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Russia to Ratify Kyoto Treaty 73

Posted by michael from the left-out-in-the-cold dept.
Repran writes "The Guardian reports that politicians, industry leaders and environment groups across the world welcomed the news last night that Russia had rejuvenated international efforts to combat climate change by ratifying the Kyoto protocol."
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Russia to Ratify Kyoto Treaty More

Russia to Ratify Kyoto Treaty

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  • Obligatory... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Jorkapp ( 684095 )
    In Soviet Russia, accord ratifys you!
  • Think about it. Kyoto has 1990 emissions for a baseline. Russia's heavy industry was still going ahead mostly full steam from the Soviet days. Since then, their economy has contracted quite a bit and a lot of industry sits idle. I'd wager they've already met their Kyoto requirements and the hard part will be keeping emissions down, rather than cutting more.

    Britain is somewhat similar in their Kyoto targets. The government was converting coal fired plants to natural gas en-masse already, so cutting emissions by 10% was a trivial exercise.

    • Re:It won't be hard for them to meet their obligat (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Britain is somewhat similar in their Kyoto targets. The government was converting coal fired plants to natural gas en-masse already, so cutting emissions by 10% was a trivial exercise.

      They were converting polluting plants to less polluting plants. And, what is the problem? This is all Kyoto is about. Why isn't US doing the same?

      Each CO2 molecule released right now in the US, will stay in the world atmospher for 100 years, possibly generating changes all over the world in the countries of the 6 billions

    • good start (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
      So we start with Kyoto. Then we demonstrate improvements without destroying economies. Then we make a new treaty, with new baselines, ratcheting up progress and dragging industry into a sustainable millennium. The alternative is no treaty, no baseline, more pollution, and destruction of the environment and the economies, not to mention people, that depend on it.
      • So we start with Kyoto. Then we demonstrate improvements without destroying economies.

        The parent said that Russia was most of the way there because of the way that their economy tanked after the fall of the Soviet Union. I'd say that it took a destroyed economy to get them there.

        The parent also said that Great Britain is converting coal fired power plants to natural gas - don't they have a ready supply of that in the north sea so that it kind of makes sense to do that?

        • So Kyoto is a way to build an economy destroyed by all kinds of mafia predations, capped off with the exploding nuke plant, Chernobyl. A destroyed economy isn't required - ask Britain, Canada, the EU (or its member countries), and the hundreds of other signatories moving into a sustainable industrial future. Is there a problem with countries like Britain finding self-interest in a treaty that protects us all?
          • When you start from zero, anything is a good start. The original post said that Russia should have an easy time meeting the quotas because the base was set high because of the output of the former soviet union. I don't think that Russia's industrial output is where it was artificially sustained prior to the fall of their government.

            For the rest of them, if a country wants to be bound by the treaty, that's up to them. If they find it in their self interest to do so - good for them!

      • Yes, it is easy to postulate yourself into a wonderland when your second step is equivalent to "And then we do the physically impossible."

        Also your alternative is wrong. We are not in a black and white "Kyoto or die!" situation. Far, far from it.

        When these are the best arguments, physical impossibilities and bog-standard logical fallacies, you should not be surprised that you fail to convince people.
        • Thanls for the useless advice - like "don't sign Kyoto because it's not good enough, and anything more is too much". Here's some wisdom: "The perfect is the enemy of the merely good". The question is whether applying Kyoto would be better than what we have: an inconsistent patchwork of selfserving national rules that sustain international pollution. The useless rhetorical question of whether Kyoto is a bandaid that will prevent more progress is met with the simple, time-tested answer: "then we work on somet
          • Try again. I didn't offer any advice. I pointed out the arguments were logically fallacious and physically impossible.

            You, apparently, are one of the many people so set in their ways that they read everything into their own black and white viewpoint, even when it really makes no sense at all, like you just did. You should consider if this is causing you to miss out on an entire dimension of discourse that you are currently unaware of, in this case including simple logic.

            Again: Don't be surprised if this f
            • No, I'm one of those people who knows that improving on Kyoto is not "physically impossible", and I thought you were, too. Please prove, or even argue convincingly, that such is the case. Now you've got to back up your charge that passing Kyoto, then improving it, is also somehow "logically impossible". Thinking with our hearts has used up the environment. You're narrowing the scope to logic and facts, where I've been all along. Let's see you join me with more than psychobabble about the dimensions of disco
          • Since Kyoto went out for signature and ratification several years have passed. There are an awful lot of Kyoto signatories who have done less than the US to clean up their polluting industries than we have done while steadfastly refusing to sign on to Kyoto. For a very long time, lots of countries signed but nobody was ratifying the thing and now everybody is startled to find that if the thing goes into force, most of the signatory nations will quickly be deemed in violation of the treaty.

