Woe Yo Kyoto Blowhole

Wow, I thought this story on every member of the European Union except Great Britain flagrantly welshing on compliance with the greenhouse emission standards of the vaunted Kyoto treaty they still insist that the United States commit economic suicide and sign was an isolated blurb, since it's hardly classifiable as news, but it's attracted quite a bit of attention.

First, an exerpt:

The UK is almost alone in Europe in honouring Kyoto pledges to cut greenhouse gases, a think-tank claims.

Ten of 15 European Union signatories will miss the targets without urgent action, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found.

The countries include Ireland, Italy and Spain.

France, Greece and Germany are given an "amber warning" and will not reach targets unless they put planned policies into action, the IPPR said.

Hypocrisy, thy name is left-wing liberal. Since the EU is essentially the real-life case study in running a continent according to the cherished ideology of our own Democrat party - kind of like a cross between a zoo and a mental institution, with both turned over to the inmates - it ought not be surprising that the EUnuchs don't practice what they harangue at us.

As I say, it isn't news.

But apparently either I'm in the minority in that observation, or several megabloggers/columnists had a green itch to scratch.

Ed Morrissey:

The EU nations want the US to adopt the Kyoto limits without explaining for themselves why they haven't taken the economically painful steps it prescribes for themselves. The US Senate foresaw the problems, both economic and strategic, and unanimously told then-President Bill Clinton not to bother even presenting it to them for ratification, 95-0....

Kyoto would handcuff the US while allowing [Red] China an unfettered path to sconomic and political domination of [Asia], the latter being especially unacceptable given [Red] China's autocratic one-party regime. Europe, of course, could hardly care less about Chi[Comm] expansionism; they care more about reflexive anti-Americanism. The entire raison d'etre of the EU has always been to provide a global economy to rival the US, and Kyoto gives them an opportunity to slow us down. And just as with their debt controls, the EU contingent has no problem breaking treaty mandates on emissions as long as they feel it necessary to do so to remain competitive, making the agreement worthless anyway.

Jack Kelly:

This week the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning British think tank, released a study which indicates that 13 of 15 European nations which signed the Kyoto treaty will not meet the "mandatory" emissions reductions to which they agreed.

The worst offenders, the IPPR said, are Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy, all falling about 20% short of their targets.

"The poorly performing nations are among the many who have criticized the U.S. and President George Bush," noted Alison Hardie, a reporter for the Scotsman newspaper.

Britain and Sweden are the only two European countries close to meeting their Kyoto targets, the IPPR said. But at a news conference in September, British Prime Minister Tony Blair - heretofore considered a strong Kyoto supporter - said ordering countries to cut greenhouse gases won't work.

But though no signatory has met its Kyoto goals, and only a few are likely to come close, the talk at Montreal was about a new, more restrictive treaty to follow Kyoto when it expires in 2012. For liberals, it is talk that matters, not action. Appearances trump reality.

"Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy," the CBC's Mr. Murphy said. [emphasis added]

Especially when the lefties can time things so that they can bask in the ecological do-gooder glory and then villify a subsequent center-right regime (like the one we all know and love) as either "favoring greedy polluters" who are bent on "environmental catastrophe" if it doesn't follow their greenstremist nostrums, or a heartless, incompetent gang of "neoHooveroids" presiding over a collapsing economy that is the product of "tax cuts for the wealthy" and too much economic freedom and too little social welfare spending but for heaven's sake has nothing to do with the historic accomplishment that would be, in this case, the Kyoto treaty.

A document that, as Michael Fumento writes, isn't just dying, but has moved on to decomposition, as the EU non-compliance redundantly proves:

Turns out, though, there's little distinction between those who ratified and those who didn't. Of the original 15 European Union ratifiers of Kyoto, at best four are on course to meet the treaty's target of an 8% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2008-2012 from the 1990 base-year level.

"The truth is, no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem," UK Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted in September.

But this becomes less disappointing once you learn Kyoto's dirty little secret. Even supporters concede that if all countries complied, the amount of warming prevented by 2100 would be at most 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit, except that 0.2 degrees is immeasurable. Certainly it won't save a single polar bear....

Of course, Europe could continue setting goals and failing to meet them; but the EU is becoming irrelevant anyway. "By 2010, the net reduction in global emissions from Europe meeting the Kyoto Protocol will be only 0.1%," said Margo Thorning, senior vice president for the free-market American Council for Capital Formation, in recent congressional testimony. That's "because all the growth is coming in places like India, [Red] China, and Brazil." [emphasis added]

And India, Red China, and Brazil are all exempt from compliance with the Kyoto standards.

It all lines right up: "the world," driven by a frenzied cocktail of anti-Americanism and moral narcissism, bullies the U.S. into an economic straitjacket while emerging Third World economies are cut a blank check at our expense and the Euros cheat their way merrily past us as was their intent all along. It was obvious eight years ago when the Senate unanimously told Bill Clinton to not bother submitting Kyoto, and it is obvious now.

Again, it isn't news.

But it still has to be reiterated, as many times as it takes, until the greenstremists give up and move onto their next Chicken Little crusade.

Like, say, another ice age? Haven't done that one since I was a kid....