A page for randomness

Then there was one: US now alone as Kyoto holdout
The ouster of Prime Minister John Howard stripped President George W. Bush of a key ally barely a week before a conference in Bali, Indonesia, on the world’s response to climate change beyond 2012, they said.

“It’s great news for the Kyoto Protocol,” Shane Rattenburg, Greenpeace’s political director, told AFP.

“It’s a very important event in the international climate debate, and for Bali. It will leave Bush and the United States more isolated.”

Industrialised countries that have signed and ratified the Protocol are required to meet targeted curbs in their greenhouse-gas emissions by 2012.

In March 2001, in one of his first acts in office, Bush declared he would not submit the deal to US Senate ratification.

He has been steadfastly supported by Howard, a fellow conservative who argued that Kyoto was a waste of time as it lacks the world’s biggest emitter and tougher commitments from China and other emerging giants.

Howard’s successor, Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, has said that he will seek ratification of Kyoto as soon as possible and also attend the Bali gathering.

It looks like the US is getting more and more isolated in the world, and it is all because the White House is so stubborn.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed