Kyoto Protocol

Update: well, the cancerous concept of derivatives has once again bit us right on the ass. No, it’s not time for another bailout (yet), but maybe something even worse. But before we get started, a quick link to our friends’ US accepted casinos website.

Some countries (mainly China) have been creating huge amounts of pollutants simply to destroy them so they can make money under the Kyoto Protocol.

Let me say this again. The pollutants are not a useful thing in and of themselves. Nor are they a by-product of some useful thing. They are created by companies in China (and others) for the sole purpose of getting rid of them and earning carbon offsets, which can then be sold to necessary polluters so that they don’t have to pollute less (and since China — and others — tax these things, the government gets a nice chunk for letting it happen).

Sounds like a win-win situation for polluters, which was the whole point of the Kyoto Protocol, right?

Anyone who really understood the Clean Development Mechanism could have seen this coming. Whatever the motives of the folks that drew up the plans, it was very obviously a great way for major polluters to buy and sell themselves off the hook. Perhaps that’s why it was approved.

Many environmentalists are calling this a “scam”, as if someone was deviously figuring out some way to find a loophole in the system. Wake up — this IS the system. This is exactly why “cap and trade” schemes shouldn’t even be on the table, let alone the main ‘solution’. You’re giving people Get Out of Jail Free cards in order to get them to stop committing crimes.

I almost miss the days when governments and corporations were openly contemptuous and dismissive of environmental concerns; “cap-and-trade” and other supposedly ‘sustainable’ solutions allow them to ape the language of environmentalism for a marketing coup, while continuing or expanding their destructive and murderous policies.

But that’s enough of a rant for now. The enlightened already know, and I doubt that the rest are willing to even listen. One last link to US online casino sites reviews, and then back to our regularly scheduled program…

The Kyoto Protocol is an effort between countries of the United Nations to come to a consensus on the reduction of greenhouse gas.

This protocol is a major update to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), a treaty dating to the 1992 Earth Summit (officially, UNCED or United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). The UNFCC itself is not a binding treaty, but instead focuses on distinguishing between industrialized nations (or countries in transition) who will reduce their emissions (“Annex I countries”), online casino USA, developed nations which “pay for costs of developing countries” (“Annex II countries”), and the developing countries themselves.

The Conferences of the Parties (COP) met twice before the 1997 Kyoto Protocol meeting. At the first COP meeting, the “Berlin Mandate” established a two-year phase of analysis and assessment (AAP) and discussed potential obstacles in meeting commitments. In 1996, the second COP in Geneva evaluated and officially accepted the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change) findings, as well as proposing “legally binding mid-term targets”.

The next COP, in 1997, produced the Kyoto Protocol. This cemented the recommendations into a binding agreement (though not officially in force until 2005). Using emission levels from 1990 as a benchmark, Annex I countries agreed to reduce collective levels by 5.2% over the 2008 to 2012 period, and submit annual reports on emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol gave the countries “flexible mechanisms” by which to achieve this goal; emissions trading (the “cap and trade” programs in which allowances can be transferred between lesser and greater polluters), joint implementation (in which Annex I countries can contribute to their own goal by investing in another Annex I country’s emissions reduction program), online slots, and CDM (Clean Development Mechanism, broadly the same idea, except between Annex I nations and developing countries).

Developing countries are largely untouched by the requirements, though part of the Kyoto Protocol specifies an ‘adaptation fund’ (which has been criticized as providing only limited support and funding).