Kyoto update

As some of you might recall, I raised the issue of the Kyoto protocol awhile back to point out what the press rarely does: the countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol are no where close to achieving their goals. In fact, that's one of the reasons President Bush doesn't want to sign on to another agreement that no one adheres to--he sees them as colossal wastes of time. Also, while he knows that no one will come even close to their "binding" targets of emission reductions, he knows that if America were to sign such a treaty and miss their goal by .001% the press would go nuts over it. For the record, since Bush took office, greenhouse emissions have been reduced 0.8%, which is pretty impressive (as it means we haven't INCREASED over that time) and in line with the European gains over that time.

CNN.com committed a grave error yesterday in actually reporting the truth of the failure of the Kyoto protocols. Of course, they buried it near the end of the story under an irrelevant headline, so they probably won't get in too much trouble. Their story today has no mention of these facts, so I'll reprint them for your edification:

Here are the targets, according to CNN:

The targets vary by region: The European Union initially committed to cutting emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels; the United States agreed to a 7 percent reduction before Bush denounced the pact in 2001, saying it would cost too much and exacerbate a bothersome energy problem for the world's largest consumer of fossil fuels.

And how are we all doing?

Canada is up there with Spain, Ireland, Greece and five other nations as having the biggest increases in gas emissions. According to the United Nations, Spain is the worst, with a nearly 42 percent increase in emissions between 1990 and 2003; Canada stands at 24 percent and the United States experienced an increase of 13 percent [which had to happen under Clinton if the 0.8% reduction number is right].

What's this? Without magically signing the enchanted piece of paper known as "Kyoto" we're doing better than CANADA? But we don't have any of the magical fairy dust that is dispensed when you sign the protocol!

The rest of the story is how the environmentalists are hysterical over the fact that the US won't sign on to more imaginary goals. On says: "We cannot do without the Americans because they represent 25 percent of emissions, and an even greater percentage of the [imaginary] solution." How infuriating it must be to be the U.S. representative at one of these things to be constantly berated by hypocrisy on such a global scale. The EU is calling for an even greater percentage reduction beyond the reduction it already won't meet and has made no effort to meet. When will the press finally point out the stark fact that we were all supposed to learn as children: saying something is different than doing something.