Reality Check: Straight Talk About the Kyoto Protocol

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Executive Summary

The climate change debate has changed significantly. With Russian ratification, the Kyoto Protocol finally went into effect as an international treaty on February 16, 2005. Now that it is operational, some nations will attempt to implement it, others will try to use it as a weapon to secure marketplace advantages, and American businesses operating in countries that have ratified the treaty will have to comply with requirements imposed by those nations. Because of these changed circumstances it is more important than ever that in the United States the public debate about the Kyoto Protocol clearly focuses on what can and cannot be accomplished by the treaty and on what our options are for moving forward.

It is widely recognized that in its current form the Kyoto Protocol cannot address the climate change challenge; moreover, there is recognition that even if the treaty is fully implemented, the overall level of greenhouse gases, and in particular, the level of carbon dioxide (CO2), in the atmosphere will continue to increase. On that point there is little disagreement. Notwithstanding this observation, proponents of the Protocol, while recognizing the absolute and vast inadequacy of this treaty in relation to stabilizing the overall level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, insist that the Protocol be implemented as a first step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

It is also widely recognized that a major difficulty with the Protocol is that many nations— including those developing nations that are fast becoming the leading emitters of greenhouse gases—are excused from any significant responsibilities under the agreement. Equally problematic is that many countries that have committed to meeting modest greenhouse gas emission limitation targets have now found that accomplishing even those initial goals is a task easier said than done. Compounding this difficulty further, there is no general agreement on what exactly an appropriate path forward is or how such a treaty could even be enforced.

Despite such realities, environmental pressure groups are already demanding the imposition of new, enforceable measures that would require far more stringent, mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than what was originally envisaged when the Kyoto Protocol was developed.

There is serious concern among some observers that the imposition of such draconian measures would inflict very significant economic pain on the world economy. If these concerns have merit, then before we as a nation take the next step forward, we had better have a plan of action that has a real chance of success, and it had better be a plan that we all believe in, that our nation can afford, and that it will help, not hurt, the United States economy, which is the engine that gives us the ability to pay for continued environmental protection and innovative technologies.

In view of these circumstances, this report makes the following three propositions:

PROPOSITION 1:

The Kyoto Protocol Will Not Work

It offers up a structure that has about as much chance of successfully addressing climate change as a small sand castle has of surviving a strong incoming ocean tide. The treaty is riddled with flaws. It is not global in nature; rather, it imposes obligations only on a few countries. It has no enforcement mechanism, and without available technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, real implementation of the treaty imposes irrational obligations on an affected country. Curtailing the use of needed energy imposes economic suicide without any meaningful benefits.

PROPOSITION 2:

Interventions Based on Emissions Control Mandates and Current Technological Fixes Will not Curtail the Rising Level of CO2 in the Global Atmosphere(1)

Even if one accepts that the scientific debate over climate change is resolved and that there is real and significant global warming caused by the actions of humans, there is a fundamental failure on the part of the ratifying countries to appreciate the scope of the climate change problem. Moreover, the push to adopt currently proposed fixatives (such as regulatory mandates) has led to a poor analysis of the benefits and consequences of these possible courses of action, which almost certainly will consume vast amounts of money, require years of implementation, and, when judged against the goal of stabilizing the overall level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and in particular CO2, will only end in failure. Meanwhile, even if humans are truly causing global warming, we will have, in pursuit of these fixatives, wasted vast amounts of our time and wealth, leaving us poorly equipped to address the climate change issue when we arrive at a better understanding of how to address the problem.

PROPOSITION 3:

A Major Paradigm Shift Should be Considered

The nations of the world need to immediately abandon the surreal belief that they can regulate the climate change problem away. An approach based on global regulation, when judged against the goal of stabilizing the overall level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and in particular CO2, is simply a well-traveled road going nowhere. The nations of the world need instead to more carefully examine what can be achieved with greater encouragement of massive, long-term technological innovation.

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(1) In this report, for the sake of discussion, because of how the issue is often largely framed by pressure groups as well as by public perception and news media reports of what needs to be done, the climate change challenge is nominally (and simplistically) taken as, "stabilize the level of CO2 in the atmosphere." In actuality the issue is far more complicated (see, for example, Lindzen, Footnote 3).