New coal plants bury ‘Kyoto’

New greenhouse-gas emissions from China, India, and the US will swamp cuts from the Kyoto treaty.

So much for Kyoto.

The official treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions hasn’t gone into effect yet and already three countries are planning to build nearly 850 new coal-fired plants, which would pump up to five times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce.

The magnitude of that imbalance is staggering.

Environmentalists have long called the treaty a symbolic rather than practical victory in the fight against global warming. But even many of them do not appear aware of the coming tidal wave of greenhouse-gas emissions by nations not under Kyoto restrictions.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Full Story: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1223/p01s04-sten.html