Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed by a coalition of countries worldwide that are committed to reducing emissions and pollution in an international effort to stop the growing threat of global warming. Ratified in 2002, the legally binding agreement will try to accomplish a 5.2 percent cut in emissions without the participation of one of the leading nations on the planet, the United States.

Global warming is an increase in temperature of the Earth's atmosphere that can lead to changes in global climate. While greenhouse gases are necessary to keep Earth at a livable temperature, global warming prevents the heat from these gases from bouncing off the Earth's surface and back into space. Instead, it keeps the heat bouncing back and forth and thus raises the overall temperature of the planet to unsafe levels. These levels could cause terrible storm systems or disrupt the seasons. In the long term, it could lead to flooding of coastal regions of the world.

[Page 978]Noticing the growing problem, leaders of nations from around the world met in Kyoto, Japan, to address this issue. They developed an accord that required each nation to cut its emissions and gases significantly, depending on its own emission levels. The cuts would be apportioned with 8 percent cuts by Switzerland and most of the European Union, 7 percent by the United States, and 6 percent by Canada, Hungary, Russia, Japan, and Poland. These goals were agreed to be met between 2008 and 2012. This would lead to a 5.2 percent cut in emissions by the entire industrialized world. To be a valid treaty, the accord needed to account for 55 percent of the world's emissions. With Russia signing the accord in November 2004, the treaty was validated.

The United States chose not to sign the treaty on the grounds that “the changes would be too costly to introduce and the agreement is flawed.” Many nations expected the United States, as a world leader, to sign the accord, President George W. Bush instead created voluntary incentive-based programs for companies to reduce emissions and has created programs to enhance and further climate technology.

President Bush defended his position against the Kyoto Protocol by explaining that complying with its strict rules would result in a loss of $400 billion to industry and 4.9 million jobs to U.S. citizens. Businesses would be forced to retool their factories or simply shut them down, which would both hurt shareholders and the factory workers who lose their jobs. Also, Bush stated that he would not sign a treaty that required only the United States to make some cuts that would, in the end, give smaller countries more power and raise the cost of living for Americans. Following a Reagan-style government, Bush decided that instead of telling American businesses when and how to cut pollution, he would give them a deadline and a goal. He would let them find their own innovative ways to make their cuts so that they can do it in a way less harmful to the interests of their companies.

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