The United States, Australia, China, India and South Korea have made a regional pact to combat greenhouse gas emissions by developing environmentally friendly energy technology. The pact, to be called the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, will be formally announced on Thursday.
Reuters reports that Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said that the countries had been working on a pact to tackle climate change beyond the Kyoto protocol, which requires a cut in greenhouse emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12:
"It's quite clear the Kyoto protocol won't get the world to where it wants to go ... We have got to find something that works better -- Australia is working on that with partners around the world," Campbell told reporters on Wednesday.
[. . .]
"We need to expand the energy the world consumes and reduce the emissions. That's going to need new technologies, it's going to need the development of new technologies and the deployment of them within developing countries," Campbell said.
Good news indeed. I am so tired of the main stream media bashing the Bush administration for rejecting the Kyoto treaty. It was clear when Bill Clinton signed it that the U.S. would never ratify the treaty. The Senate approved the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, 95-0, rejecting Kyoto in 1997. I think Clinton was still President then.
This is what the Senate said in the resolve clause of the 1997 Byrd-Hagel Resolution:
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would--
(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or
(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States; and
(2) any such protocol or other agreement which would require the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification should be accompanied by a detailed explanation of any legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to implement the protocol or other agreement and should also be accompanied by an analysis of the detailed financial costs and other impacts on the economy of the United States which would be incurred by the implementation of the protocol or other agreement.
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