The weird thing about Bush's backing out of the Kyoto Agreement is that the discussion has become Kyoto Or Nothing, rather than What A Suicide Note Kyoto Is.
The, ahem, 'sucess' of the Bonn talks has been hailed as someting positive. Kyoto *guarantees* that the world will pollute indefinitely at 1990 levels. If any country pollutes less then they can then sell - for hard cash - their shortfall to a country that wants to pollute above its limit. We can bet that polluters will be queueing up to buy this, and there will be serious money made by the traders. Any future attempts to bring levels down will be opposed by both those who want to keep up their pollution, and those who value their saleable shortfall.
Does ANYONE think that carrying on polluting at 1990 levels is OK? If not, then nobody should support the Kyoto Agreement either. It does as much for climate change as Dubya himself.
For more on this, see the article 'Climate Change Summit: Business As Usual' in the Features section of this site.
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