(SwimJim) wrote in
om:

Thomas Palm wrote in message
The Kyoto treaty is still nice to have in place until something
better has been worked out, flawed as it is. If you look at all the
complaints against the treaty you will find that they are quite
contradictory and these contradictions are going to plague any
further treaties too.

My focus has always been on how Kyoto is phrased; it expects
countries to make self-sacrificing moves that are not in their
national interest. It seems to me already obvious that the signees
can't live up to their commitments, and I really doubt that most of
them want to try.

The Montreal treaty seems to have worked pretty well. Of course, with USA
painting a big bullseye on itself and providing a good excuse for eveyone
else to cheat it is going to be harder with the Kyoto treaty. Why should
small polluters be nice when the richest and largest doesn't give a damn?
(For CFC:s USA, Sweden and a few other countries even started to limit
emissions long before the Montreal treaty or any international
obligation. Those were the days!)

For a treaty like this to work, it's got to be designed to cater to
national interests. Like a scorecard. A country gets points awarded
for each program it implements, for each reduction it achieves, for
each unit of hybrid vehicles that its citizens drive. The points
translate into real things: discounted prices on the world market for
vital commodities might be an example. Or contracts with other
countries for specific business objectives. You trade success on
pollution and energy consevation for something else.

That is not how international treaties are normally written. We have the
ICJ where countries can sue each other for violating treaties, but it
can't enforce its verdicts. Usually countries cooperate anyway because a
good international reputation has intangible benefits.

I don't see how a treaty could cause discount on world market prices
anyway. Do you propose a carbon tax to pay for this, or do you expect big
exporters to subsidize exports out of their own pocket? What is to stop
the countries receiving these lower prices from selling the goods on
anyway?

A global carbon tax used to finance UN and international aid might be
nice in theory, but it's never going to be accepted.

I don't know China's status regarding the Kyoto Protocol, since
they were specifically exempted, along with India. I would have
expected that they'd ratify it for that reason.

Good guess. China ratified the Kyoto treaty 30/08/02
http://unfccc.int/resource/kpstats.pdf

It was a good guess. I couldn't imagine China not signing something
that favored their interests like that.

It's not that obvious. China must realize that in the next round they may
end up with restrictions on their own emissions and China tends to favor
national sovereignty as a matter of principle too. I don't know whether
they really care about the problem or just figure that with USA stalling
the process it won't cost anything to play nice.