Kyoto

Minister announces in House of Commons that Anguilla is not a party to the UK ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. As every Anguillian schoolchild knows, the greenhouse gasses consist of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride.

The UK is obliged to report on its and its dependencies’ and territories’ emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and came into force on 16 February, 2005. This is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). It is an international treaty that was produced at the UN Conference on Environment and Development. The Earth Summit, as it is informally known, was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty is intended to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. That means caused by humans, mainly by burning coal, oil, and other inflammable material. As of 2008, 183 countries, including the UK on behalf of itself and its dependencies and territories, have ratified the protocol.

Someone has drawn to my attention that, in answer to a question asked in the House of Commons on 26 November 2008, Joan Ruddock, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, has indicated that Anguilla is not included as a party to the UK ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and Montserrat, for example, are there. But, not Anguilla. What reason, I wonder, could there be for that? [A search of wildlife and environment treaties indicates Kyoto is not the only one.]

Perhaps it is just as well. I might otherwise be overwhelmed by guilt about burning my light household garbage and garden cuttings, as I have religiously done every week for the past 26 years.