President Bush's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol (or indeed the very idea that we should try to do anything about human-induced climate change) is well known - but obviously, not everyone in the US shares his views. And so, they're working around him. Officials in nine north-eastern states have reached a preliminary deal to reduce power plant emissions, first freezing them at current levels, then slashing them by 10% by 2020. This is a fairly unambitious target, especially compared with the target of 7% below 1990 levels that the US would have had to meet by 2012 if it had stayed in the Kyoto process, but it's a start. And if it provokes the sort of technological change that saw the UK's emissions improve (a block-replacement of old coal-fired generation plant with new, more efficient gas) then it may succeed by far more than that.
It probably is more important as a way of proving (or testing) that it doesnt hurt that much to protect the environment.
ReplyDeleteMan so you mean Bush the squelcher of freedom is not standing all over states' rights? Who'd have thunk it.
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