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LANDMARK TREATY ON CLIMATE CHANGE ENTERS INTO FORCE
On February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol entered into force
while the United States stood on the sidelines.
The Kyoto Protocol represents the international community's first steps to
address what scientists have agreed is a daunting global challenge. Carbon
dioxide emissions are altering climate and weather patterns in ways that may
dramatically change our lifestyles and threaten our livelihood. Recent
scientific assessments confirm that climate change may contribute to massive
displacement and migration from coastal areas around the world, extreme weather,
and the eventual diminishment of agricultural productivity in inland areas like
the Midwestern United States.
Yet nearly a decade after U.S. negotiators and President Clinton helped craft
the Protocol – and the U.S. Senate subsequently opposed its ratification – the
United States remains opposed to caps on carbon dioxide emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol was scheduled to take effect once countries representing 55%
of emissions signed and ratified it. Most environmentalists and climate
scientists doubted the Protocol would take effect without the U.S., which,
representing 24% of global carbon emissions, is the single greatest source of
pollution. But the treaty's success was assured when Russia, which represents
the second-greatest source of carbon dioxide pollution, ratified it in October.
With Russia now working with the international community, the U.S. and Australia
are the only two industrialized countries to reject the Kyoto Protocol. In all,
135 nations have ratified Kyoto.
While President Bush disputes the urgency of climate change, Sens. John McCain
(R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) have taken the lead in tackling the issue.
Their Climate Stewardship
Act, which sets more modest targets and timetables for U.S. action than the
Kyoto Protocol, reached the Senate floor in 2004 but was voted down 55-43 in
2004. They reintroduced the measure in 2005.
Updated February 18, 2005
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