Kyoto Archives - Foreign Policy In Focus

Barack Obama on Diplomacy

by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes | Jan 17, 2008

The rise in popular support for Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy reflects the growing skepticism among Democratic and independent voters regarding both the Bush administration’s and the Democratic Party establishment’s foreign policies. Indeed, on issues ranging from Iraq to nuclear weapons to global warming to foreign aid, as well as his general preference for diplomacy over militarism, Obama has also staked out positions considerably more progressive than the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Rep. Gilchrest: Stop Climate Change Now

by John Feffer, Michael Shank | Apr 10, 2007

Wayne Gilchrest is a Republican Congressman from Maryland. He chairs the House Climate Change Caucus and has co-sponsored the Climate Stewardship Act designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to 70% below 1990 levels. Because of his reluctance to deny human responsibility for climate change, Gilchrest was not chosen by Republican leader John Boehner to serve on the recently formed bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. At the end of March, FPIF contributor Michael Shank interviewed Gilchrest in Washington, DC about Kyoto, the congressional tipping point for climate change legislation, and the challenges posed by India and China.

Our State Among States

by Miriam Pemberton | Jan 23, 2007

The scene inside the Capitol tonight for this annual occasion will be more surreal than usual. The leader who has led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in our history will stride punctually into the chamber, bathed in thunderous, ritual applause.

Beyond Kyoto

by John Feffer, Ruth Greenspan Bell | Oct 10, 2006

Hoff Stauffer should not be so apologetic and tenuous in his proposal for performance standards. If and when the world decides to become serious and really do something about global warming (and the considerable lag times normally encountered between decision and action suggest we are fast running out of time), I doubt the Kyoto Protocol will have anything to do with what emerges. Kyoto and its flexible mechanisms may represent an idealized vision of how pollution might be controlled in a perfect world, but the real world is far from meeting those conditions. The question we should be asking is: why would the world want to experiment with untried theory for this critical and time-sensitive problem?