Does the American decision to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol doom the deal?
The American decision was not enough to kill Kyoto. One of President Bush’s first acts was to announce that he would not send Kyoto to the Senate for ratification – mainly because the deal had little chance of being passed. He also argued Kyoto would be bad for the U.S. economy and would be ineffective, because major developing nations like India and China were not covered by its provisions. But that didn’t stop world ratification of the protocol. Russia came onboard on Sept. 30, 2004. That gave the deal enough support to come into effect on Feb. 16, 2005. Still, no country on the planet is responsible for producing as much greenhouse gas as the United States. Without significant action from the Americans, Kyoto’s targets would be difficult to reach.
