(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
170 countries have signed the Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction agreement. The new US President, George W. Bush, does not like restrictions on the country's industrial production, so he has now decided to withdraw the US signature. One of the reasons why the United States from the highest level will now withdraw from binding climate reductions is that the United States is unlikely to reach the goals of 2012. Of course, this is not a sustainable starting point for conducting constructive environmental policy. The fact that the reduction will not be as great as one had hoped must not lead to the choice of the opposite strategy; free flight to CO2.
The truth behind the US retreat is that the new president is the foremost guardian of industry and the economy. Therefore, no offensive environmental policy can be expected from that edge in the next four years.
The challenge for the rest of the industrialized countries will be to motivate them to continue the struggle to reach the goals without the United States. It will be difficult, for the EU rightly fears that they will lose competitiveness in the face of a US without environmental restrictions.
Norway is struggling as much, according to statistics from Statistics Norway. From 1990 to 2000, greenhouse gas emissions in Norway increased by more than six per cent. The Kyoto agreement obliged industrialized countries to reduce their emissions within 2012 by 7 percent over the 1990 level. You do not have to have a job in Statistics Norway to realize that Norway is on a wild path in its climate policy. In order to fulfill the Kyoto agreement, emissions in Norway must fall by almost five per cent over the next ten years. Without international greenhouse gas emissions trading, very drastic measures will have to be taken to achieve the targets in Norway, research director Torstein Bye of Statistics Norway stated this week.
At the same time, the former special adviser in the Ministry of Finance is running the government's errand, when he says that it will be too narrow to focus on Norway's national goals alone – and advocates quota trading. Norway must therefore be able to continue its economic growth without it costing us anything special. On the other hand, far poorer countries must commit themselves to pursuing an active environmental policy towards compensation. The Kyoto burden is being transferred to countries that are in dire need of economic growth and are struggling with old technology. As the UN Climate Panel has stated in two new reports, it is the world's poor who will burn for the global climate change the world is facing – regardless of whether the Kyoto agreement is fulfilled.
This is a serious matter the United States has now turned its back on – and lost face.
The burden is placed on the EU, Norway and the rest of the I-shoulders.
They must carry it alone without the help of the world's poor.
