Although the US, Australia and Canada are showing increasing reluctance to embrace it, it appears likely the Kyoto Protocol will be ratified anyway. The treaty, designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, must be ratified by at least 55 of the 100 countries that helped draft it, and those 55 must have been responsible for at least 55% of the world's emissions in 1990. Japan and the European Union ratified the treaty in June, and Russia and Poland have committed to doing so later this year. This means that Canada, Australia and the US aren't needed to bring it into force. The 1997 protocol calls for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012.
Canada is still discussing ratification, but headlines claiming that the treaty will cost $40 billion and thousands of jobs have alarmed many people, including politicians. Per capita, Canada is the second-largest greenhouse-gas producer within the Group of Eight.
The US government, meanwhile, has called for more research. In a June study by the Environmental Protection Agency, the US finally conceded that humans are mostly to blame for recent global warming and that climate change will have far-reaching effects on the environment. Despite this, the US government is sticking to its policy of voluntary measures that would still allow gas emissions to increase. The US now produces 25% of the world's greenhouse gases.
The US Climate Action Report 2002 (www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications /car/), submitted to the UN, details the far-reaching effects of global warming, which include the “very likely” disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes. It concludes that even if steps are taken to cut emissions, nothing can be done about the environmental consequences of several decades worth of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that have already been released into the atmosphere. — Barbara Sibbald, CMAJ