Thursday, June 22, 2006

Kyoto Underreporting

From the June 24th issue of New Scientist:
KYOTO PROMISES ARE NOTHING BUT HOT AIR
Two teams say they have convincing evidence that many countries are under-reporting their emissions of greenhouse gases, threatening to undermine the Kyoto protocol. Both studies calculated atmospheric emissions independently of government estimates. And among the worst offenders are the UK, which may be emitting 92 per cent more methane that it declares under the Kyoto protocol, and France, which may be emitting 47 per cent more.
Philosophical question: it is better to sign Kyoto and underreport, or not to sign Kyoto at all?

2 comments:

coby said...

At this point it is better to sign up and cheat. It at least represents an admission that action is required.

Anonymous said...

It's a wash ... the anti-Kyoto people will point at the backsliding and say "Look, the only way they can meet targets is to cheat (and some of them cheat and don't even meet the targets)!"

Sometimes I don't know which of them I hate more ... the lip service guys or the deniers.