The goal was to reach an agreement to substitute Kyoto, which terminates in 2012. In truth, it never got started for two reasons. The main two CO2 emitters are not part of the agreement. The United States Senate democratically decided not to ratify Kyoto with 95 votes against and 5 abstentions. China (like India and other large emission countries) was left on the outside. The second reason is the countries which did sign spend their time systematically breaking their commitments.

 

There were two distinct visions inside the Climate Change conference as to how to reduce greenhouse emissions. One the one hand, the political path of creating a world government to control economic development, possibly from the United Nations; it would plan and regulate, bringing in its wake all the expected pernicious effects. Not even the Protocol’s signers could reach an agreement, given that Russia rejected the very first text laying out a vague plan.

 

The competing vision is represented by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), which the United States and Australia (another that refused to sign Kyoto) together with Japan (which is in Kyoto), China, India and North Korea all signed. This group is not looking to use bureaucratic institutions to impose their will, but to trust in economic development which will lead to more efficient use of resources and lower greenhouse gas emissions. It is not an attack on economic growth and development, like Kyoto. Just the opposite. Moreoever, among the objective of this six nation agreement is reducing poverty. It is focused on creating and using technologies that give off less greenhouse gases.

 

For a clear example of the failure of central planning and the success of economic and technological development in free societies, witness how CO2 emissions in the old Soviet block have dropped 40 percent since 1990. Substituting the inefficient Communist industrial system was enough to get the job done. 

 

Have any of you heard about the AP6? Together they make up 45 percent of the world’s population; produce 49 percent of the global economy; consume 48 percent of the world’s energy and emit 48 percent of greenhouse gases. But everyone has heard about Kyoto, an agreement affecting 36 percent of energy consumption and 32 percent of emission. In Montreal, the attempt to combine lower emissions with the AP6’s economic development rather than fighting economic development, like Kyoto, has started to pick up interest in a variety of countries. The future seems to be headed toward the AP6.