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Despite what divestment activists say, ExxonMobil is searching for climate solutions
Published in the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-le-0314-exxonmobil-climate-change-divestment-blowback-20160314-story.html" target="blank" style="font-weight: bold; box-sizing: border-box;">Los Angeles Times</a> (March 14, 2016) Written by Suzanne McCarron, Exxon’s VP of Public and Government AffairsExxonMobil <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954285" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954285/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954285" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">recognizes the risks</genius-referent> posed by climate change. We believe that everyone — including oil and gas companies — should be engaged in <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954342" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954342/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954342" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">meaningful action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions</genius-referent>.Based on <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954347" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954347/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954347" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">recent media coverage</genius-referent> of our company however, <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954350" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954350/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954350" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">you could be forgiven</genius-referent> if you found this surprising. A <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954352" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954352/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954352" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">coordinated public relations</genius-referent> campaign is under way against ExxonMobil, which is misleading the public by accusing us of hiding what we knew about climate change and working against climate science. Sadly, the Los Angeles Times is one of the leading publications to repeat these accusations, having published an <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954354" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954354/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954354" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">op-ed article</genius-referent> recently (among other pieces to have run in the paper) by a Rockefeller heir supporting the divestment campaign against ExxonMobil.At ExxonMobil, we’re <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954357" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954357/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954357" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">proud of our history</genius-referent> of science and technology <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954360" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954360/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954360" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">research</genius-referent>, and this includes our work in addressing climate change. Since the 1970s, we have openly and publicly researched and discussed the risks of climate change, carbon life-cycle analysis and emissions reductions. Our work has resulted in nearly 150 publicly available papers, including more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. We have worked alongside other top scientists and participated in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since its inception in 1988, including serving as co-authors for the organization’s climate assessments. [NOTE NO NAMES? WHAT HAPPEED TO THOSE GUYS AND THEIR RESEARCH?] We continue to be active, public participants in the scientific community’s search for solutions.The fact is, in the last decade, ExxonMobil <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954366" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954366/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954366" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">has spent billions of dollars</genius-referent> to research and develop new energy technologies, as well as find ways to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and environmental footprint. We employ 2,200 PhD scientists and engineers, and more than 5,000 people at our global research and technology divisions. And we have joined with more than 80 universities around the world to research lower-emission technologies.Let me share a few examples of ExxonMobil’s contributions to emissions reduction:ExxonMobil, and our subsidiary XTO Energy, have been instrumental in the “<genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954371" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954371/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954371" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">shale revolution</genius-referent>” that has enabled U.S. gas production to rise by close to 45% since 2005. Increased availability of natural gas,<genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954377" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954377/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954377" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">which emits up to 60% less carbon dioxide</genius-referent> than coal when burned to generate electricity, is a big reason America’s greenhouse gas emissions have declined to levels not seen since the 1990s.ExxonMobil scientists and engineers have pioneered nearly 300 patents for technologies that boost efficiency and cut emissions. We are actively researching solutions that could play a major role in emissions reduction in the decades to come, such as carbon capture and sequestration, and biofuels developed from advanced sources such as algae.Advanced plastics made by ExxonMobil’s chemical company are promoting sustainability and reducing energy use. Auto parts built from strong-but-lightweight plastics made using oil and gas will help make cars 80% more fuel-efficient by 2040.Given all of this, the <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954390" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954390/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954390" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">recent accusations against ExxonMobil</genius-referent> make no sense — that is, until you learn that the anti-ExxonMobil campaign, and the supposedly unbiased media reports it rests upon, is in fact funded by groups actively opposed to the use of oil and natural gas. <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8986408" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8986408/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8986408" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">Some of the leaders of this campaign believe the best way to address climate change is to divest oil and gas company shares or to engage in other gestures intended to demonize an industry helping people around the world enjoy access to modern energy sources and rising living standards</genius-referent>.ExxonMobil fundamentally disagrees with that vision.<genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8986417" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8986417/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8986417" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" data-genius-hover="" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">Our vision is one in which technological innovations continue to improve people’s quality of life around the world while reducing climate change risks.</genius-referent>Government policies have an important role to play in addressing climate risks, provided those policies are effective and fair. Not all of them are. <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954398" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954398/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954398" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">ExxonMobil spoke out against the </genius-referent><genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954398" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954398/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954398" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">Kyoto </genius-referent><genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954398" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954398/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954398" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">Protocol in the 1990s </genius-referent>because, among other things, it would have exempted two-thirds of the world’s emitters. And we opposed ill-conceived <genius-referent data-genius-referent-id="8954410" data-genius-style-id="referent" data-genius-wrapped-path="/8954410/exxonknew.org/exposing-exxons-lies" data-genius-api-path="/referents/8954410" data-genius-annotator-id="3111649" data-genius-featured-referent="true" data-genius-hover="" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 100, 0.6); box-sizing: border-box; transition: background-color 0.2s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent !important;">cap-and-trade programs in the 2000s</genius-referent>, some of which would have exempted coal....<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/exxon-denial-and-deception.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/exxon-denial-and-deception.pdf</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">may 2002 47 pp  GCC Kyoto SMOKING GUN</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p6</div><div style="font-size: small;">This report, Denial and Deception: A Chronicle of ExxonMobil’s Efforts to Corrupt the Global Warming Debate, details more than a decade of deliberate and persistent efforts by ExxonMobil and its front groups to derail the evolving global warming treaty and the scientific consensus that urgently supports the international agreement. The report also delves into emerging ties between the ExxonMobil agenda and the damaging global warming legacy of the Bush administration. Since the early 1990s, Exxon and Mobil have taken leading roles in industry efforts to cast doubt over climate science. With the now defunct Global Climate Coalition front group and others, ExxonMobil has claimed that the scientists are getting it wrong on global warming and the role of fossil fuels. This ongoing effort was spawned by the revelations of the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990, which pointed to strong and growing evidence of temperature rise, sea level rise and other changes resulting from rising emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. That report stressed the need for a 60 to 80 percent cut in CO2 emissions just to stabilize rising atmospheric concentrations of this greenhouse gas. This call for emission cuts was received by Exxon, Mobil and others as a direct attack on their core business. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">ExxonMobil’s campaign to slow the progress of scientific validation of global warming started with the use of paid skeptic scientists to publicly rebut scientific advances. Exxon has also actively engaged in manipulation of international scientific assessments. In 1998, Exxon was involved in developing a $6 million American Petroleum Institute communications plan for a two-year campaign intended to reshape the climate debate – where the ultimate victory was the defeat of the Kyoto Protocol, and making those promoting it appear ‘out of touch with reality’.iii The latest attack on climate science was revealed this year in a secret ExxonMobil memo to President Bush. The memo asked for the removal of Dr. Robert Watson, the Chair of IPCC. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">The Bush administration climate team and its allies executed ExxonMobil’s will in mid-April of 2002. In addition to this latest tale of the working relationship between ExxonMobil and Bush, this report delves into some of what is known of the company’s close history with George W. Bush dating back to Bush’s days as Governor of Texas. In 1997, then Governor Bush consulted Exxon and Marathon oil to draft a proposal to deal with Texas’s debilitating air pollution problem from so called “grandfathered” facilities, those that do not pass modern pollution regulations, but are allowed to continue to operate. Rather like asking the fox to design the chicken coop, the resulting proposed regulations were not surprisingly voluntary and full of loopholes. Eventually the secret consultations between Exxon and Governor Bush were revealed and the plan was thrown out. This report also tracks ExxonMobil’s broad array of political dirty tricks aimed at slowing the progress of global warming policy agreements. From the funding and dissemination of “chicken little” economic scare reports on global warming policy to anti-global warming treaty advertising on television and in newspapers, ExxonMobil has carried this war on the climate treaty from international negotiations to Capitol Hill—around the world and back again. ExxonMobil’s use of divisive tactical rhetoric is best exemplified by its two faced argument on the role of developing countries in the climate treaty. While arguing in the U.S. policy arena that America should reject a treaty that does not conscript developing countries to act, Exxon simultaneously has lobbied developing countries not to support the treaty saying that they will be economically harmed by it. In the lead up to 1997 Kyoto climate negotiations, Exxon and Mobil, through the Global Climate Coalition and other front groups, were heavily pushing the message in the United States that developing countries were..</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p10 [bogus accuweather study]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">, drawing its data from only three U.S. cities. Although the study was unsupportable scientifically, it gained considerable media and public attention when it was heavily promoted by the GCC. The IPCC Second Assessment Report was released in December of 1995. It concluded that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the global climate” and that “significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions are technically possible and can be economically feasible.”15</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"> The president of the American Petroleum Institute at the time, Charles DiBona, called the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report “inflammatory,” because it stated that “the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.”16 It is notable that oil producing countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia tried to delay the report’s release because of this “strong language”, and argued against the use of the words “appreciable,” “notable,” “measurable,” and “detectable” in place of “discernable.”17 Also in 1995, the GCC attempted to orchestrate a character assassination of an IPCC scientist, Dr. Benjamin Santer. It accused Santer of “scientific cleansing” – claiming in the press that he had secretly and substantially altered the 1995 IPCC report. Other scientists came to Santer’s defense and confirmed that the allegations were false.18 1997: In the lead up to the negotiations in Kyoto, Japan Mobil ran a series of advertisements in major U.S. newspapers regarding climate change. One of the most extreme appeared in The Washington Post one month before Kyoto: “Science: What We Know and Don’t Know.” It featured a large pie chart purporting to show that human activities are responsible for only 3 to 4 percent of total CO2 emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere. While this is true, it is highly misleading as it conceals the fact that overall CO2 levels have increased about 30 percent due mainly to the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. British Petroleum withdrew from the Global Climate Coalition in 1997, distancing itself from Exxon, Mobil and other corporations that continued to refute the</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p11</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">This would be achieved by recruiting and training five “independent” scientists – “new faces… without a long history of visibility in the climate debate” to participate in media outreach. The American Petroleum Institute aimed to “maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours, with Congress, the media and other key audiences” and admitted shamelessly that it would target teachers and students, in order to “begin to erect a barrier against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future.”21 (See appendix for full text of memo.) On 25 April 1998, The New York Times reported that the American Petroleum Institute intended to “spend millions of dollars to convince the public that the [Kyoto Protocol] is based on shaky science…” and to give global warming skeptics “the logistical and moral support they have been lacking.