There is essentially unanimous agreement among the world’s nations, including the United States and China, that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global climate change. Thus, it seems reasonable to believe that the world’s nations might work together to address the problem. Indeed, the international Kyoto Protocol treaty, which became binding on its ratifying members in February 2005, is a primary driver to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. To date, 184 (out of 186 eligible) countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and they collectively represent 63.7 percent of the 1990 greenhouse gas emissions for Annex 1 countries. Those countries, both individually and collectively, are enacting a myriad of legislative and regulatory requirements in order that they might meet their emission reduction obligations.

Nevertheless, the Kyoto Protocol is doomed to failure as the solution to global climate change for two related reasons. First, the United States (and Kazakhstan) refuses to ratify it, even though the United States is a member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and it alone represents the remaining 36.3 percent of Annex 1 emissions. Second, the United States’ primary political objection to the Protocol is that China and India are excluded from the emission reduction obligations of the Annex 1 countries. Consequently, an international treaty with a broader reach would seem to be in order.

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