the treaty, and it wasn't even mentioned in the Democrats' 2004 platform — although its demise is always attributed in the press to the work of President Bush alone. With Kyoto itself off the table, senators have been busy trying to forge a Kyoto-lite. John McCain is promoting a bill that mandates emissions be cut to 2000 levels by 2010. Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico) has proposed a competing bill that wouldn't reduce the absolute level of carbon-dioxide emissions, but their rate of increase. The game is to get any restriction, no matter how piddling, on carbon-dioxide emissions. As environmental analyst Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute argues, the debate then will forevermore be not whether emissions should be capped, but by how much. Thus, the U.S. will enter a new era of restrictions on its energy consumption. Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of coal, oil and natural gas, which account for 85 percent of all energy consumed by Americans. The point of all this is to — insert senatorial furrowed brow here — address the "crisis" of global warming. Global warming is real, and it is probably at least partly man-made. The temperature has risen 0.6 degrees Celsius throughout the past century. Somehow, we still manage to inhabit this planet Earth. It is unclear what catastrophe would occur if, under one of the estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the temperature increased another 1.4 degrees Celsius throughout the next 100 years.
3. See what it has done to New Zealand
   NZ is likely to overshoot greenhouse gas emission Kyoto targets by 30 million tons, reversal of which will cost taxpayers $1 billion or more, going from $500 million in the black to $500 million in the red
4. See what it has done to Ireland
   The growth of the Irish economy in the 1990’s was disproportionately high compared to other countries. This has resulted in Ireland already exceeding its limit. Looking forward, the best estimates put Ireland producing green house gases at a level 35% above its 1990 base in 2008-2012 without emission reduction measures. It would be difficult for Ireland to meet its commitments under the 1997 Protocol without profoundly undermining the country’s ability to compete.

The thing that is wrong with Kyoto is that it exempts countries like China and India, who are rapidly industrializing, and this is what has kept oil prices so high, even with increases in production. It is absoutely foolish for the West to criple its own economies trying to fix the problem, with these two countries generating more new polution that the West can cut back. All countries should be required to cut back emissions if any country is.