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">...In June 1998, prior to the climate negotiations session in Bonn, Germany, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) distributed a pamphlet to diplomats, entitled “Climate Change: The Case Against Scientific Certainty.” In this document, the GCC argued that: “While it is certain that the Protocol would impose enormous burdens on America’s economy, there is no scientific certainty that human activity affects global climate.” Perennial skeptic, TV journalist John Stossel, is named in the strategy document to get a major national story run “examining the scientific underpinnings of the Kyoto treaty.” Potential funding sources for the strategy were identified as the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Business Roundtable, Edison Electric Institute, and the National Mining Association and all of its corporate members. Among the potential “fund allocators” were Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Frontiers for Freedom and the George C. Marshall Institute.23 It is clear that the disclosure of this plan by The New York Times did not impede its progress.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p13</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">On 11 March 2002, in a speech given at Stanford University, Sir John Browne, Chairman and CEO of British Petroleum, explained why his company broke ranks with other oil corporations in 1997 and decided to face up to climate change: First, it was clear that reputable science could not be ignored. The science wasn’t complete – but science is never complete…. But they knew enough to say that there were long-term risks and that precautionary action was necessary if we were to avoid the greater risk - of the evidence mounting to the point where draconian action was unavoidable.46...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p15</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">ExxonMobil - Funding the Skeptics One of the most high profile skeptics in the climate change debate, S. Fred Singer, has recently denied receiving any oil company money, and claimed that his consulting for oil companies was solely “on the subject of oil pricing, some 20 years ago….”59 Yet Exxon’s own documents60 show that in 1998, the company gave a grant of $10,000 to the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), of which Singer is the founding president, and another $65,000 to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which promotes and supports Singer’s work.61 In addition, in the past Singer has acknowledged receiving funding from Exxon.62 According to the Wall Street Journal63, </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">ExxonMobil also funds the ultra-conservative and anti-environmentalist Frontiers of Freedom Institute, of which Singer is a staff member. Frontiers of Freedom was cited in the American Petroleum Institute (API) 1998 Global Science Communications Action Plan as a possible organization to help operationalize their anti-Kyoto strategy, to be funded by API and others in the fossil fuel industry.64 Singer has a history of public attacks on the integrity of the IPCC process.65 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">He has fabricated quotes from the former chair of the IPCC, Dr. Bert Bolin, in an attempt to suggest that Dr. Bolin had changed his mind about climate change.66 Singer was also the mastermind behind a Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) project that took fifty Republican students from the United States, trained in the skeptics’ arguments, to the climate negotiations in Bonn in 2001, to demonstrate in favor of Bush’s abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol.67 CFACT was also listed in the 1998 API plan mentioned above. Throughout the years, Singer, a seemingly professional generic skeptic, has argued against an international treaty to ban whaling, and against action on acid rain, ozone depletion and clean air. He has stated that most people would survive a nuclear war and that resultant climatic changes would be minor and short-lived. He has also argued that the lung cancer risk from second-hand smoke was statistically insignificant.68 (See appendix for details.) However, aside from one technical comment, Singer has been unable to publish his work in any peer-reviewed scientific journals for at least 15 years.69</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Sallie Baliunas has published several reports which attempt to show that human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels play no role in global warming, that science does not support the prospect of dangerous climate change70, and that scientific findings do not support federal regulation of emissions.71 The Global Climate Coalition (of which Exxon and Mobil were prominent members) hired her to go on a media tour in 1994 to refute the science of global climate change.72 She was also a “co-author” of the paper which imitated the National Academy of Sciences format, and was the basis for the 1998 “Oregon Petition” with signatures from “17,000 scientists” dismissing the scientific consensus on climate change.73 Other prominent skeptics funded by Exxon include Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, and Sherwood Idso. 74 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">All are veterans of the 1991 coal-industry funded skeptic campaign coordinated by the Information Council on the Environment (ICE). According to strategy papers developed for the campaign, the ICE campaign sought to “re-position global warming as theory (not fact)” and attempted to target “older, less educated males from larger households who are not typically information seekers” and “younger, lower income women.”75 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">In 1998, Exxon gave a grant of $15,000 to The Cato Institute’s Environment and Natural Resources program, of which Patrick Michaels is a senior fellow. Michaels argues in four directions: global warming is not happening, science that detects global warming is flawed, industry-funded science is viable and objective, and global warming will be good for the planet and humankind. Contradicting his claims that global warming is not occurring, in 1998 Michaels wrote that: “The earth’s climate is not necessarily changing in a deleterious fashion…. These changes may bear, at least in part, a fingerprint of human activity.”76 Exxon also funds the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, which published Robert Balling’s 1992 book on climate change, The Heated Debate. 77 Balling has argued that climate change, when or if it occurs, will be beneficial, particularly for the United States. “Do something to stimulate plant growth in areas prone to degradation of graze lands: burn fossil fuels and help to increase atmospheric CO2 levels....</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">The pastures of the world, along with the animals (and people) depending on those ecosystems, will be in your debt!”78 Sherwood Idso is the scientific advisor for the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Arizona, which received a $10,000 grant from Exxon in 1998. Idso’s past contribution to the climate debate was a 1991 coal industry funded video The Greening of Planet Earth – which claims that global warming is good for humanity. It was the subject of congressional hearings in the early 1990s.79</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p19 Kytoto</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">...Administration.” The op-ed stated that “the unrealistic and economically damaging Kyoto process needs to be rethought.”99 Meanwhile, ExxonMobil and its oil industry colleagues were lobbying Capitol Hill and the White House as well. Following Bush’s March 2001 statement regarding his formal opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, the Chief Executive of the American Petroleum Institute wrote a letter of support and congratulations to the Chair of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, Congressman Joe Barton, thanking him for the “strong leadership” he had demonstrated on the issue. The letter indicated that Barton had asked the API for its view on the status of the international negotiations to implement the Kyoto Protocol on 26 March 2001, days before Bush’s rejection of the treaty. The letter re-stated the usual skeptic’s arguments against Kyoto (the economic implications and lack of developing countries participation), much of the language echoing that of both Bush (“the Kyoto Protocol represents a fundamentally flawed approach…”) and of Exxon’s statements (“the long term challenge of potential climate change”) (emphases added). Like ExxonMobil, the API still calls for more research to reduce “the scientific gaps and uncertainties surrounding the potential of human impacts on the climate.”100 The U.S. Council on International Business (USCIB), of which ExxonMobil is a member, wrote to Bush on 11 April 2001, after his withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, suggesting that “the U.S. should move quickly to chart a path forward that will avoid the Kyoto protocol’s unrealistic targets, timetables and lack of developing country participation.”101...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p21</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Influencing U.S. Energy Policy </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Documents obtained by the National Resources Defense Council110 thus far, through the Freedom of Information Act, regarding the Bush-Cheney Energy Task Force indicate that there were many conversations with industry, including ExxonMobil, regarding the formulation of U.S. energy policy in early 2001. Because numerous documents have been withheld to date, the extent to which ExxonMobil influenced the Bush-Cheney energy plan has yet to be determined. The American Petroleum Institute was the lead organization in the energy task force brought together by Vice President Dick Cheney to formulate an energy plan. Lee Raymond, CEO and Chairman of ExxonMobil, was a member of the API board at the time. . Under pressure from the U.S. media, ExxonMobil admitted that it was involved in the drafting of the Bush-Cheney energy plan, and at least one direct consultation between Raymond and Cheney’s office has been disclosed.111 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">The resultant plan calls for increasing domestic supplies of oil and gas, and opening federal lands for drilling, thus giving renewed support to the coal and nuclear power industries. Bush Echoes ExxonMobil The similarities between ExxonMobil’s statements and the words coming out of Bush’s mouth are uncanny and likely not coincidental. In April 2001, ExxonMobil paid for advertisements that described the Kyoto Protocol as “fundamentally flawed” and “fatally politicized.” After Bush rejected the treaty, he described the Kyoto Protocol as “fatally flawed in fundamental ways.”112 Bush’s reasons for withdrawing the United States from the Kyoto Protocol reflected ExxonMobil’s arguments of the past decade. Bush rejected the treaty because113: • The emissions targets set forth in the protocol are not scientifically justified; • The Kyoto Protocol is “fatally flawed” and “ineffective;” • It would hurt the U.S. economy and mean massive job losses; • The largest developing countries are exempt – even though his father approved their initial exemption in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Rio Earth Summit. Despite Dahan’s claim that “It is ridiculous to suggest that our contributions could buy influence on U.S. government policy,”114 immediately following his speech in London (October 2001), Dahan boasted to the Financial Times that the Bush alternative to the Kyoto Protocol “will not be very different from what you are hearing from us.”115 In fact, he was right. Below are ExxonMobil’s recommendations for a “sounder climate policy,” followed by the Bush plan as announced on 14 February 2002....</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p23</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Political Dirty Tricks </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">On the One Hand: Developing Country Commitments and the Byrd-Hagel Resolution Although developing countries emit only a fraction of global greenhouse gases, and the historical burden for emissions rests on the industrialized world, ExxonMobil continues to argue that the Kyoto Protocol excludes developing countries such as China and India, and that developing countries should make the same binding commitments to immediate reductions in emissions as the industrialized world. However, the Kyoto Protocol is a crucial and significant first step towards tackling global warming, which does include developing countries. Under the Kyoto Protocol, developing countries are allowed some increases in emissions in the short term, and more time to bring their emissions under control, in keeping with an international treaty signed in 1992, that included the United States. At the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, all nations agreed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The first President Bush signed this convention, and the U.S. Senate ratified it, making it U.S. law. Under the UNFCCC, all parties agreed that the developed countries – those responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since the dawn of the industrial age – would take the lead in reducing emissions. Once developed countries, such as the United States, have made progress on reducing their own emissions, developing countries will be required to reduce emissions as well. However, until the United States takes the lead and starts to set an example, we cannot expect developing nations to make commitments to reduce emissions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">[mobil ad]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">That is why it is incumbent on all nations to participate in the solution even in the short term.”126 • After the vote, Mobil took out further advertisements expressing support for the concerns raised by the Senate vote over the equity of a climate treaty that excluded developing countries and might result in “serious harm to the economy of the United States.” It suggested that “when the Congress speaks this forcefully, the American public as well as the administration should take notice.”127 • </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">In the run up to the Senate vote, the American Petroleum Institute signed a U.S. newspaper advertisement on 23 June 1997, addressed to President Clinton and stating API’s support for the anti-Kyoto resolution by Byrd and Hagel.128 Hagel had close links with the API at this time; he spoke at its conference in November that year, just prior to Lee Raymond, who quoted Hagel’s resolution in his speech.129 • </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">The U.S. Business Roundtable (BRT) ran a $1 million advertising campaign on climate change in June 1997, urging the Clinton administration not to rush into policy commitments without fully understanding the consequences. This campaign included full-page advertisements in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, signed by both Exxon and Mobil.130 The BRT also sent a letter to Senator Hagel on 8 July 1997, supporting his upcoming senate resolution, on the basis that “the science is less than compelling.”131 On the Other Hand, Developing Countries Should Not Commit In October 1997, just prior to the international climate negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, Exxon CEO Lee Raymond urged Asian governments at the World Petroleum Congress in Beijing to continue to fight emissions regulations for at least the next two decades. Having previously argued that the lack of developing country participation was unfair to the United States, he now threatened that developing countries would lose foreign investment if binding targets were agreed upon at Kyoto:...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p28</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">ExxonMobil Behind the Curve In addition to these voices, other fossil fuel companies have called for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. On 7 November 2001, Greg Bourne, the President of British Petroleum for South Australia and Australasia, called on the Australian government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He said that the Australian economy would suffer if the nation did not commit to ratification.158 Bourne said that “the world is going to have to change its energy use pattern” and that postponing this change will make the transition more difficult, and “cause too much social upheaval.” Further, in contrast to ExxonMobil’s charge that the Kyoto Protocol will bring massive unemployment, Bourne’s “own belief is that there will be many more jobs created by changes into a newer economy than there will be lost.”159...