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The Commons
Washington Post on Kyoto: Three Sentences, None Accurate
Posted by Amy Ridenour  ·  16 February 2005  ·  Climate

From Wednesday's Washington Post:

The [Kyoto] treaty is aimed at controlling global warming linked to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Although the United States helped shape it, President Bush pulled the United States out as soon as he took office.
Three sentences. None accurate.

The first is inaccurate by omission, as it fails to address even the possibility of economic and/or strategic motives for the treaty. (More details here and here.)

The second is correct only insofar as there was a conference in Kyoto in 1997 in which some of the negotiations took place. There were other official conferences and many negotiations in many places. (The U.S. actually signed the treaty at the Buenos Aires, Argentina conference in November, 1998.)

The third is flatly false. The U.S. has never withdrawn from Kyoto. President Bush, like President Clinton, has declined to send the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate, but the U.S. remains a party to international treaty conferences and the Bush Administration has not removed the U.S. as a signatory to the Kyoto Treaty. (More details here.)

I'd fisk this article more, but I have a life.

Cross-posted on The National Center for Public Policy Research blog.

Comments
  1. Good observation. The Kyoto treaty has more to do with global politics than any thing else. In addition, allowing non-productive contries dictate to our dynamic economy is absurd.

    Posted by: tim at February 17, 2005 06:49 AM