Cynical Abuse of Environmental Concern by Government
Just a facet of the cynical abuse of environmental concern by government.
...the 1990 reference date for Kyoto was not just picked randomly. In
fact, on its face, it was a bit odd for a treaty negotiated in 1997 to
use a 1990 base year. But 1990 allowed signatory countries to claim
credit for a lot of improvements in CO2 output that had nothing to do
with the treaty. For example, in Germany, 1990 was after unification [official merger of the two German states GDR and FRG was 3. October 1990, G.T.]
but before wildly inefficient east German factories had been shut down.
...
Since the treaty was actually signed, from 1997 to 2005, countries that ratified the treaty had emissions rise 21%. When the treaty was signed in 1997, the signatories knew they had this pool of 1990-1995 emissions reductions to draw on to claim victory. To this day, this is the only improvement they can show, improvement that occurred before the treaty and through steps unrelated, in the main, to CO2 abatement.
...
Since the treaty was actually signed, from 1997 to 2005, countries that ratified the treaty had emissions rise 21%. When the treaty was signed in 1997, the signatories knew they had this pool of 1990-1995 emissions reductions to draw on to claim victory. To this day, this is the only improvement they can show, improvement that occurred before the treaty and through steps unrelated, in the main, to CO2 abatement.
For the full post, go to Climate Skeptic.
I never tire to point out that CO2 is irrelevant to Global Warming (of which I am very fond, while sadly suspecting that it is on the wane) - or more cautiously: there are no grounds to consider CO2 emissions the problem that they are presented to be, while you are being robbed of billions to finance yet another white elephant.
Also, see the RedStateEclectic post entitled Epistemic Consequences of Totalitarian Democracy.
