Why Signing Kyoto is Irrelevant

Via Instapundit, here's a post describing progress made by the United States in reducing emissions versus signers of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Guess what?

If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.

Not to mention most of the countries that increased CO2 emissions more than the US are significantly smaller than the US. That includes Finland (+15%), Italy (+16%) and Japan (+11%). China is up 55%. But that's no surprise because one of the great flaws of the Kyoto Protocol is not placing any emission reduction requirements on developing countries (like China and India). These countries were some of the first people to sign on because they were basically voting in favor of restricting their economic competitors.

The article posts a link to the absolute figures so you can compare them for yourself.

But this article points out another great flaw in the environmental movement besides their gloom-and-doom message, too many people care more about being seen signing a treaty versus actual results in reducing emissions. They want to look like their doing something as opposed to actually doing it.