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Kyoto Protocol of 16 February 2005 to the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 11 December 1997 HA-1-7-05

 

RE: the meaning of the term Entry into Force

 

Mutatis mutandis: All necessary changes have been made; with the necessary changes <what was said regarding the first contract applies mutatis mutandis to all later ones> Garner, Bryan A. Black’s Law Dictionary Abridged 7th Edition. West Group. St. Paul. 2000 pp 832

 

It took all of one year for the member countries of the Framework Convention on Climate Change to decide that the Convention had to be augmented by an agreement with stricter demands for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The Convention took effect in 1994, and by 1995 governments had begun negotiations on a protocol -- an international agreement linked to the existing treaty, but standing on its own. The text of the Kyoto Protocol was adopted unanimously in 1997.

 

The average temperature of the earth's surface has risen by 0.6 degrees C since the late 1800s. It is expected to increase by another 1.4 to 5.8 degrees C by the year 2100 -- a rapid and profound change. Even if the minimum predicted increase takes place, it will be larger than any century-long trend in the last 10,000 years.  The principal reason for the mounting thermometer is a century and a half of industrialization: the burning of ever-greater quantities of oil, gasoline, and coal, the cutting of forests, and certain farming methods.  These activities have increased the amount of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Such gases occur naturally and are critical for life on earth; they keep some of the sun's warmth from reflecting back into space, and without them the world would be a cold and barren place. But in augmented and increasing quantities, these gases are pushing the global temperature to artificially high levels and altering the climate. The 1990s appear to have been the warmest decade of the last Millennium, and 1998 the warmest year.  Climate change can be difficult -- you could ask the dinosaurs, if they weren't extinct. The prevailing theory is that they didn't survive when a giant meteorite struck the earth 65 million years ago, spewing so much dust into the air that sunlight was greatly reduced, temperatures plummeted, many plants didn't grow, and the food chain collapsed. What happened to the dinosaurs is a rare example of climate change more rapid than humans are now inflicting on themselves. . . but not the only one. Research on ice cores and lake sediments shows that the climate system has suffered other abrupt fluctuations in the distant past -- the climate appears to have "tipping points" that can send it into sharp lurches and rebounds. Although scientists are still analyzing what happened during those earlier events, it's clear that an overstressed world with 6.3 billion people is a risky place to be carrying out uncontrolled experiments with the climate.

The current warming trend is expected to cause extinctions. Numerous plant and animal species, already weakened by pollution and loss of habitat, are not expected to survive the next 100 years. Human beings, while not threatened in this way, are likely to face mounting difficulties. Recent severe storms, floods and droughts, for example, appear to show that computer models predicting more frequent "extreme weather events" are on target.  The sea level rose on average by 10 to 20 cm during the 20th century, and an additional increase of 9 to 88 cm is expected by the year 2100. (Higher temperatures cause ocean volume to expand, and melting glaciers and ice caps add more water.) If the higher end of that scale is reached, the sea could overflow the heavily populated coastlines of such countries as Bangladesh, cause the disappearance of some nations entirely (such as the island state of the Maldives), foul freshwater supplies for billions of people, and spur mass migrations.  Agricultural yields are expected to drop in most tropical and sub-tropical regions -- and in temperate regions, too, if the temperature increase is more than a few degrees C. Drying of continental interiors, such as central Asia, the African Sahel, and the Great Plains of the United States, is also forecast. These changes could cause, at a minimum, disruptions in land use and food supply. And the range of diseases such as malaria may expand.  Global warming is a "modern" problem -- complicated, involving the entire world, tangled up with difficult issues such as poverty, economic development, and population growth. Dealing with it will not be easy. Ignoring it will be worse.

Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)-- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. In 1997 governments agreed to an addition to the treaty, called the Kyoto Protocol, which has more powerful (and legally binding) measures. The Protocol entered into force on 16 February, 2005.  The United States of America conspicuously did not ratify this Protocol so soon after the Friendship, Amity and Cooperation Treaty (FACT) of Valentine’s Day HA-14-2-05 did not recommend the official use of Art. 6 of the UN Charter that Hospitals & Asylums feels responsible for the delinquency of the US Environmental Protection Agency whose Director Michael Leavitt had so recently been transferred to Secretary of Health and Human Services.  By acting on his own to renege on the treaty the President of the United States has now put the US into the position where the nation has not ratified a treaty that is in force, not only under the lax rules of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties but under the stricter Kyoto Protocol that calls for not 25 but 55 Member nations to ratify it.  The timing of this impermissible reservation particularly disgraces the United States, newly elected Secretary of Health and Human Services, newly elected Secretary of State, the Environmental Protection Agency (all highly secretive of the email addressees in apparent disregard that the damages of paper to forests has come to outweigh its advantages due to the invention of free email) and Hospitals & Asylums (who does not intend to be elusive by placing the email on the bottom of the homepage and any other page where it comes to mind).  We therefore move for the US President to ratify the Treaty with approval of 2/3 of the appearing Senate as required by Art. 2 Sec 2. of the US Constitution or we will be forced to make snide remarks about the glacial US justice system before July when the US shall be officially reminded of their responsibility to unchain 1 million of their 2.1 million prison beds (last counted in 1999).  The Kyoto Protocol requires the over-industrialized two car families of the US to reduce emissions by 7% and cooperate with the Secretariat of the UNFCCC to exchange information.  There is hope however as the US has indeed ratified the Convention, that does not set forth an estimate for the reduction of emissions.  In acceding to the Protocol the US would make plans for a clean development mechanism to encourage sustainable development through real, measurable, and long-term benefits related to the mitigation of climate change. 

Since 1988, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reviewed scientific research and provided governments with summaries and advice on climate problems.

Better late than never.

Certificate of Service Tony Sanders title24uscode@aol.com

secretariat@unfccc.int, r9.info@epa.gov, r8eisc@epa.gov, r3public@epa.gov, HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov, oighotline@state.gov, library@state.gov, president@whitehouse.gov, information@icj-cij.org