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">[in in early December 2001, Robert A.G. Monks, founder of the leading U.S. corporate-governance consulting firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc., announced the introduction of a shareholder resolution calling for ExxonMobil’s board to rein in Lee Raymond, charging that Raymond’s “increasingly extreme position on global warming and other environmental and social issues was harming the company’s reputation and share values.”162 In March 2002, ExxonMobil shareholders gained an important victory when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled in support of two shareholder resolutions in the corporation’s proxy for 2002. The resolutions, which were filed by 56 investor groups which are concerned about ExxonMobil’s position on climate change, call for executive compensation to be linked to the company’s social and environmental performance, and for the publication of a report on the company’s efforts to develop renewable energy technologies. ExxonMobil had challenged the resolutions at the SEC.163]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p30</div><div style="font-size: small;">Global Climate Coalition (GCC) “Over the past decade, the Global Climate Coalition has spent millions of dollars to defuse the global warming issue, lobbying members of Congress to thwart any corrective action, conducting economic studies that conclude that any such measures would irreparably harm the economy, and sponsoring skeptics on speaking tours to question whether global warming is the crisis other scientists say it is.”173 The GCC was established in 1989 and, for more than a decade, was the most outspoken and confrontational lobby group battling emissions reduction commitments. It invested enormous resources into fullscale attacks on international climate agreement, waging extensive, multi-million dollar dis-information campaigns.174 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">Both Exxon and Mobil were board members of the GCC and supported the organization.175 It was recently reported that during the 1990s, Exxon and Mobil spent approximately $1 billion financing the GCC, though accurate figures may never be known.176 In 1997, British Petroleum (BP) left the GCC after admitting that climate change required action. During the period 1999-2000, there was a large-scale defection of companies such as Ford, Texaco and General Motors, but ExxonMobil remained. ExxonMobil was the last to leave the GCC, and left only because the coalition stopped listing corporations as member, accepting only trade associations.177 The GCC folded in early 2002, declaring that President Bush and the Senate were enacting their agenda and thus it had achieved its goals.178 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">American Petroleum Institute (API) </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">ExxonMobil is a financial supporter of the API and sits on the board. Lee Raymond, CEO of ExxonMobil, was the chair of the API from 1995-1997.179 U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has been a member of its board of directors, and the API remained a member of the Global Climate Coalition until the GCC folded in early 2002.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) The ICC is an industry lobby group that has active at many sessions of the Kyoto negotiations. At the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP 6) in The Hague, Netherlands, in November 2000, ExxonMobil’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Brian Flannery, was registered as a representative of the ICC and was one of the group’s main spokespeople. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) Exxon and Mobil were both members of the IPIECA in 1996 when it attempted to influence the December climate talks with dire economic forecasts resulting from emissions reductions. ExxonMobil remains a member. U.S. Business Round Table (BRT) The BRT is made up of CEOs from more than 200 large corporations, including ExxonMobil. The climate agenda it pushes calls for global agreements that include developing countries, voluntary agreements for industry, “flexible policies,” and tradable emissions permits between countries. Tax and regulatory measures are strongly opposed. Its 1997 position statement proposed that “a climate policy which fails to include all nations should be opposed,” despite the fact that in 1992, parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, including the United States, agreed that developed countries should act first.180 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">Global Climate Information Project (GCIP) In the run up to the international climate change negotiations in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, this industry coalition ran a $13 million advertising campaign in the U.S. press, and U.S. national and local television and radio stations that opposed U.S. commitments to the upcoming global warming agreement, claiming that developing countries were not included and the treaty would harm the U.S. economy.181 It was sponsored by the GCC and by API while Lee Raymond was chair. U.S. Council on International Business (USCIB) ExxonMobil is a member of this corporate lobby group which actively lobbied for President George W. Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">...Pushing ExxonMobil’s Economic Agenda 1996: </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">In 1996, the American Petroleum Institute commissioned and funded an economic model to predict the costs of reducing carbon emissions. The model – produced by U.S. consulting firm Charles River Associates – predicted that any commitment to legally binding emissions targets within the next decade would entail large costs.182 This model failed to compare these potential Kyoto Protocol implementation costs with economic costs of inaction or delay on climate protection, nor the costs of past and future climate change impacts on humans and the environment. Furthermore, it did not incorporate the economic benefits that would result from new markets and jobs created through emissions reduction policies and the development and use of renewable energy and more energy efficient technologies. The author of the model, David Montgomery, spoke at a briefing organized by the U.S. Council for International Business and chaired by the head of the International Chamber of Commerce (ExxonMobil is a member of both organizations) at the UN climate negotiations in Geneva, December 1996. He was quoted widely in the media throughout that year.183</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"> At the December 1996 climate talks, the IPIECA circulated a briefing paper which concluded that: “Current proposals for near term (10-20 years) emissions reductions in developed countries, which imply curbs on fossil fuel based energy use, would result in substantial costs that would inhibit economic growth and negatively affect trade, investment, competitiveness, employment and lifestyles.”184 Exxon and Mobil were both members of the IPIECA at the time.185 1997: In February of 1997, 2000 top economists (including six Nobel Laureates) signed a statement affirming that many potential climate protection policies “would slow climate change without harming American living standards, and these measures may in fact improve U.S. productivity in the long run.” They urged the United States to play a leadership role at the Kyoto negotiations.186...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">p35</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">However, experience in the United States, Europe, Japan and elsewhere has demonstrated that government policy is the most important factor in determining the success of renewable energy technologies. Furthermore, policies that create a market for these technologies encourage private investment in renewables research and development (R&D) and production capability, and enable the experience in installation, operation and maintenance, and the economies of scale that can significantly reduce the costs of renewable energy.209 If a corporation of ExxonMobil’s size – one of the world’s largest – were to shift significant investment out of fossil fuels and into renewable energy, it could play an important role in further reducing the costs of renewable energy.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"> Unfortunately, ExxonMobil dismisses non-fossil fuel sources of energy such as renewables, despite the growing investments in these technologies by other major international oil companies including British Petroleum (BP) and Royal Dutch/Shell. But, rather than investing in renewable energy, ExxonMobil is investing more and more money in oil and gas. ExxonMobil is not interested in developing renewables, but in finding alternative ways to use fossil fuels. Its “solutions” to climate change range from “cleaner fuels,” to advanced drilling techniques, to increased energy efficiency of their operations, to tree planting. None of these actions will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. “Cleaner fuels” such as low-sulfur diesel reduce some airborne pollutants, but do not reduce the emissions that cause global warming. Hydrogen fuelcell vehicles offer great future potential – but the energy generated will be carbon-free only if the hydrogen fuel is produced with renewable energy. It is no surprise then that the fuel cell vehicle ExxonMobil is working to develop, in coordination with auto manufacturers, will use gasoline to produce the hydrogen fuel. In 2001, ExxonMobil earned $15.3 billion in profits...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">By contrast, BP and Shell have both agreed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars each on their renewable energy divisions. Both companies have stressed that they want to turn what could be a regulatory burden into an eventual profit. “The element of profit stems from our belief that commercial mechanisms, such as those included in the [Kyoto] protocol, are the way to solve problems like global warming,” says BP spokesman Roddy Kennedy.212 BP and Shell spend a fraction on renewables of what they spend exploring and developing fossil fuels, and a mere fraction of what they could spend on renewables. Yet the divide between these companies and ExxonMobil is enormous. </div></div><div></div>=<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution</a><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; color: rgb(32, 33, 34);"><div class="mw-parser-output">The Byrd–Hagel Resolution was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">United States</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate" title="United States Senate" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Senate</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution(law)" title="Resolution (law)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Resolution</a> passed unanimously with a vote of 95–0 on 25 July 1997, sponsored by Senators <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hagel" title="Chuck Hagel" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Chuck Hagel</a> (R-NE) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd" title="Robert Byrd" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Robert Byrd</a> (D-WV). The resolution stated that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would 'mandate new commitments to limit or reduce <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions" title="Greenhouse gas emissions" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">greenhouse gas emissions</a> for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Kyoto_Protocol" title="List of parties to the Kyoto Protocol" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Annex I Parties</a>, unless ...[it]... also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period', or would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States. This effectively prohibited the US from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification" title="Ratification" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">ratifying</a> the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol" title="Kyoto Protocol" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Kyoto Protocol</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[1]</a><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Impact[</h2>Despite the unanimous passage of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_representative_to_the_United_Nations" title="" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">U.N. Ambassador</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Burleigh" title="Peter Burleigh" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Peter Burleigh</a> signed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol" title="Kyoto Protocol" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Kyoto Protocol</a> on behalf of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Bill_Clinton" title="Presidency of Bill Clinton" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Clinton Administration</a> on November 12th 1998.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[2]</a> However the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Clinton Administration</a> ultimately withheld the treaty from acquiring Senate approval due to potential political backlash and disapproval.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[3]</a>During the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W.Bush" title="Presidency of George W. Bush" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Bush administration</a>, Senators <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd" title="Robert Byrd" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Robert Byrd</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Helms" title="Jesse Helms" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Jesse Helms</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Roberts" title="Pat Roberts" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Pat Roberts</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Craig" title="Larry Craig" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Larry Craig</a> issued a letter to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">President George W. Bush</a> to identify the President's stance on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol" title="Kyoto Protocol" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Kyoto Protocol</a> and climate change policy.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[4]</a> President Bush responded "I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy. The Senate's vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-5" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">[5]</a>During the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Barack_Obama" title="Presidency of Barack Obama" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Obama administration</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">U.S</a>. pursued climate policies such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Accord" title="Copenhagen Accord" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Copenhagen Accord</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement" title="Paris Agreement" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Paris Agreement</a> in advocating for more comprehensive environmental reform and to allow nations to self determine their own emission based commitments.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[6]</a> In a 2014 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time(magazine)" title="Time (magazine)" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Time</a> article, former <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_Defense" title="United States Secretary of Defense" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">U.S. Secretary of Defense</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hagel" title="Chuck Hagel" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Chuck Hagel</a> stated that "Congress should play an active role in the negotiations—not by blocking the deal, but by sending a new Global Climate Change Observer Group to report on the proceedings in Paris and closely evaluate other countries’ climate plans".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[7]</a><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3;">Related Legislation[</h2>H.Res.211 was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">U.S.</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="United States House of Representatives" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">House of Representatives</a> Resolution that was introduced with the support of 102 cosponsors on July 31st 1997.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[8]</a> H.Res.211 maintained similar language to the Byrd-Hagel Resolution incurring that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol" title="Kyoto Protocol" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173);">Kyoto Protocol</a> should "(1) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex 1 Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period; or (2) result in serious harm to the U.S. economy."