North American Environmental Success Comes at a Global Cost

A news report from the Environment News Service notes that, "The United States and Canada have had some success in improving local environments where their citizens can enjoy clean air and water and green space, but these improvements have come at the expense of global natural resources and climate, according to a United Nations sponsored study released today." It continues:

"North America's Environment: A Thirty-Year State of the Environment and Policy Retrospective," points out that each Canadian and American consumes nine times more gasoline than any other person in the world.

The report urges Canada and the United States to accept more responsibility for the environmental changes they are causing. With only about five percent of the world's population, both countries accounted for 25.8 percent of global emissions of the major greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, created by the combustion of coal, oil and gas.

Both countries need "substantial and concrete changes" toward use of automobiles that rely on more fuel efficient technologies, and toward urban development strategies that curb urban sprawl, the authors suggest.

Umm, isn't this precisely the problem that the Kyoto Protocol was supposed to address?