Word: kyoto
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...exception of a confused statement from Japan, not one of the allies that had generally stood with the U.S. the past two weeks - Australia, Russia, Canada - rose in its defense. The near-total isolation of the U.S. on climate change - which had been building since its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol nearly a decade ago - was now obvious, apparently even to the U.S. Dobiansky turned to speak. "We've listened very closely to many of our colleagues here during these two weeks, but especially to what has been said in this hall today," she said. "We will go forward...
...extensive tropical forests - that's begun to change. Though negotiators still need to work out the details, nations here agreed to put deforestation and forest degradation - the damage of woodlands, which can also release carbon - as a main element of the climate change deal that will eventually succeed the Kyoto Protocol. That will eventually open up a new market that could be worth billions, as industrialized nations that need to reduce carbon emissions could choose to pay tropical nations like Brazil and Indonesia to preserve their own forests. The private market - which has been the engine of forest destruction...
...Bloomberg could point to the fact that over 700 U.S. cities have signed up to meet Kyoto Protocol-style carbon cuts, while California has mandated a 25% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. "People here are acutely aware of what's happening in the U.S. beyond the Bush Administration, and they take great heart in the growing momentum," says Eliot Diringer, director of international strategies for the Pew Center on Climate Change...
...implications of this, combined with desertification, species extinction and accelerated climate change from the release of carbon stored in forests, are all too clear. Unfortunately, the E.U. and the Kyoto CO2 trading systems effectively exclude forest carbon offsets because regulators and politicians became captives of the anticapitalist NGO community and their own native suspicion of free markets. This is both perverse, as it makes it harder and more expensive to mitigate climate change, and immoral - because it denies the resources required by the poorest to adapt...
...time for the E.U. and the Kyoto systems to recognize the need for repeal of their restrictive rules. It is also time for the U.S. Congress to adopt legislation for a broadly based national carbon-trading market with a minimum of regulatory and political interference. The time for breast-beating and fantasizing is over; it is time to allow the private sector and the financial markets to get on with the job of dealing with climate change...