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[9]</a> Despite the initial popularity of the resolution it ultimately was referred to the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade where no subsequent action took place. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[10]</a></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-us-president-dumped-global-climate-deal/story?id=47771005" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-us-president-dumped-global-climate-deal/story?id=47771005</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/donald-trump.htm" id="ramplink_Donald Trump" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" webkit-tap-highlight-color="webkit-tap-highlight-color" rgba="rgba" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" outline="outline" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" border-top="border-top" border-right="border-right" border-bottom="border-bottom" dotted="dotted" border-left="border-left" border-image="border-image" initial="initial" padding-bottom="padding-bottom" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Trump</a>'s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement this afternoon wasn't the first time an American president has dumped a global climate deal.</div><p id="ramplink_Kyoto Protocol" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 24px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">In March 2001, shortly after taking office, President George W. Bush announced the U.S. would not implement the 1997 <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/energy/kyoto-protocol.htm" id="ramplink_Kyoto Protocol" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Kyoto Protocol</a>. The Protocol -- an agreement brokered by former Vice President <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/al-gore.htm" id="ramplink_Al Gore" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Al Gore</a> and signed by former President <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/bill-clinton.htm" id="ramplink_Bill Clinton" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Bill Clinton</a> later ratified by 140 countries -- was aimed at curbing <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/energy/greenhouse-gases.htm" id="ramplink_greenhouse gas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">greenhouse gas</a> emissions and countering <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/climate-change.htm" id="ramplink_global warming" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">global warming</a>.<div data-box-type="fitt-adbox-incontentTeads" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;"><p id="ramplink_Paris agreement" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; margin: 24px 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">Bush’s reasons for withdrawing from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol were similar to those offered by the Trump administration on the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/energy/paris-agreement-climate-change.htm" id="ramplink_Paris agreement" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">Paris agreement</a>. He was concerned that the deal would hurt the U.S. economy, lead to higher <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/business/energy/energy-prices.htm" id="ramplink_energy prices" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">energy prices</a> and invite other countries to take advantage of an agreement with little enforcement capabilities.<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; margin: 24px 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">Bush, like Trump, was also a climate change skeptic.<p id="ramplink_presidential campaign" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; margin: 24px 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">“The Kyoto Treaty would affect our economy in a negative way,” Bush said during his 2000 <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/elections/presidential-election.htm" id="ramplink_presidential campaign" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 45, 108); outline: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; cursor: pointer; border-top: none; border-right: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 45, 108); border-left: none; border-image: initial; padding-bottom: 2px;">presidential campaign</a>. “We do not know how much our climate could or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.”<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; margin: 24px 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">Bush’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol received blowback from environmental groups as well as vocal criticism from then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; margin: 24px 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">Global temperatures have risen since then, while other major powers like China, Japan and Russia also declined to accept commitments to the Protocol.<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" scroll-margin-top="scroll-margin-top" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small; margin: 24px 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box;">Since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, sea levels have risen more than 2-1/2 inches on average, and the number of weather disasters worldwide has risen by 42 percent according to the Associated Press.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">=</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/world/bush-will-continue-to-oppose-kyoto-pact-on-global-warming.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/world/bush-will-continue-to-oppose-kyoto-pact-on-global-warming.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global Warming</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By David E. Sanger</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 12, 2001</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">See the article in its original context from June 12, 2001, Section A, Page 1</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Bush made clear today that he had no intention of reversing his opposition to a global warming accord supported by the European leaders he will meet with this week. And he strongly suggested that any new accord would have to bind developing nations, especially China and India, to the kind of commitments that would be made by the United States.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">In an effort to mollify his European critics in the hours before he left for Spain tonight on his first trip to Europe as president, Mr. Bush acknowledged the severity of the global warming problem and said the United States would ''lead the way by advancing the science on climate change.'' He described several new research initiatives that could mark a potentially significant focusing of American climate study.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">But while suggesting a new approach to the issue of global warming, Mr. Bush remained firm in rejecting the 1997 Kyoto accord, noting that it set no standards for major emitters of greenhouse gases, like China and India, while creating mandates for the United States that could prove economically crippling. His aides further argued that the accord -- aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels -- was written to make it easier for Europe than for the United States to meet the goals.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Bush's outright rejection of the treaty two months ago led to an uproar in Europe. While unapologetic about their decision to back away from the accord, White House officials concede that they did a poor job of explaining their objections or their approach to the problem of reducing heat-trapping gases.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">So today, Mr. Bush stepped into the Rose Garden with several of his cabinet members and publicly embraced a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences that concluded that temperatures are rising because of human activities. At the same time, he insisted that his rejection of the Kyoto protocol ''should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">''We will act, learn and act again, adjusting our approaches as science advances and technology evolves,'' he said. [Excerpts, Page A12.]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">In essence, Mr. Bush was arguing that the market should be allowed to solve the problem, with the United States pushing along research ''consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While advocating an attack on the problem of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the president once again rejected the mandates in the Kyoto treaty that the United States and other developed nations cut their emission levels of those gases to well below 1990 levels, a move he said would be economically disastrous for the United States and the world. He offered no concrete alternatives to the Kyoto cutbacks, however, beyond research and the gradual application of new technology.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">And he reiterated his longstanding pledge that he would not agree to any accord that exempts the developing world. ''The world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China,'' Mr. Bush said, with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell at his side. ''Yet China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet India was also exempt from Kyoto.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Bush omitted any direct criticism of Europe, even though his aides have been saying, publicly and privately, that the members of the European Union have deliberately manipulated the debate -- and unfairly caricatured Mr. Bush as an enemy of good environmental practice -- to cover up their political problems coming into compliance with the Kyoto mandates.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Andrew Card, Mr. Bush's chief of staff, told reporters over lunch here today that the target of cutting greenhouse emissions to below 1990 levels was picked with ''Machiavellian intent'' because it enabled them to count in East Germany just before its economy was collapsing. One result is that Europe must now cut its emissions far less than the United States does, he argued.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Card argued that Mr. Bush had taken a courageous position that other nations would eventually come to appreciate. ''The emperor of Kyoto was running around the stage for a long time naked,'' he said, ''and it took President Bush to say, 'He doesn't have any clothes on.' ''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Bush's statement today only seemed to fuel his disagreements with Europe, even as it was intended to tamp them down. ''Everyone will be polite this week, I'm sure,'' said a senior European diplomat here, ''but the standard everyone will be holding him to is how this stacks up against Kyoto. Where is the target? What is the U.S. timetable?''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Moreover, he has probably re-ignited the dispute with the developing world. China, for instance, has managed to reduce its emissions significantly in the last few years, and it argues that the United States has done comparatively little. Chinese officials have already said they view efforts to force stricter controls as part of a move to contain Chinese economic power.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just as China and India have rejected limiting their economic potential by imposing strict environmental standards, Mr. Bush made clear today that he would not agree to any environmental limits that would slow the economy of either the United States or the world.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">''We account for almost 20 percent of the man-made greenhouse emissions,'' he said. ''We also account for about one-quarter of the world's economic output. We recognize the responsibility to reduce our emissions.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But he added that ''we also recognize the other part of the story,'' saying the targets in the Kyoto treaty would ''have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Bush's statement was dismissed by a range of environmental groups as an effort to evade the issue by promising new scientific initiatives, but leaving unclear how much he was willing to spend, or how long the studies should take.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While Mr. Bush called for a ''national climate change technology initiative'' today, former members of the Clinton administration said it bore great resemblance to a $4.5 billion, five-year program they proposed four years ago. Congress never fully financed it, and Mr. Bush's recent budget did not support it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">''It's very weak tea,'' said David B. Sandalow, the former assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science and one of the negotiators of the Kyoto protocol in the last administration. Mr. Sandalow, now a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, said, ''If you were trying to develop a strategy to make sure China and India would not cooperate, you couldn't develop a better one than what Mr. Bush announced today.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What was striking about today's statement, though, was Mr. Bush's extensive discussion of the issue, and his commitment to do something about it -- even as he swathed the specifics in a cloud of ambiguities.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">He characterized global warming as a serious long-range problem but one whose dimensions were still too little understood.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">He tacitly acknowledged that the United States' rejection of the Kyoto accord had estranged the United States from many nations with which it has good relations generally.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Accordingly, Mr. Bush said he would push for new efforts to study global warming and more coordination among research institutions. He called for more money to pay for research into ways to control greenhouse gases.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If some of the president's statements today about technology and America's own advances sounded familiar, it may be because it had echoes of his father's speech nine years ago this week at a major environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro that set the stage for the Kyoto negotiations.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">''Let's face it, there has been some criticism of the United States,'' the first President Bush said at the time. ''But I must tell you, we come to Rio proud of what we have accomplished and committed to extending the record on American leadership on the environment. In the United States, we have the world's tightest air quality standards on cars and factories, the most advanced laws for protecting lands and waters, and the most open processes for public participation.''</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">He added, ''Now for a simple truth: America's record on environmental protection is second to none.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the years since, the United States has continued to support research and new technology and to push for limits on automobile exhaust and factory emissions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By repeating his fidelity today to negotiating with other nations under the 1992 climate treaty signed by his father, Mr. Bush is essentially trying to reset the clock, arguing that Kyoto should be scrapped in favor of a new, market-based accord that did not impose such an onerous economic cost.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But it is far from clear that he can win any converts to that position. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a nonpartisan group that works with many large corporations seeking to scale back their emissions, said today that she was ''confused'' about Mr. Bush's political goal.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">''He is meeting with Europeans who are doing some very ambitious things to reduce emissions,'' she said. ''Yet what we don't have from him is something that talks about how you go about reducing emissions.''</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Some of that, Bush administration officials said, is contained in his energy report, issued last month. Mr. Bush, for instance, called for the increased use of nuclear power, because it emits no greenhouse gases. In a sign of how far apart he and the Europeans are, Germany today reached an agreement with its utilities to phase out the use of nuclear power, in part because of the growing problem of disposing of nuclear waste.