John Kerry is Dangerous to our Economy

John Kerry has been using one example of how President Bush has isolated the U.S. from the world time and again. The example he pulls out is the Kyoto Treaty. This treaty would be an absolute disaster for the nation's economy. And is based on the worst of questionable science.

A Russian states it better than I can. President Putin's chief economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, reaffirmed the skepticism of Russian leadership toward its future in Kyoto this week saying:

"Nobody among Russian officials believes the protocol is good for Russia. Nobody sees any sense in the economic nature of this document. Nobody sees any scientific relevance in this document. Nobody sees any advantages for Russia in this document. It is just purely politics."

Well we have something in common with the former USSR. There or here The Kyoto treaty is all about politics and no longer about science. Experts estimate that implementing the Kyoto treaty would set back our economy 100 billion to over 400 billion annually by 2010.

In the Heritage Foundation's backgrounder 1437 titled "Why President Bush Is Right to Abandon the Kyoto Protocol" They conclude with the following statement:

The Kyoto Protocol is fundamentally flawed and unfair, and it would seriously harm the U.S. economy. Even if it comes fully into force, it will not achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gases globally. It excludes developing countries from its binding emissions reduction targets even though their total emissions will surpass those of industrialized countries by 2020. It will significantly raise energy costs and will have a dramatic ripple effect across entire economies.

Finally, it is based on flawed scientific models. The science of global climate change is extremely complex and still evolving. Scientists have a long way to go before they can accurately predict temperature changes and their impact on the environment. The importance of basing climate change policy on sound environmental science, rather than alarmist rhetoric, cannot be overstated.

For all these reasons, the President was right to walk away from the Kyoto Protocol. Other countries should follow the President's lead and refuse to ratify it. To do otherwise is shortsighted and, in the long run, will prove to be both environmentally and economically damaging.

Forgetting the fact that the science is flawed we do have estimates on how much it would cost to implement Kyoto. Is this really the best use of those dollars, has anyone compared this treaty with the cost of stopping aids, reducing Malaria or providing nutrition to the masses? It turns out that someone has done a ranking of the most effective bang for the buck.
Lain Murray writes:

The Economist magazine and Bjørn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," brought together eight of the world's leading economists, including three Nobel laureates, for the "Copenhagen Consensus" project.

The consensus ranked four projects as representing very good value for money. They were new programs to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS; reducing the prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia by means of food supplements; multilateral and unilateral abolition of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, together with the elimination of agricultural subsidies; and the control and treatment of malaria.

The panel ranked all three suggestions for action concerning global climate change—an "optimal carbon tax," a "value-at-risk carbon tax," and the Kyoto Protocol—last among 17 project possibilities, and even termed these options "bad investments."

This ranking backed up previous research that has shown that all the main suggestions for dealing with global warming would lead to economic disaster, slapping the world with a cost that would far exceed the benefit. A widely accepted 1999 study, for instance, found the cost of the Kyoto Protocol to be $220 billion in 1990 dollars, while providing only $95 billion in benefits. We are better off doing nothing.

It is unfortunate that the world cannot currently alleviate all of its challenges. But with the world's limited resources, efficient spending is a critical aspect to accomplishing the greatest benefit globally. Wasting money on climate-change programs like the Kyoto Protocol is a misallocation of scarce resources that is at best negligent and at worst reckless.

If John Kerry gets elected he will attempt to pass the Global Test he talks about by pushing hard for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. In effect he would be allowing the world to drive our economic future. This would be the worst possible type of outsourcing.