The United States isn't even close to meeting the goals set by the Kyoto treaty several years ago. Other industrialized nations around the world are beginning to move towards compliance of the Kyoto Protocols but in these urgent times we need to do better than that. Al Gore knows this and he wants America and the world to step it up a notch (or for Bush to step up at all).
From The New York Times (Opinion Section):
...To this end, we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth.This treaty would mark a new effort. I am proud of my role during the Clinton administration in negotiating the Kyoto protocol. But I believe that the protocol has been so demonized in the United States that it probably cannot be ratified here — much in the way the Carter administration was prevented from winning ratification of an expanded strategic arms limitation treaty in 1979. Moreover, the negotiations will soon begin on a tougher climate treaty.
Therefore, just as President Reagan renamed and modified the SALT agreement (calling it Start), after belatedly recognizing the need for it, our next president must immediately focus on quickly concluding a new and even tougher climate change pact. We should aim to complete this global treaty by the end of 2009 — and not wait until 2012 as currently planned.
Al realizes that semantics are an important component to helping people realize the serious situation we face. Invoking the words of Reagan and Carter are also very good in helping to back up the point that this is a moral issue and not a political one. Read the whole piece here.
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