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Although this will be Mr. Bush's first trip to Europe since taking office, White House aides said today that the president, who critics have said has had little exposure to foreign countries, has made several previous trips to the region.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said Mr. Bush had been to the Britain at least three times, most recently in 1990, when he also visited Spain, Portugal and Morocco. He also said Mr. Bush had visited France, though no date was provided.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div></div></div>=1992: Renewable energy gets a boost. To help support the fledgling wind industry, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) added the renewable energy production tax credit to the 1992 Energy Policy Act, which has been critical in the rapid expansion of the wind energy industry. The tax credit has been extended in short stints – with occasional lapses – since then. An investment tax credit for solar energy installations was later added to the tax code through the Energy Policy Act of 2005.1997: Senate pre-empts Kyoto Protocol. In June 1997, six months ahead of a U.N. climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, the Senate adopted a nonbinding resolution introduced by Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and 44 other cosponsors, stating that the United States should not enter into any international climate agreement that did not include comparable emissions commitments by developing countries or that “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States…” The Clinton Administration proceeded to negotiate and sign the Kyoto Protocol, which set emission targets for developed countries only. But the agreement was never submitted to the Senate for advice and consent, and in 2001, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not join it.new<a href="https://theecologist.org/2018/oct/08/why-did-george-w-bush-pull-out-kyoto-protocol">https://theecologist.org/2018/oct/08/why-did-george-w-bush-pull-out-kyoto-protocol</a>Despite the huge amount of fossil fuel funding upon which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">George W. Bush</a> was elected president in 2001, insiders in the monopoly-dominated oil industry remained unsure that he would fight for them - and against climate scientists.Bush had suggested during his candidacy that CO2 should be treated as a pollutant and, therefore, subject to regulation under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act%28United_States%29" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Clean Air Act</a> - even if the international Kyoto Agreement was not economically favourable for America.Bush’s fence-sitting was strategic: swing states such as Florida were environmentally conscious and speaking out would likely give Democrat presidential candidate <a href="http://www.algore.com/" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Al Gore</a> the advantage.But, optimistic environmentalists remained hopeful while wary oil-men were worried that it demonstrated a willingness to agree to the broad principles of the treaty.A Rumoured SpeechShortly after his inauguration, a rumour circulated that Bush planned to include a line reinforcing his earlier pledge in a forthcoming speech.Word of the speech reached the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI), a Koch- and Exxon-funded think tank that helped donate to Bush’s presidential campaign. CEI set to work. As their founder and president, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Fred Smith later </a><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">told Newsweek</a>: “We alerted anyone we thought could have influence and get the line, if it was in the speech, out.”Despite the think tank’s best efforts, Environmental Protection Agency administrator <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/christine-todd-whitman" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Christine Todd Whitman</a> testified, on 27 February 2001 at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subcommittee, that she was in favour of regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.A week later, she signed a joint statement at the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting which said: “We commit ourselves to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol.”The President’s PositionAt this, the denial machine set in motion.<a href="https://twitter.com/haleybarbour" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;"> Haley Barbour</a>, a lobbyist for a utility firm that stood to lose if greenhouse gases were regulated, urged Vice President <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/dick-cheney-9246063" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Dick Cheney </a>in a March 1 memo to persuade Bush not to align with the “eco-extremism” of those who saw carbon dioxide as a pollutant.A group of far-right Republican senators wrote an open letter to their new president. In light of Whitman’s testimony, they asked that Bush clarify his position on climate change, “in particular the Kyoto Protocol, and the regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.”Aware of the rising tide against her, Whitman went to the Oval Office to fight her case on the morning of March 13. But, Bush had already composed his response, shortly to be sent via Cheney to the senators, which he read to her.“I do not believe,” read the letter, “that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act.”Information from the Department of Energy had shown that consumers’ energy bills might be affected, and that this warranted a re-evaluation of his earlier pledge, “especially… given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of and solution to global climate change.”Polluter Pull-OutWhitman left defeated, just as the puppeteer Cheney arrived to hand-deliver the President’s response to the senators.By the end of the month, the world’s biggest polluter had pulled out of Kyoto.Whitman, who later said the decision was “the equivalent to ‘flipping the bird’ frankly to the rest of the world,” was the one to deliver the news. “We have no interest in implementing that treaty,” the former New Jersey Governor told assembled journalists.Though the terms of the treaty would be finalised in Bonn that July, they would be made all but useless, with the world’s largest polluter out of the game.Years later, freedom of information disclosures revealed the industry’s input to this decision.A briefing note prepared for Paula Dobrianksy, Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs, ahead of her meeting with Glenn Kelly of the Exxon-bankrolled Global Climate Coalition, states: “POTUS [President of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you… Interested in hearing from you, what type of international alternatives to Kyoto would you support?”This AuthorBrendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/impact-of-market-forces-on-addictive-substances-and-behaviours-9780198753261?cc=gb&lang=en&" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">The web of influence</a> of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague. This article first appeared at <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(183, 0, 123); border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial;">Desmog.uk</a>.
<div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/climate/stories/clim121197b.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/climate/stories/clim121197b.htm</a></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">S<a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><h2 style="display: inline !important;"><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;"></a><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;">enate Republicans Call Kyoto Pact Dead</a></h2></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><h2 style="display: inline !important;"><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;"></a><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;"></a><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;"></a><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;" /><a name="top" style="outline: none;">
</a></h2></div><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">By Helen Dewar and Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 11, 1997; Page A37</a><a name="top" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The difficulty delegates to the global warming conference in Kyoto encountered in reaching agreement on reducing greenhouse gases is likely to pale beside the trouble Republicans have promised the Clinton administration when it seeks ratification of the newly negotiated international treaty.</a>As finalized early this morning, Japanese time, the Kyoto accord calls for industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse emissions by 6 percent to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. It left aside until at least next year the contentious issue of how much developing countries would be required to cut their own emissions.Hours before the final agreement was reached, however, key Senate Republicans declared the accord "dead on arrival," and a leading Democratic supporter urged that the Senate delay a vote in light of its bleak prospects.Sen. Larry E. Craig (Idaho), head of the Republican Policy Committee, told reporters here that the treaty is "designed to give some nations a free ride, it is designed to raise energy prices in the United States and it is desigened to perpetuate a new U.N. bureaucracy to manage global resource allocation." It also would undermine the recent reform of farm programs and threaten U.S. agricultural production, warned Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).Rejecting Democratic proposals to postpone consideration of the accord, Craig called on President Clinton to "promptly submit the treaty and allow the Senate to kill it." Even if the administration delayed submitting it for ratification -- perhaps until a developing countries treaty can be reached next year -- Craig said he expects the Senate will act on its own to declare its opposition to the pact, serving notice in advance that the United States will not ratify it. Ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate.The comments of Craig and other Republican leaders were made at a news conference called yesterday to denounce what they had heard about the emerging agreement. Judging from what they had learned from congressional observers in Kyoto, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) said, "It's dead on arrival."In Kyoto, a leading Democratic member of the observer delegation agreed that the treaty was not acceptable to the Senate in its current form. "What we have here is not ratifiable in the Senate in my judgment," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said. According to aides in Washington, Kerry wanted Clinton to sign the deal but hold off submission of it until follow-on conferences scheduled for Bonn in June and Buenos Aires in November.At those meetings, the next step in the process of designing an international strategy to combat global warming, international delegates will again discuss more active participation by developing countries, which was essentially removed from the pact during the final hours of deliberation in Kyoto because of objections from China and India.U.S. opponents of a global warming pact, including the Republicans and major American industries, especially coal, oil, steel and electric power producers, have argued that a deal that requires industry in this country to go through the expensive process of significantly cutting emissions of greenhouse gases was unfair unless the same requirements applied to all nations.The treaty approved by consensus in Kyoto will be available for signature at United Nations headquarters in New York beginning March 15. Once a country signs, it has a year to ratify the pact. Technically, the administration could wait years before acting on the pact. Countries that do not sign during the allotted period may still become parties to the treaty at any point in the future.Kerry said a delay in formal approval of the treaty need not impede compliance with its goals, noting that the United States often has gone along with treaties before they were ratified. He and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who also supports the treaty, said in Kyoto that they are confident strong U.S. public support for action on global warming will help them eventually push the pact through the Senate."The people are ahead of the politicians on this one," Lieberman said.Kalee Kreider, director of Greenpeace's U.S. climate change campaign, said in Kyoto that environmental groups in the United States would begin an extensive grass-roots campaign to increase public support for the accord. She said the groups have been focusing their effort on government officials in the time leading up to the Kyoto conference, and "we haven't done as much public education as we should have."Kreider said U.S. opponents of the treaty have greatly overstated its economic effect and insisted that a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign mounted this fall by industries opposed to emissions cuts failed to weaken public support for fighting global warming.Republicans said yesterday they were adamantly opposed to any delay in submitting the treaty for ratification, warning they would object to any steps to implement the treaty "piecemeal," as Craig put it, without Senate approval.Although yesterday's news that the treaty was nearing agreement in Kyoto brought a new round of Senate denunciations, the global warming pact was in trouble from the start. During the summer, the Senate voted 95 to 0 to assert its opposition to any treaty that endangers the U.S. economy and spares developing countries from constraints imposed on developed nations.On Tuesday, Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) wrote Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), head of the Senate observer group, saying the treaty was falling short of these conditions and declaring the Senate "will not ratify a flawed climate change treaty."He criticized Vice President Gore, who in a Kyoto speech on Monday promised increased flexibility on the part of U.S. negotiators, saying Gore's intervention "further clouded an already murky situation" and "added to the bleak prospects for Senate ratification.""If they [the administration] won't take our advice, we won't give our consent," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Few on either side of the already rancorous debate over the pact could remember many major treaties -- even going back to bitter Cold War-era arguments over arms control -- that headed toward the Senate in such tattered shape.One major reason is that, as Craig put it yesterday, the issue carries "so much domestic political baggage," and Republicans lost no time in rummaging through the contents.It seems that Clinton and Gore are "rushing to reach a deal at any cost," Craig asserted. In a preview of political debates to come, Craig said that if the treaty is signed on behalf of the United States, "it will be the first time in history that an American president has allowed foreign interests to control and limit the growth of the U.S. economy."Anticipating the fierce criticism from Republicans, Clinton last night told a Democratic fund-raising dinner in New York that technological advances can mean a cleaner environment without economic damage. "We will fulfill our moral obligation to leave our children and our grandchildren a planet upon which they can live in peace with one another because of the resources that are left."Staff writer Peter Baker in New York contributed to this report. Dewar reported from Washington, Sullivan from Kyoto.<div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"></div>=<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-lesson-from-kyotos-failure-dont-let-congress-touch-a-climate-deal/">https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-lesson-from-kyotos-failure-dont-let-congress-touch-a-climate-deal/</a>
but the agreement never went into effect in the U.S. After Kyoto, where Al Gore, then the vice president, spoke of <a href="http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/speeches/kyotofin.html" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;">setting “binding emissions limits,”</a>the Clinton administration returned home to a Congress that refused to take part in the treaty. Before the conference, the GOP-controlled Senate passed the <a href="https://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSenate.html" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;">Byrd-Hagel resolution</a> in a 95 to 0 vote; it resolved that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that mandated the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions unless it also required reductions from developing countries during the same time period. That meant Clinton never got the Kyoto Protocol ratified, and George W. Bush never tried. The U.S.’s abandonment of the treaty didn’t kill it, but it severely limited its effectiveness.
