Originally published August 20 2005
Six-nation global warming accord led by the U.S. is insufficient, experts say
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Experts say a global warming accord between the United States, China, Japan, India, South Korea and Australia fails to set specific goals to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and is inadequate compared to the 1997 U.N. Kyoto protocol, a 152-nation pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that the United States, the world's biggest polluter, pulled out of in 2001.
A U.S.-led Asian-Pacific accord on spreading technology to fight global warming has hazy targets and is unlikely to end up supplanting the far broader U.N. Kyoto protocol, experts said on Thursday.
Unlike the 152-nation Kyoto pact, the six-country accord between the United States, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea sets no binding goals for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels blamed for rising temperatures.
Most experts said the pact was unlikely to undermine Kyoto, partly because it was limited and echoed a 1992 U.N. Climate Convention that most nations concluded was inadequate to curb a buildup of greenhouse gases caused by human activity.
This is more or less repeating that effort, but with more vague goals and fewer countries," said Jorund Buen, a partner at Point Carbon analysis group.
The United States, the world's biggest polluter, and Australia are the only main developed nations outside the 1997 Kyoto pact, designed to limit a buildup of heat-trapping gases that many scientists fear will trigger more storms, droughts and flooding and cause sea levels to rise.
However, Kyoto excludes developing nations such as China and India, home to a third of humanity, from a first period of targets to 2012.
Some experts were unsure whether to hail the six-nation deal, building on existing agreements on sharing more efficient energy technology, or to see it as an attempt by Washington and Canberra to snipe at Kyoto.
The European Commission welcomed the plan, on condition it did not challenge Kyoto.
President Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto pact in 2001, saying it would cost U.S. jobs and was unfair for excluding developing nations until 2012.
"It doesn't address the wider question that two of the richest countries in the world are doing nothing to reduce emissions," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at Greenpeace.
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