The resentment of the world was evident over the unjustifiable and provocative American position when President George Bush decided to withdraw from the Kyoto Agreement on climatic change. The agreement is intended to reduce gas emissions, the main cause for raising Earth temperatures thus threatening environmental and climatic disasters in the future.
Protecting the environment has now become one of the most pressing issues, and is occupying a great deal of the minds of political leaders worldwide. This is especially the case after modern science established that the Earth is facing real environmental threats, especially the fact that the level of pollution is constantly on the rise.
Scientists predict the increase in carbon dioxide emission will further compound the greenhouse effect thus leading to Polar problems, like causing the snow to melt in the North, and South poles, and the slow but sure rise of water levels that could submerge whose cities and coastal areas.
Environmental pollution will result in changing agricultural patterns and the vegetation cover, while also triggering the spread of tropical diseases to cold areas.
Even more serious than all this is the expected emergence of extreme climatic patterns — increase in the frequency of devastating floods and cyclones in some areas of the world and drought and desert encroachment in others.
The American decision was especially disappointing because the president failed to give any convincing reasons as to why he stood against international consensus. Claiming that the decision was issued out of concern over the American economy and that it was an attempt to avoid a downtrend in the country’s industrial activity is not a good enough reason to justify the withdrawal from the agreement. Likewise, speaking about other reasons that pressured the president because they are more important than the world health carried in it a great deal of defiance and arrogance toward the entire world population.
What Bush has been saying reflects a narrow-minded policy since the dangers threatening the world will not spare the United States. The US could even face worse threats because gas emissions from the United States account for 25 percent of all gasses causing the greenhouse effect. This means that 4 percent of the world population are responsible for one quarter of carbon dioxide emission.
It is worth mentioning here that the American stand on environmental protection runs contrary to many previous positions adopted by Washington on this issue. The US demanded more strict action when international rules were laid down to prevent environmental degradation. In all international conferences on the issue Washington stressed its determination for strict laws to protect the environment and reduce pollution. It even called for punishing those countries that fail to observe these rules.
Why then this contradicting policy? Some analysts say this new American position toward the Kyoto Agreement is an attempt by the new administration to show that it is capable of adopting policies different from its predecessors. This is reminiscent of its stand on the missile defense initiative.
Another opinion is that Bush wanted to firmly establish American hegemony over the world by sending a message that the interests of the American citizen are above those of all others countries.
This is being done in the face of earlier policy contradictions and regardless of the destruction and damage that such policies could inflict on other countries.
The truth of the shift in the American position, however, is totally different. It is said that Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Agreement in response to orders from his friends in the powerful oil, gas, mining and heavy industries lobby who strongly backed his election campaign. They do not care a bit for the environmental threats their country might be exposed to.
These business tycoons, who are the real rulers of the US, are only concerned that their businesses might suffer if Washington committed itself to the agreement. A reduction of 5 percent of carbon dioxide emitting from American industries would adversely affect the growth of the American economy driving it to the point of recession or even collapse by the year 2012.
American arrogance has crossed all limits and for this reason the Washington stand was met with a firm response from the European group whose leaders decided to enforce the Kyoto Agreement. They also decided not to be slack or allow the United States destroy the world even if this led to Washington’s isolation in the international community.
The Third World and developing countries, whose economies have begun to move forward, too did not stand idle toward such naked American contradictions. Would the Kyoto Agreement become the spark that will ignite a confrontation across the Atlantic, like earlier economic confrontations between the Americans and the Europeans?