<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-lesson-from-kyotos-failure-dont-let-congress-touch-a-climate-deal/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-lesson-from-kyotos-failure-dont-let-congress-touch-a-climate-deal/</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">In 1997, <a href="http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/speeches/kyotofin.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">more than 150 countries</a> came together in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a deal</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming. </div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Back then, the negotiations centered around developed countries, like the U.S., </div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Japan and Australia with the intention that richer countries would lead the way and create a legally binding treaty with emissions targets and reduction timelines.</div><article id="post-97122" class="post-97122 fte_features type-fte_features status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry tag-climate-change tag-global-warming tag-paris-climate-talks espn_verticals-science vertical-science topic-slug-paris-climate-talks" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" inherit="inherit" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" font-stretch="font-stretch" line-height="line-height" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline"><div class="entry-content single-post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline; max-width: 575px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Eighteen years later, the world is still trying to agree on how to tackle climate change. But this time around, the U.S. pledge does not require congressional approval. That approach echoes an important lesson from Kyoto: A treaty’s worth is directly tied to the president’s ability to enact it.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">In Kyoto, one of the U.S.’s top priorities was to establish a structure and market for limiting and trading emissions. Elliot Diringer, who attended the Kyoto talks as communications director for the Clinton administration’s White House Council on Environmental Quality, told me recently that emissions trading had proved very effective for tackling acid rain and that American negotiators considered that problem a good model to apply to greenhouse gases.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">But the agreement never went into effect in the U.S. After Kyoto, where Al Gore, then the vice president, spoke of <a href="http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/speeches/kyotofin.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">setting “binding emissions limits,”</a> the Clinton administration returned home to a Congress that refused to take part in the treaty. Before the conference, the GOP-controlled Senate passed the <a href="https://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSenate.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Byrd-Hagel resolution</a> in a 95 to 0 vote; it resolved that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that mandated the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions unless it also required reductions from developing countries during the same time period. [also could not affect economy X%  ?]That meant Clinton never got the Kyoto Protocol ratified, and George W. Bush never tried. The U.S.’s abandonment of the treaty didn’t kill it, but it severely limited its effectiveness.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The lesson of Kyoto was stark. “We learned the limits of what the U.S. can agree to,” said Rafe Pomerance, who went to Kyoto as deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and development. “Climate change policy is not fully dictated by negotiations,” he said. “They’re dictated by domestic political opportunities and constraints.” President Obama can pledge only what he can achieve through executive action, and that means that the agreement has to be a non-binding commitment that does not require congressional approval. “If the U.S. Congress won’t move, the U.S. is heavily constrained and therefore the world is constrained,” Pomerance said. Whether or not the U.S. is the largest emitter (<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">China overtook the U.S. as the world’s biggest emitter in 2007</a>), it’s still a major actor.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">So the Paris negotiations have taken an alternative tactic. At Kyoto, actual targets were hashed out at negotiations run by Argentinian Ambassador Raul Estrada-Oyuela, who famously insisted on keeping the talks moving forward and even physically stopped the clocks at one point to ensure that a deal was struck. This time, the meeting is taking a bottom-up approach. Rather than negotiating their targets in Paris, countries submitted their pledges ahead of time, and there’s little expectation that these pledges will be negotiated further, as they were in Kyoto. (The U.S. arrived in Kyoto with a proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels but left having agreed to reduce them to 7 percent <i style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">below 1990 levels.)<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The Paris approach is less ambitious, but it’s probably more realistic. The pledge that his administration submitted to the climate conference — <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americas-new-climate-policy-is-its-boldest-ever-and-still-not-enough/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025</a> — relies on actions administered through the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, which gets around the need for congressional ratification. Republican members of Congress are already fighting these measures, and if a Republican takes the White House, the administrative actions could be undone.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">While politicians talk about what to do, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, the number of weather and climate disasters worldwide <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6cb9f12d72b04554bc1235ef49593fe2/earth-wilder-warmer-place-last-climate-deal-made" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">has risen 42 percent, and the seas have risen nearly 6.2 centimeters</a>, on average.</div></article><div class="mini-bio" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" font-variant-numeric="font-variant-numeric" inherit="inherit" font-variant-east-asian="font-variant-east-asian" font-stretch="font-stretch" line-height="line-height" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" max-width="max-width" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p style="margin: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Christie Aschwanden is FiveThirtyEight’s lead writer for science. </div><div>
</div><div></div>---July 25, 1997Mr. BYRD (for himself, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. HOLLINGS, Mr. CRAIG, Mr. INOUYE, Mr. WARNER, Mr. FORD, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. DORGAN, Mr. HELMS, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. ABRAHAM, Mr. MCCONNELL, Mr. ASHCROFT, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. KEMPTHORNE, Mr. THURMOND, Mr. BURNS, Mr. CONRAD, Mr. GLENN, Mr. ENZI, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. BOND, Mr. COVERDELL, Mr. DEWINE, Mrs. HUTCHISON, Mr. GORTON, Mr. HATCH, Mr. BREAUX, Mr. CLELAND, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. HUTCHINSON, Mr. JOHNSON, Ms. LANDRIEU, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mr. NICKLES, Mr. SANTORUM, Mr. SHELBY, Mr. SMITH of Oregon, Mr. BENNETT, Mr. FAIRCLOTH, Mr. FRIST, Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. ALLARD, Mr. MURKOWSKI, Mr. AKAKA, Mr. COATS, Mr. COCHRAN, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr. GRAMM, Mr. GRAMS, Mr. LOTT, Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN, Mr. ROBB, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire, Mr. SPECTER, Mr. STEVENS, Mr. LUGAR, Mr. REID, Mr. BRYAN, Mr. THOMPSON, and Mr. CAMPBELL) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign RelationsJuly 21, 1997Reported by Mr. HELMS, without amendment=<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol</a>COP3 <h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">1997: COP 3, The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change</h2>COP 3 took place in December 1997 in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto" title="Kyoto" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Kyoto</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Japan</a>. After intensive negotiations, it adopted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol" title="Kyoto Protocol" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Kyoto Protocol</a>, which outlined the greenhouse gas emissions reduction obligation for Annex I countries, along with what came to be known as Kyoto mechanisms such as emissions trading, clean development mechanism and joint implementation. Most industrialized countries and some central European economies in transition (all defined as Annex B countries) agreed to legally binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of an average of 6 to 8% below 1990 levels between the years 2008–2012, defined as the first emissions budget period. The United States would be required to reduce its total emissions an average of 7% below 1990 levels; however Congress did not ratify the treaty after Clinton signed it. The Bush administration explicitly rejected the protocol in 2001.[cda bailed 2011?]