            A piece of paper
            • Right - that's how the US destroyed the treaty, by ignoring it, forcing others to follow suit under their own internal pressure to pollute. That's why we need to sign it, get into compliance, then pass another, and tighten down the uncontrolled pollution industry. If we can't even comply with Kyoto, based on baselines a decade and more old, we're doomed.
  • The executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, Joke Waller-Hunter, said: "President Putin has given an inspiring signal to the international community. By giving industry, local authorities and consumers incentives to take action on climate change, Russia and the 29 other industrialised countries that have joined the protocol will set themselves on a path to greater economic efficiency."

    Somehow I can't take a guy named "Joke" as someone that has a serious opinion.

    Russia's move means th
    • That money can go twards the US finding alternative fuel sources. YEY!

      Are you kidding? That money will directly towards funding some piece of military equipment that we don't need.

    • "Somehow I can't take a guy named "Joke" as someone that has a serious opinion."

      I do not think that word means what you think it means (thanks Inigo [imdb.com]).
      Ms. Waller-Hunter is Dutch [unfccc.int]. In her language, "Joke" means "First Name", while "grap" [altavista.com] means "jest".

      It seems like you are being sarcastic, or at least sardonic, about Russia making money from joining an international pollution control club. It is worth celebrating their "going legit". Perhaps that can help persuade the US to follow suit. Otherwise we'll be sp
      • Just a small nitpick... (since I'm dutch)...

        "Joke" doesn't mean "First Name". Joke IS a dutch first name, pronounced "yo-kuh".
        • Since you're Dutch, a people of whom I'm quite fond, I'll point out that by "means" I meant "is", as a sarcastic joke. This is the most self-referential post I've ever written; I bet it would look like the Kyoto treaty in (Dutchman) Escher's mirror. BTW, "haar" is universal onomatopoeia for "laugh" :).

  • duh... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:12AM (#10404602) Journal
    why wouldn't they.. it would have no impact on them: from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
    So, for instance, Russia currently easily meets its targets, and can sell off its credits for millions of dollars to countries that don't yet meet their targets, Canada for instance.
    So they would be stupid not too... signing on means they can actually make money by trading their "unused pollution ration".

    • Re:duh... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Exactly! Plus it gives them some karma at a time where people are starting to say they are going back to communist era policies and ways.

    • Re:duh... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So, for instance, Russia currently easily meets its targets, and can sell off its credits for millions of dollars to countries that don't yet meet their targets

      However, when they will re-develop, they won't be allowed to pollute more, which is the point anyway.

    • progress (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
      So we get them into the regime when it's most attractive to them, then up the antes to eliminate their contributions to the problems. That's how the nuclear arms treaties worked, and most other successful international efforts. It's a process of diplomatic inclusion and education, as well as negotiated consensus, that replaces the policy vacuum of that lets people destroy everyone downwind.

      • Progress, alright. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sideshow ( 99249 )
        Meanwhile, China and India are still exempt and have absolutly no restrictions and can emit all the greenhouse gas they damn well please. Looks like your policy vacuum is alive and well.
        • No, the vacuum is smaller, and endangered. It will be a lot easier for the US to get China and India under the sustainable schema after the US actually signs the treaty, which is now at least 4 years overdue.

  • It is all about money. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:19AM (#10404692) Homepage Journal
    Granted they had to throw in the requisite George Bush jab, who by the way wasn't President when the Senate rejected the Kyoto treaty 98-0. No President is going to get past that majority.

    The key here is money. Russia has something they can sell. They need money and what better way to obtain it?

    Which brings up the point, whats the use of a treaty if you can just buy yourself a pass? What use is a treaty that excepts certain countries from the requirements?

    Also, sea level rise is how much in the last half century? .7 of an inch? Glaciers? Ignoring the issue that some of them were bigger in times where the planet was hotter?

    When the science behind Kyoto gets real proof then come back with the treaty. what we have is an anti-industrialist agenda which convienent opts out some of the upcoming bigger polluters.

    • the funny part is: Russia is one of the last countries that should get worried about global climate change, with their vast territory and general lack of climate-induced disasters... The country that should get way more worried, whose climate already kinda sucks (with tornado belt and hurricanes from the gulf of Mexico) at the moment doesn't seem to care at all.

      Well, I guess the moment of enlightment may come when insurance industry finally realises that in the race for the dirty buck it sometimes make s
    • Yep, it looks like Putin is only agreeing to this for $$. Which sucks because by joining the treaty, he's sort of undermining it (more available pollution credits for polluters).

      >>Which brings up the point, whats the use of a treaty if you can just buy yourself a pass? What use is a treaty that excepts certain countries from the requirements?

