Looking beyond the Kyoto Treaty by carol wilson

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Aug 10 2009) Carbon Footprint , Emissions

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   Many within the environmental movement hoped Barack Obama’s election to the White House would mean U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Accord, the U.N. climate treaty that seeks to limit the carbon emissions thought to cause global warming. What President Obama has done instead is establish the U.S. as a leader in negotiating the next version of Kyoto, which expires in 2012. While setting a goal of reducing the U.S. carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050, the Obama administration also signaled its involvement as a leader of negotiations leading to a new climate treaty, expected to be signed in December in Copenhagen.

   The goal of the new treaty is to do what Kyoto did not – engage broader participation, including from nations such as China and India who are major polluters but weren’t touched by the Kyoto provisions. That was one reason President George Bush eschewed Kyoto and sought instead to engage the world’s 15 largest carbon emitters in a separate effort.

   Globally, environmentalists are seeing Obama’s directives as a sign that serious global accord may be eminent and that is likely to have an impact on major businesses and consumers of power. While it’s not yet certain what approach the new accord will take – for example, will industries in developed nations still be allowed to meet emission requirements by purchasing emission reductions from projects in development countries, as happened under Kyoto? Or will they be forced instead to pay for more expensive direct emission reduction projects? If so, how will the government offset the inevitable pass-along of those higher costs to consumers?

   There are still difficult and complex questions to be answered but the direction in which Obama plans to take the U.S. seems inevitable, meaning businesses must be seriously planning right now how they will begin reducing carbon emissions. Because data centers are high in power consumption, they represent a major opportunity to make an immediate impact, and, in many cases, do so while also cutting costs in the long run.

   
   

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