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol</a>The agreement supplements the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change">United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change</a> (UNFCCC) adopted at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Summit">Earth Summit</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_de_Janeiro">Rio de Janeiro</a> in 1992, which did not set any limitations or enforcement mechanisms. ?---The Kyoto Protocol is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol%28diplomacy%29" title="Protocol (diplomacy)">protocol</a> to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change" title="United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change">United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change</a> (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at fighting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming" title="Global warming">global warming</a>. The UNFCCC is an international <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy" title="Environmental policy">environmental</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty" title="Treaty">treaty</a> with the goal of achieving "stabilization of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas" title="Greenhouse gas">greenhouse gas</a> concentrations in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere" title="Atmosphere">atmosphere</a> at a level that would prevent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming" title="Global warming">dangerous anthropogenic interference</a> with the climate system."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-unfccc2005-3">[4]</a>The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto" title="Kyoto">Kyoto</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan">Japan</a> and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of July 2010, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kyoto_Protocol_signatories" title="List of Kyoto Protocol signatories">191 states have signed and ratified</a>the protocol.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-Kyoto-PDF-unfccc-4">[5]</a>Under the Protocol, 37 countries "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change#Annex_I_countries" title="United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change">Annex I countries</a>") commit themselves to a reduction of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide" title="Carbon dioxide">carbon dioxide</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane" title="Methane">methane</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide" title="Nitrous oxide">nitrous oxide</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur_hexafluoride" title="Sulphur hexafluoride" class="mw-redirect">sulphur hexafluoride</a>) and two groups of gases (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluorocarbon" title="Hydrofluorocarbon" class="mw-redirect">hydrofluorocarbons</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorocarbon" title="Perfluorocarbon">perfluorocarbons</a>) produced by them, and all member countries give general commitments. Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the 1991 level. Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbons" title="Chlorofluorocarbons" class="mw-redirect">chlorofluorocarbons</a>, or CFCs, which are dealt with under the 1987 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol_on_Substances_that_Deplete_the_Ozone_Layer" title="Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer" class="mw-redirect">Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer</a>.The benchmark 1990 emission levels were accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3) were the values of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential" title="Global warming potential">global warming potential</a>" calculated for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Second_Assessment_Report" title="IPCC Second Assessment Report">IPCC Second Assessment Report</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-5">[6]</a> These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co2e" title="Co2e" class="mw-redirect">CO2 equivalents</a> (CO2-eq) when computing overall sources and sinks.The Protocol allows for several "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_mechanisms" title="Flexible mechanisms" class="mw-redirect">flexible mechanisms</a>", such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading" title="Emissions trading">emissions trading</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_development_mechanism" title="Clean development mechanism" class="mw-redirect">clean development mechanism</a> (CDM) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_implementation" title="Joint implementation" class="mw-redirect">joint implementation</a> to allow <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change#Annex_I_countries" title="United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change">Annex I countries</a> to meet their GHG emission limitations by purchasing GHG emission reductions credits from elsewhere, through financial exchanges, projects that reduce emissions in non-Annex I countries, from other Annex I countries, or from annex I countries with excess allowances.Each Annex I country is required to submit an annual report of inventories of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from sources and removals from sinks under UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. These countries nominate a person (called a "designated national authority") to create and manage its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_inventory" title="Greenhouse gas inventory">greenhouse gas inventory</a>. Virtually all of the non-Annex I countries have also established a designated national authority to manage its Kyoto obligations, specifically the "CDM process" that determines which GHG projects they wish to propose for accreditation by the CDM Executive Board.<table id="toc" class="toc"><tbody><tr><td><div id="toctitle"><h2>Contents</h2></div><ul><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Background">1 Background</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Ratification_process">2 Ratification process</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Objectives">3 Objectives</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#2012_emission_targets_and.22flexible_mechanisms.22">4 2012 emission targets and "flexible mechanisms"</a><ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Flexible_mechanisms">4.1 Flexible mechanisms</a><ul><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#International_Emissions_Trading">4.1.1 International Emissions Trading</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Clean_Development_Mechanism">4.1.2 Clean Development Mechanism</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-8"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Joint_Implementation">4.1.3 Joint Implementation</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Details_of_the_agreement">5 Details of the agreement</a><ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Common_but_differentiated_responsibility">5.1 Common but differentiated responsibility</a><ul><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-11"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Emissions">5.1.1 Emissions</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Financial_commitments">5.2 Financial commitments</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Revisions">5.3 Revisions</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Enforcement">5.4 Enforcement</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-15"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Negotiations">5.5 Negotiations</a><ul><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-16"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Base_year">5.5.1 Base year</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-17"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Emissions_cuts">5.5.2 Emissions cuts</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-18"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Flexibility_mechanisms">5.5.3 Flexibility mechanisms</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-19"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Compliance">5.5.4 Compliance</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-20"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Government_action_and_emissions">6 Government action and emissions</a><ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-21"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Annex_I">6.1 Annex I</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-22"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Non-Annex_I">6.2 Non-Annex I</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-23"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Views_on_the_Protocol">7 Views on the Protocol</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-24"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Successor">8 Successor</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-25"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#See_also">9 See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-26"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#References">10 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-27"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Further_reading">11 Further reading</a><ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-28"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Economics">11.1 Economics</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-29"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#External_links">12 External links</a></li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table> ...<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 19.2px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">US position<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; direction: ltr;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyoto_Protocol&action=edit&section=28" title="Edit section: US position" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">edit source</a> | <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyoto_Protocol&veaction=edit&section=28" title="Edit section: US position" class="mw-editsection-visualeditor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">editbeta</a>]</h3>The U.S. signed the Protocol, but did not ratify it. Before the Protocol was agreed on, the US Senate passed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd-Hagel_Resolution" title="Byrd-Hagel Resolution" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Byrd-Hagel Resolution</a> unanimously [?] disapproving of any international agreement that 1) did not require developing countries to make emission reductions and 2) "would seriously harm the economy of the United States".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-111" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[111]</a> Therefore, even though the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_administration" title="Clinton administration" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Clinton administration</a> signed the treaty,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-112" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[112]</a> it remained only a symbolic act and was never submitted to the Senate for ratification.When <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">George W. Bush</a> was elected US president in 2000, he was asked by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Senator" title="US Senator" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">US Senator</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hagel" title="Chuck Hagel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Hagel</a> what his administration's position was on climate change. Bush replied that he took climate change "very seriously,"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-113" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[113]</a> but that he opposed the Kyoto treaty, because "it exempts 80% of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the US economy".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-Dessai_2001_5-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[26]</a> Almost all world leaders (e.g., China, Japan, South Africa, Pacific islands) expressed their disappointment over President Bush's decision not to support the treaty.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-114" style="text-decoration-line: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[114]</a>The US accounted for 36% of emissions in 1990, and without US ratification, only an EU+Russia+Japan+small party coalition could place the treaty into legal effect. A deal was reached in the Bonn climate talks (COP-6.5), held in 2001.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-115" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[115]</a><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 19.2px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Withdrawal of Canada<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; direction: ltr;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyoto_Protocol&action=edit&section=29" title="Edit section: Withdrawal of Canada" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">edit source</a> | <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyoto_Protocol&veaction=edit&section=29" title="Edit section: Withdrawal of Canada" class="mw-editsection-visualeditor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">editbeta</a>]</h3><div class="rellink relarticle mainarticle" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol_and_government_action#Withdrawal_of_Canada" title="Kyoto Protocol and government action" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Kyoto Protocol and government action#Withdrawal of Canada</a></div><div class="rellink boilerplate seealso" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">See also: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_the_Kyoto_Protocol" title="Canada and the Kyoto Protocol" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Canada and the Kyoto Protocol</a></div>In 2011, Canada, Japan and Russia stated that they would not take on further Kyoto targets.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-canadaguardian-116" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[116]</a> The Canadian government announced its withdrawal -possible at any time three years after ratification- from the Kyoto Protocol on 12 December 2011, effective 15 December 2012.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-117" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[117]</a>Canada was committed to cutting its greenhouse emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, but in 2009 emissions were 17% higher than in 1990. Environment minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kent" title="Peter Kent" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Peter Kent</a> cited Canada's liability to "enormous financial penalties" under the treaty unless it withdrew.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-canadaguardian-116" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[116]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-118" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[118]</a> He also suggested that the recently signed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference" title="2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Durban agreement</a> may provide an alternative way forward.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-bbc_canada_withdrawal-119" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[119]</a> Canada's decision received a mixed response from representatives of other ratifying countries.