Kyoto Hypocrisy
by Christopher Horner

The European Union, Japan, and Canada have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and, when the Protocol entered into force on February 16, thereby undertook binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2008 to 2012.  The United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol and therefore has not undertaken binding commitments. 

So how do projected United States emissions in 2008 to 2012 compare to emissions in the major countries that have ratified Kyoto?  Perhaps surprisingly, projected emissions in the United States are lower than for several European countries and for Canada and similar to Japan, even though the United States has been growing economically and in population significantly faster than these countries.

The table below lists projections for greenhouse gas emissions in 2010.  The projections for the fifteen European member nations that agreed to reduce emissions to 8% below 1990 levels are from the European Union's official European Environment Agency.  The projections for the United States, which had a target of 7% below 1990 levels, are from the U. S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.  The projections for Japan and Canada, which have both agreed to reduce emissions to 6% below 1990 levels, are also from EIA.  Please note that the percentage numbers given are the amount that 2010 emissions are projected in relation to 1990 levels.  The Kyoto targets range between 6% and 8% below 1990 levels, but the complicated deal negotiated by the European Union makes it confusing to compare emissions from the varying baselines.  That is because the EU was allowed to allocate emissions cuts between the fifteen nations as they saw fit as long as the total of 8% below 1990 levels is achieved. 

Thus, some EU members have been assigned steep emissions reductions, while others are allowed increases over the 1990 baseline.  For example, under the EU bubble, Spanish emissions can increase to 15% above 1990 levels.  This is possible because Germany and the United Kingdom benefited from large one-time emissions reductions soon after 1990.  German re-unification led to the closing of East Germany's huge, energy-intensive steel industry.  The British government decided to rapidly replace most of the nation's coal-fired power plants with gas turbines, which produce less carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced.  This decision was taken in order to reduce the political power of the coal miners' union and to benefit from Britain's large North Sea gas reserves.

Prepared by Christopher C. Horner, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute.

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