      To answer you, I suppose that having to buy the pass is a slight impediment. Money will go to a nation where the industry is required to be more green, hopefull

      • There's a difference between identifying climate change and fingering a source. We still don't know enough to eliminate the solar cycle [stanford.edu] as a source of global warming climate variability.

        Knocking down global growth by adopting greenhouse gas treaties that may be unnecessary isn't just a bit of money, plus or minus, in middle class pockets. It's the difference between life and death in the third world.
    • Which brings up the point, whats the use of a treaty if you can just buy yourself a pass?

      If one country buys a pass, another country (Russia in this case) has to reduce its emissions accordingly. The net amount of world emissions would stay the same, but the richer countries (which generally emit more than poorer countries by necessity) would be allowed to emit more, and poorer countries get a financial reward for emitting less. That part of the Kyoto Treaty actually makes sense.

      Rob
  • Russia's interest in this treaty is based on its provision of credits for carbon sequestration [ornl.gov]. By growing trees, without burning them, Russia sinks scads of CO2 from the air they breathe into their woody flesh. The vast stretches of foresty Russia, which can be treed and cut for unburned products, would make Russia almost as rich in sequestration points as it is in burnable oil. The US, with our vast stretches of clearcut, would be positioned similarly, especially if much of the clearcut Federal lands were

  • Yay! Now all we need.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:39AM (#10404903)
    Now all we need is the biggest polluter in the world, with 5% of the population generating 25% of the pollution to finally grow up and ratify it as well...

  • Much better to do. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sybert ( 192766 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @10:58AM (#10405123) Journal
    This is bad for the welfare of humanity. The Copenhagen Consensus has ranked [economist.com] climate measures, especially Kyoto, as "bad", dead last behind AIDS, Malaria, malnutrition, free trade, clean water, economic freedom, and migration measures in ratio of social benefit to cost. The more climate research that is done the more evidence we find against [techcentralstation.com] human caused global warming. But once an environmental movement is started, no amount or reason can stop it.

    Kyoto will help the environment by at most 0.02 Celsius by 2050. It will also be bad for the environment as more people worry more about CO2 and less about real air pollution that causes acid rain and other environmental damage, and less about more significant greenhouse gases like dihydrogen-monoxide and methane. Many Americans have already been completely ignoring the reductions in pollutants like NO2, O3, SO2, CO, and PM in the U.S. before and during the Bush administration when attacking him for not supporting CO2 reductions. Also Kyoto will increase energy prices in clean energy-efficient countries shifting more manufacturing to dirty inefficient energy-consuming developing countries like China, causing more global pollution.
    • Oh, come on, moderators did not notice dihydrogen-monoxide in the middle of this? I thought this was one of the great laughs of slashdot. Reylas
    • I don't know if I should take this seriously or not. Much of it sounds insightful, but the phrase "significant greenhouse gases like dihydrogen-monoxide" combined with the prase "pollutants like NO2" tends to cast doubt on the seriousness of the poster. I haven't bothered to follow and read the links yet, but either this is an informative post with just a few bad bits of information, or a joke which I most people, myself included, fell for.
      • damn my avoidance of the preview button.

      • Ignoring the quip grouping water with methane (trolling? - who knows), the rest isn't too far off. NOx emissions, for example [epa.gov], are in fact lowering. Just about across the board [epa.gov] harmful emissions have been cut over time in the U.S.

        "...combined with the prase 'pollutants like NO2'"
        NOx is a greenhouse gas, more harmful than CO2 (by GWP rating).

        Also, he is right that Kyoto will shift polluting to countries not under the treaty or somehow exempt from stringent standards (like China). This could be viewed
        • Thank you for clarifying that. I wasn't aware (and am too lazy to look up) that NO2 wasthat harmful a greenhouse gas, and that combined with water lead me to have some doubts. But perhaps you're right and water was inserted as something of a joke while the rest of the post was serious.
  • I think it's a particularly childish view that the senate has taken in not backing Kyoto. I would rather suspect that there is a bit more to it than complaining that China and India aren't involved so we're not playing either. I suspect that that bit more is something to do with senators being involved in the oil business to a greater or lesser degree and the high price of oil is suiting them very nicely, thankyou. The USA *should* be leading the world in alternate sources of energy, and then selling it to
  • Does anyone know what the penalties and/or fines would be to a country that signs it, but then does not follow through and continues to pollute at the same or higher levels? I don't think there are any past a slap on the wrist. Slap might me too strong a word here.

  • Translation (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by b-baggins ( 610215 )
    Our economy sucks so we need to find a way to limit American economic power.
  • Bush did not reject Kyoto. Kyoto was rejected before Bush was even in power.

    Pinheads. This is by far the dumbest site on the internet.

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