Global environmentalism has come to the forefront of foreign policy, challenging and reshaping traditional interactions between national governments. The implications of this "greening of foreign policy" have been profound—and often quite counterproductive. Items on the growing list of environmental issues that now drive international treaties and agreements have high costs with low benefits. If the threats the environmentalists are warning us about are as real as we are led to believe, they can better be handled by returning to the traditional principles of the free society based on a rule of law.
With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns. Something of contention still, in the United States, is whether or not climate change is real, and, if it has been induced or accelerated by human activities or not (and given that the U.S. emits about 25% of the world's carbon emissions, it is a big ramification for them). Many reports from various scientists show that climate change is here, and furthermore that human activity has contributed to it (Kraft).
1997, at the Conference of Parties III (COP3), Kyoto, Japan, the Kyoto conference on climate change took place. There, developed countries agreed to specific targets for cutting their emissions of greenhouse gases. A general framework was defined for this, with specifics to be detailed over the next few years. This became known as the Kyoto Protocol. The US proposed to just stabilize emissions and not cut them at all, while the European Union called for a 15% cut. In the end, there was a trade off, and industrialized countries were committed to an overall reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases to 5.2% below 1990 levels for the period 2008 - 2012...........
