For more than a decade, scientists have engaged in a debate about the Earth’s climate, and except for a die-hard few who have self-serving agendas, the consensus is that “the greenhouse effect is causing long-term changes in the Earth’s atmosphere,” (CNN News). It was a recognition of the reality of global warming that led the United States to sign the 1997 Kyoto protocol, pledging with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia to reduce greenhouse gases.

The problem of global warming shifted internationally when U.S. President George W. Bush recently abandoned the Kyoto protocol and proposed an energy policy that increases burning of fossil fuels. These acts have enraged nations across Europe and Asia and undermined the United States position of world leadership.

The Kyoto treaty engaged the major powers to cut, by 2012, greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal and oil by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. On June 12, Bush repudiated the agreement, saying “Kyoto is in many ways unrealistic,” and adding that the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China, but “China was entirely exempted from the requirement of the Kyoto protocol.” Ironically, since Kyoto, China has actually reduced greenhouse gas emissions, even though that was not required. Obviously, the Bush administration has its own agenda, and neither the environment, nor the integrity of the United States counts for much.

Although the United States has only six percent of the world’s total population, it emits the largest amount of greenhouse gases in the world (25 percent, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide [CO2]) created by automobile engines and industrial processes. So, in terms of the effectiveness of the Kyoto protocol, “the U.S. participation is crucial,” as Yasuko Ishii of Japan’s Ministry of the Environment said on March 29.

Kjell Larssen, the environmental minister of the Swedish government, which currently holds the European Union presidency, said that the Bush administration seemed to be “preparing to withdraw from the global community’s effort to deal with a major threat to the future of the world” (March 29). “I don’t think President Bush realizes how much this will sour relationships with the rest of the world,” said John Gummer, who was involved in the Kyoto negotiations. He pointed out that the rich countries “have grown rich because they have polluted the world.” Now, pollution is damaging the entire world, and “we can’t possibly turn to the poor countries and say now we have grown rich, you can’t develop” (March 29).

Michael Meacher, British environment minister said that if America now tries to walk away, what was “just an environmental issue, [becomes] an issue of transatlantic global foreign policy” (March 29). Scientists believe that if current trends persist, air temperatures could rise from one degree centigrade to 3.5 degrees centigrade by 2100. Even now, as the planet warms, sea levels are rising. By 2100, the average sea level is expected to rise from 15 cm to 95 cm, six inches to more than a yard. And in the worst case, there could be a “runaway greenhouse effect,” in which “all the factors that cause global warming would eventually override the factors which work against it.” Such a shift would increase temperatures and change climate more dramatically.

Some island states are already suffering devastation because of rising sea levels. Severe storms and droughts around the world, as well as increasing numbers of biological hazards affecting world’s food supply, indicate that humanity’s very survival is at stake.

The United States is already becoming isolated and embarrassed diplomatically as European and Asian countries continue to pursue climate-stabilizing goals without it. If the United States doesn’t sign onto the Kyoto protocol, its isolation and its ability to influence world events will decline and it will be seen only as an international bully with a big stick. Source: CNN News, cnn.com.