Toward a Real Global Warming Treaty

In December 1997 the worlds nations met in Kyoto to grapple with the problem of global warming. The Kyoto conference garnered wide variety of assessments, ranging from a notable success through a useful first step ' to a grave disappointment and setback for those concerned with the future of the planet. Whatever one thinks of Kyoto in terms of environmentalist politics, the troubling fact remains that its underlying approach is bound to fail. Because it is premised on setting national emissions targets, the Kyoto strategy will not be able to solve the alleged problem of global climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. The likely failure of Kyoto should be used as the impetus for hard look at the prospects for treaty on global climate change. The Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro drew wide international attention to the danger of gradual global warming from humanity's use of fossil fuels and other activities. Rio committed signatory governments to do something about global climate change, but it did not commit them to take any specific actions. Since Rio, governments of most rich countries under took to reduce their levels of carbon dioxide emissions to estimated