| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| EU to fine Spain for not fulfilling Kyoto protocol |
| 2006-04-13 |
| The European Commission has opened the process necessary to fine Spain for not fulfilling two of the commitments it acquired when it signed the Kyoto protocol. Spain promised to inform Brussels before January 15 about the amount of greenhouse gases it emitted in 2004, and about the amount of emissions it will be permitted between 2008 and 2012; it has not done so. The environmental ministry chalked up the delay to "exceptional difficulties" in gathering the data. Spain, Luxembourg, Italy, and Germany have not turned over their emissions data for 2004 to the EC. The EU had promised to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 8% between 1990 and 2004, with different requirements for each of its member countries. Spain had permission to increase its carbon dioxide emissions by 15%. However, as of 2003, Spain's emissions had increased by almost 41% compared with 1990. In a report filed with the United Nations, the Spanish environmental ministry predicted that in 2010, Spain's carbon dioxide emissions would have increased by 49% over 1990. The Kyoto protocol is supposedly to go into effect between 2008 and 2012, and Spain will be unable to meet its commitments. Doing so would cost at least €20 billion, at least 600,000 jobs, and two percentage points of inflation, not counting the companies that would move to countries where environmental restrictions are less costly. A 49% increase in CO2 in emissions. Nice to see Kyoto is working. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #17 Every day I wake up I'm grateful my ancestors got on those boats. Me too, Barbara. Me too. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-04-13 21:11 |
| #16 The Senate vote was Sen. Res.(olution) 98 passed in July 1996. It passed 95 to 0. After that, Clinton only paid lip service to Kyoto. Clinton never signed the Gore-negotiated treaty and he never submitted it for Senate ratification. To this day, the only official US signature touching Kyoto is Gore's. |
| Posted by: Threack Ebbuth1103 2006-04-13 21:01 |
| #15 The Senate not only didn't ratify Kyoto, they passed a "Sense of the Senate" (90-something to 0) that if Clintoon brought them the treaty, they wouldn't ratify it. As in, "Don't embarrass yourself by bothering." Even the moonbats recognized that so-called "treaty" would severely damage the U.S. economy. I remember reading a couple of years ago that Bush and some Euros (G-8, maybe?) were meeting in Canada and some European minister was absolutely incensed that our Senate has to approve treaties - that a mere Senator from Iowa or Kansas or some other god-forsaken (by Euro standards) state could actually prevent our government from signing a treaty. The implication being who did these elected Senators think they were, anyway? They obviously should bow to their European betters who train their entire lives to run governments! Every day I wake up I'm grateful my ancestors got on those boats. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-04-13 19:24 |
| #14 Well, congress is the party that can ratify a treaty or not. President can sign, but congress must ratify. Clinton backed Kyoto, Bush did not ... but that is moot, as congress never ratified the treaty for Clinton / Bush to sign into law. Of course the propoganda out there ignores simple fact that it is congress that really matters in a treaty situation. Instead it is spouted that somehow Bush rejected the treaty, single handedly vetoed it or whatever - clearly showing no understanding of our government - yet making a good bash. |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-04-13 18:18 |
| #13 *snicker* One of the good things ol Billy Boy did was not sign on. IIRC, Billy Boy did sign on. He knew it was consequence-free because Congress would never ratify it. Dubya 'un-signed' us from it and caught Hell from every moonbat on the planet. |
| Posted by: psychohillbilly 2006-04-13 15:48 |
| #12 heh, and I liked your first post better :-) |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-04-13 14:01 |
| #11 I shouldn't comment before coffee. what I ment was the rate at which the US emits CO2 has fallen. It is increasing but not as much as was predicted. It's all smoke and mirrors anyway. There is no way to verify how much CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are emitted. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2006-04-13 13:56 |
| #10 The only way to truly meet the Kyoto goals would have been a massive nuclear power program and that is why Iran is doing its part. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-04-13 13:06 |
| #9 The only way to truly meet the Kyoto goals would have been a massive nuclear power program combined with electric cars. That's not the sort of thing a single European country can do now that they are all economically interlocked. Kyoto was designed to (a) Take down the US economy or (b) convince the US/Japan to switch off of gas so the Europeans could ride the tech and mass market coat-tails. I'd like to think (b) but I know the answer is (a). |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-04-13 13:05 |
| #8 Andalusia is growing and will continue to grow. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-04-13 12:42 |
| #7 Spain, Portugal, and Ireland have all been booming in an asymptomatic fashion for members of the EU. Of *course* they're going to show higher emissions. Especially Spain, which has been seeing a massive construction boom/bubble for nearly a decade now. Edward over at Fist Full of Euros has been all over the Spain boom - he seems to think it's a bubble, but it's damnably long-lived bubble at this point. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2006-04-13 12:28 |
| #6 he would've if he could get a Senator to vote for it, and you KNOW Al was sporting wood on the way to Kyoto |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-04-13 11:57 |
| #5 *snicker* One of the good things ol Billy Boy did was not sign on. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-04-13 11:22 |
| #4 I've heard that refrigerators litter Britain's countryside now because of Kyoto. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2006-04-13 11:22 |
| #3 All of which, while slightly interesting, is moot, Ed. We're not driving the system. |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-04-13 10:27 |
| #2 US carbon burning has increased 16.7% by 2002. For comparision, Canadian CO2 production increased by 23.6% in that same time. Only when the effect of reforestation (short/med term carbon sink) in the US is taken into account has net US CO2 production decreased. Europeans rely on an absolute dishonest bastardization to claim their CO2 emmision have increased only slightly. After the Warsaw Pact fall, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union's CO2 emissions fell by about 45%. But in 1990, that energy fall had not yet taken place. That is the reserve the Eurocrats have been using to make their numbers look good. Very generous of the Western Europeans to take the Easterners and Soviets under their wing. But since 2000, Eastern Europe and the FSU economies have been growing. As those economies continue to recover, the total Euro CO2 numbers will shoot up very quickly. Greenhouse Hypocrisy Here are some IEA estimates of the increases: France, 6.9 percent; Italy, 8.3 percent; Greece, 28.2 percent; Ireland, 40.3 percent; the Netherlands, 13.2 percent; Portugal, 59 percent; Spain, 46.9 percent. It's true that Germany (down 13.3 percent) and Britain (a 5.5 percent decline) have made big reductions. But their cuts had nothing to do with Kyoto. After reunification in 1990, Germany closed many inefficient coal-fired plants in eastern Germany; that was a huge one-time saving. In Britain, the government had earlier decided to shift electric utilities from coal (high CO2 emissions) to plentiful natural gas (lower CO2 emissions). Japan's, up 18.9 percent. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-04-13 09:53 |
| #1 Meanwhile, the US which is not a signitory, has decreased emissions. Kyoto is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme to transfer wealth to the EU. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2006-04-13 09:01 |