In contrast, if countries began immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the cost could be limited to approximately one percent of global GDP each year.
Global warming is a scientific issue, but it is being treating as an economic and political one. The Kyoto Protocol should never have allowed economic considerations to justify exemptions. This only gives incentives for companies to move to countries with exemptions to take advantage of laxer environmental laws as is clearly happening. Despite concerns by the United States regarding the exemptions, it still should have signed the agreement and dealt with the inequity in other ways such as imposing or increasing tariffs on imports from companies with high greenhouse emissions. Instead, the United States uses politics as an excuse for doing very little to fix the problem. This country and others such as China and India are foolishly short-sighted in their policies that trade short-term cost savings for longer-term cost increases along with a significant negative impact on quality of life. In the end, everyone suffers. For all these reasons, the Kyoto Protocol must be revisited, eliminating exemptions and making it more attractive for countries to do the right thing.
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