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| Europe |
| Goal dilution is EU solution to Kyoto pollution |
| 2005-03-26 |
| EFL Environmental lobbyists are voicing strong opposition over the European Commission's summit conclusions, claiming that EU leaders have failed to set long-term deadlines to meet target objectives after the Kyoto Protocol expires. While the commission agreed Wednesday to control rises in the earth's surface temperature under the Kyoto pact and backed ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, EU leaders dropped its long-term target for 2050, despite agreements by environmental ministers earlier this month. Germany, Austria and Italy opposed setting the long-term targets citing economic reasons. Apparently France is not allowed to vote "non" on the EU Constitution and administer Germany, Austria and Italy at the same time. That's a good sign. Environmental minister agreed during the March 10th summit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 to 20 percent by 2020 and to further reduce emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050 in developed countries. The decision by the commission to drop the 2050 long-term target has caused much dissent by environmental business organizations, which claim that without a long-term target date the European economy will suffer while making it even more difficult to reduce emissions in the future. If history is any guide, by 2020 the Greens will have a whole new set of priority issues. |
| Posted by:Tom |
| #3 TGA>> Chinese take/out, I noticed that too. |
| Posted by: Hupuger Jish6229 2005-03-26 9:22:32 PM |
| #2 Kyoto is a lovely Keynesian scheme to subsidize the production of sophisticated "ecologic equipment". Other than that, it's useless, and the Chinese will blow up more gas in one year than Europe saves in a decade. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-03-26 9:10:33 PM |
| #1 I have a strong hunch that the EU will start ignoring the noisy environmentalists and utterly blow off any efforts to comply with Kyoto. And they will probably lie about it while doing it. The end result will be like the infamous British unemployment statistic: revised downward a dozen times by changing the way the statistic was compiled, but always presented as the same statistic. "We used to call that 'smog', but we are now tracking smoke and fog differently, and since fog is harmless, that means we automatically have 50% less air pollution." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-03-26 8:25:25 PM |