Kyoto’s failings - October 25, 2007
“Time to ditch Kyoto”. Putting that headline on a commentary by eminent economists social scientists* was always bound to excite debate and that is what Nature has done this week. The gist of the argument has already been broken down on our sister blog Climate Feedback (please post any comments there).
Science policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. calls the commentary “brave and challenging” on the Prometheus blog, but doesn’t add much else. Meanwhile countries that are anti-Kyoto have unsurprisingly taken the work to heart, ABC in Australia and CanWest in Canada for example. This has been somewhat assisted by comments from one author, Gwyn Prins from the London School of Economics, who according to ABC said Kyoto had become useful for people looking to kick US president George W. Bush and his Australian counterpart John Howard, “But here again the inconvenient truth is they did the right thing.”
Those looking for some audio can head to Radio 4’s Today programme segment on the topic and should also check out the new Nature Podcast.
*Corrected 26/10
Gwyn Prins is director of the LSE Mackinder Centre for the Study of Long Wave Events.
Steve Rayner is director of the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at the University of Oxford.
