Free Republic

More bad news from holier-than-America Europe: Great Britain won't meet its Kyoto Protocol target of a 20 percent reduction in emissions of six greenhouse gases by 2010, and chances of achieving that goal by 2020 are almost as bleak. The admission by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs merely confirms what Cambridge University and others have been saying for years. Britain, like most of the rest of Europe, Canada and scores of other global-warming citadels throughout the world, is hopelessly out of compliance. About the only nations on target to live up to their Kyoto obligations are China,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has boosted his environmental profile by signing global warming agreements with states and foreign governments, most recently one this month with the Australian state of Victoria. Schwarzenegger officials say the agreements are intended to force the federal government to take a more stringent approach to tackling global warming. But some critics note the signings have given Schwarzenegger opportunities for photo-ops with foreign leaders, and Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican governor is using the deals to predispose California to a market-based system in which companies can buy their way out of emissions reductions. Each of the...

COLOGNE, Germany - Windfall profits that power generators are making from Europe's carbon market are damaging the integrity of the scheme, a senior European Commission official said on Thursday. "It's undermining the credibility of the scheme. It would be helpful if participants think very hard about it," said Jos Delbeke, director at the EC's climate change directorate, speaking at a World Bank-sponsored carbon conference. Europe wants to show the world its flagship climate policy is working, ahead of global climate change talks in December in Bali, Indonesia, on a deal to extend the Kyoto Protocol. "A working European emissions trading...

Ever since the Gold Rush, Californians have taken credit for leading the nation and the world with their dynamic culture and responsive politics. But that's hardly the case for their much-vaunted new law restricting the emissions of carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by the year 2020. How sooo 1990s. The California Global Warming Solutions Act is a watered-down version of the 1996 UN Kyoto Protocol, which mandates that most industrial nations reduce their emissions a tiny bit more by 2008-2012. Only one or two major nations may meet Kyoto. The rest failed. California will fail at Kyoto-lite, and New York...