The Kyoto Protocol takes effect, with 141 countries signed on. (Joel Makower
has an excellent Kyoto primer this week.) Some are more consequential
than others. Some, under the terms of the treaty, won’t have to do much
of anything. (China and India, for example — a situation that won’t
last forever.) Others — like the EU — are On The Move. The US
government may sit this out (for now), but smart US companies — at
least those that want to trade in Europe, be competitive against
European companies, and respond to customer expectations (that will
only become more insistent as consequences of global warming become
more evident) — will ignore their own government and get with the
program.
The Bush Admministration is stuck in the old, and demonstrably false,
assumption that environmental quality costs money. Tell that to BP, which met its Kyoto goals nine years ahead of schedule, and at a profit.