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#cite_note-bbc_canada_withdrawal-119" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[119]</a><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 19.2px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Other states and territories where the treaty is not applicable<span class="mw-editsection mw-editsection-expanded" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; direction: ltr;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyoto_Protocol&action=edit&section=30" title="Edit section: Other states and territories where the treaty is not applicable" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">edit source</a> | <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kyoto_Protocol&veaction=edit&section=30" title="Edit section: Other states and territories where the treaty is not applicable" class="mw-editsection-visualeditor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">editbeta</a>]</h3>Andorra, the United States and, following their withdrawal on 15 December 2012, Canada are the only UNFCCC Parties that are not party to the Protocol. Furthermore, the Protocol is not applied to UNFCCC observers <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine" title="Palestine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Palestine</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sudan" title="South Sudan" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">South Sudan</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See" title="Holy See" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Holy See</a>.---- Mr. BYRD (for himself, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. HOLLINGS, Mr. CRAIG, Mr. INOUYE, Mr. WARNER, Mr. FORD, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. DORGAN, Mr. HELMS, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. ABRAHAM, Mr. MCCONNELL, Mr. ASHCROFT, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. KEMPTHORNE, Mr. THURMOND, Mr. BURNS, Mr. CONRAD, Mr. GLENN, Mr. ENZI, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. BOND, Mr. COVERDELL, Mr. DEWINE, Mrs. HUTCHISON, Mr. GORTON, Mr. HATCH, Mr. BREAUX, Mr.CLELAND, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. HUTCHINSON, Mr. JOHNSON, Ms. LANDRIEU, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mr. NICKLES, Mr. SANTORUM, Mr. SHELBY, Mr. SMITH of Oregon, Mr. BENNETT, Mr. FAIRCLOTH, Mr. FRIST, Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. ALLARD, Mr. MURKOWSKI, Mr. AKAKA, Mr. COATS, Mr. COCHRAN, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr. GRAMM, Mr. GRAMS, Mr. LOTT, Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN, Mr. ROBB, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire, Mr. SPECTER, Mr. STEVENS, Mr. LUGAR, Mr. REID, Mr. BRYAN, Mr. THOMPSON, and Mr. CAMPBELL) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign RelationsJuly 21, 1997Reported by Mr. HELMS, without amendment---- GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONSADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE:FRAMES ISSUES TO MOBILIZE CONSTITUENTSbynHiromitsu Araki  MA thesis http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49368/1/Hiromitsu%20Araki.%20Grassroots%20organizations%20addressing%20climat_{1.pdf}---- Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's Impact on U.S. Climate Change PolicyAaron M. McCright; Riley E. DunlapSocial Problems, Vol. 50, No. 3. (Aug., 2003), pp. 348-373.Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7791%28200308%2950%3A3%3C348%3ADKTCMI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-TSocial Problems is currently published by University of CaliforniaPress. In this article, we argue that a major reason the United States failedto ratifji the Kyoto Protocol to ameliorateglobal warming is the opposition of the American conservative movement,a key segment of the antienvironmentalcountermovement. We examine how the conservative movement mobilizedbetween 1990 and1997 to construct the "non-problematicity" of global warming. After wedescribe how conservative think tanksmobilized to challenge theglobal warming claims of mainstream climatescience, we examine how these countermovementorganizations aligned themselves with prominent American climate changeskeptics known for theirstaunch criticism of mainstream climate research and their affiliationswith the fossil fuels industry. We thenexamine how the efforts of these conservative think tanks were enhancedby the shift in the political opportunitystructure created by the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Thisstudy demonstrates how a powerful countermovementeffectively challenged the environmental communityk definition of globalwarming as a social problemand blocked the passage of any significant climate change policy.  Somecommentators point to the growth of a diverse array ofanti-environmental forcesin general (e.g., Austin 2002; Helvarg 1994), while others specificallyidentify the intense lobbyingby the American fossil fuels industry (e.g., Gelbspan 1997; Levy andEgan 1998; Newell2000) and the heightened mobilization of different segments of theAmerican conservativemovement (e.g., Luke 2000; McCright and Dunlap 2000). ... However, on July 25, 1997, the United States Senate unanimously (95-0)passed SenateResolution 98 (also referred to as the Hagel-Byrd Resolution) whichnotified the Clinton Administration that the Senate would not ratify any treaty that would:(a) impose mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions for the United States without alsoimposing such reductionsfor developing nations, or (b) result in serious harm to our economy.Thus, at the end ofthe Clinton Administration, the Kyoto Protocol lay dormant with littlelikelihood of being ratifiedby the Senate. Then, in March 2001, President George W. Bush renouncedany plans toestablish carbon dioxide emissions reductions for U.S. power plants andsubsequently announcedthat the U.S. has no intention of abiding by the Kyoto Protocol-an actwhich provoked internationaldismay and hostility.This is a significant puzzle. Despite the growing consensus within thescientific community regarding global warming, the success of the environmental community ingetting globalwarming on the national agenda, and the receptive nature of publicopinion, it neverthelessappears that claims about the existence of global warming became morecontested in theUnited States policy arena in the late 1990s-with the result thateffective policy-making groundto a halt. ...Second, building upon our earlier work (McCright and Dunlap 2000), weconceptualizethe public global warming debate as a social movement phenomenon inorder to provide theoreticalguidance for our case study. In the process, we employ three majorconcepts fromsocial movement theorizing-framing, mobilizing structures, and politicalopportunity structure(McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996a; Tarrow 1998)_{-as}well as recent ideas on uldeologicallyStructured Action" (e.g., Zald 2000a, 2000b) to solve the puzzle of thedelegitimation of globalwarming as a major problem within the policy arena. Third, we extend thearguments madein our previous work in two crucial ways. In a previous article(McCright and Dunlap 2000),we describe the content of the specific global warming counter-claimsand the general antienvironmentalcounter-frame promoted by leading conservative think tanks in theAmericanconservative movement. In this article, we examine (1) how theseconservative think tankspromoted these counter-claims, and (2) the extent of the impact thatthese countermovementorganizations achieved in the global warming policy arena. That is, weidentify the strategicactivities performed by conservative think tanks as mobilizingstructures and demonstrate howa shift in the political opportunity structure-the 1994 Republicantakeover of Congressenhancedtheir impact in Congressional hearings and in the national print media. ... The Social Construction of Non-ProblematicityIn an industrial capitalist society where the political economy ischaracterized by a "treadmillof production," Allan Schnaiberg (1994) maintains that corporate actorsemploy consciousnessloweringactivities that challenge environmentalists' claims that environmentalproblems areserious, are the result of the production system, and can be alleviatedwithout unreasonablecosts. In line with those theorists who study non-decision-making andthe creation of nonissuesassociated with the second dimension of power (e.g., Bachrach and Baratz1970),Freudenburg (2000) argues that analyzing efforts to define ecologicaldegradation or technologicalrisks as non-problematic provides insight into the use of indirect formsof power bydominant interests. Indeed, Freudenburg (2000) and associates (e.g.,Freudenburg and Gramling1994; Freudenburg and Pastor 1992) lead the way in identifying andanalyzing how certainenvironmental conditions become defined as non-problematic throughconsciousnessloweringactivities5 The most robust finding gleaned from this burgeoning body of literatureis that powerfulinterests engage in strategic tactics ranging from outright manipulationof information (Crenson1971; Molotch 1970) to more subtle "diversionary reframing" (Freudenburgand Gramling1994; Icrogman 1996) to define certain negative environmental conditionsas non-problematic.Harvey Molotch (1 970) documents how oil companies and the Nixonadministration manipulatedinformation to diffuse local opposition to offshore drilling anddelegitimize protest groupsin 1969 Santa Barbara, California. Matthew Crenson (1971) reveals howU.S. Steel in Gary,Indiana, at first effectively prevented the issue of air pollution fromeven being introduced intothe policy arena, later successfully impeded the public's attempts toraise the issue, and ultimatelyweakened the final draft of pollution control legislation that waseventually enacted.In their study of offshore oil drilling politics in California andLouisiana, William Freudenburgand Robert Gramling (1994) argue that representatives of the oilindustry and the U.S.minerals Management Service, the primary federal agency for regulatingoffshore oil activities,employed diversionary reframing tactics to change the nature of thepublic debate on offshore oildrilling. By heavily promoting the benefits of drilling and divertingattention away from the criticismsmounted by challenging groups, these dominant interests were able toquestion the legitimacyof challengers and their claims. In her analysis of the framing disputeover wetlandsregulation in Louisiana, Naomi Icrogman (1996:371) argues that theregulated community had"greater interpretive dominance" than regulatory and environmentalinterests because it wasmore skillful at diversionary reframing. Not only do scholars identifyhow powerful groups utilizediversionary reframing in inter-organizational conflicts, but they alsoidentify similar dynamicsin intra-organizational conflicts. For instance, in her examination ofgenetic testing and workplacesafety, Elaine Draper (1991) argues that management's ability to controlgenetic testing andits accordant expectations explains the prevalence of genetic monitoringin the workplaceand the fact that the burden of proof is regularly on workers toidentify attendant risks. the fact that the burden of proof is regularly on workers to identifyattendant risks.Some scholars examine the range of factors that facilitate theconstruction of nonproblematicityby corporate interests, including the rationalities inherent in a publicarena(Wynne 1982) and the crescive nature of some environmental conditions(Beamish 2002). Inhis examination of the public debate regarding the proposal by BritishNuclear Fields, Ltd. toconstruct a thermal oxide reprocessing plant in Windscale, GreatBritain, Brian Wynne (1982)argues that the decision to support the building proposal was madeeffectually before theinquiry even commenced, since the rationalities and scientific meaningsin the inquiry processhighly favored the interests of nuclear industrialists. In his study ofthe failure of Unocal torecognize an oil spill in Central California for nearly forty years, notonly does ThomasBeamish (2002) indict the hierarchical structure and organizationalculture of Unocal and theself-monitoring and self-reporting mandates in environmentallegislation, but he also arguesthat passivity and inaction further stemmed from the fact that this oilspill was a crescive problem:a creeping event that developed so slowly as to elude most people'sperceptions.Most of these case studies document how powerful interests succeed notonly in keepingenvironmental problems and technological risks off the political agenda,but also in preventingsuch conditions from becoming widely defined as problems in the firstplace. The current studydiffers from existing analyses of the use of the second dimension ofpower in the social constructionof non-problematicity. By the early 1990s, the environmental communityestablished globalwarming as a legitimate social problem on the national policy agenda (asevidenced by publicopinion and the Clinton Administration's endorsement of the KyotoProtocol), and this wouldnot have occurred if anti-environmental forces effectively exercised thesecond dimension ofpower as traditionally conceived. The "anti-environmentalcountermovement" (Austin 2002;McCright and Dunlap 2000) subsequently mobilized to challenge thelegitimacy of global warming,as detailed below. Thus, we examine a somewhat different aspect ofnon-problematicity thanemphasized by Freudenburg and his colleagues-namely, how acountermovement attempts todelegitimate a putative problem once it has already gained a place onthe agenda....In this context, it is not surprising that the conservative movementturned its attention toglobal warming. Despite assertions that environmentalism represents anew ideology that isorthogonal to traditional liberalism-conservatism (e.g., Paehlke 1989),studies consistentlyfind conservatism to be negatively related to pro-environmentalattitudes and actions amongthe general public and especially among political elites, such asmembers of Congress (Dunlap,Xiao, and McCright 2001). A key reason is that pursuit of environmentalprotection ofteninvolves government action that is seen as threatening economiclibertarianism, a core elementof conservatism. Yet, most environmental protection up to thepresent-such as regulationsdesigned to control air or water pollution-was accomplished withoutposing a majorthreat to industrial capitalism, despite protests from the corporatesector.In contrast, the emergence of global warming and the possibility oflarge-scale socialchange resulting from efforts to ameliorate it are seen as far morethreatening to Americanindustry, prosperity, lifestyles, and the entire "American way of life"than are traditional pollutioncontrol measures (e.g., Bailey 1993). Growing concern over globalwarming clearlyposes a threat to the conservative movement's ideology and materialinterests. Specifically, thecharacterization of global warming as a major problem and the consequentpossibility of aninternationally binding treaty to curb carbon dioxide emissions are seenas direct threats tosustained economic growth, the free market, national sovereignty, andthe continued abolitionof governmental regulations-key goals promoted by the conservativemovement. Giventhe success of the conservative movement in other policy areas in recentyears (Blumenthal1986; Diamond 1995; Stefancic and Delgado 1996), it seems reasonable toassume that theconservative movement would vigorously oppose internationally bindingclimate policies bychallenging the environmental community's claims about the seriousnessof global warmingand consequent need for ameliorative action.Indeed, we (McCright and Dunlap 2000) argue that conservatives oftenstrongly defend atraditional frame about humans and nature that some call the DominantSocial Paradigm, or"DSP" (Dunlap and Van Liere 1984), and others call Manifest Destiny(Brulle 2000). Both theDSP and Manifest Destiny constitute a worldview in which modernsocieties are seen as ableto control nature, making it difficult to accept that global warmingposes an unprecedenteddanger to our nation. By systematically analyzing the thematic contentof 224 documents onglobal warming produced and/or circulated by 14 influential conservativethink tanks between1990 and 1997, we (2000) identify three major counter-claims throughwhich the conservativemovement challenged the framing of global warming by the environmentalcommunity. First,the conservative movement claimed that the evidentiary basis of globalwarming is weak, ifnot wrong. Second, conservatives argued that the net effect of globalwarming would be beneficialshould it occur. Third, conservatives argued that the policies proposedto ameliorate thealleged problem of global warming would do more harm than good. Thesethree counterclaimscomprised the conservative movement's response to the environmentalcommunity'scall for ameliorative action on global warming.</div>