Some thoughts on the Schelling FA article on the Kyoto Treaty.
1. The Clinton administration did not put it before the Senate for ratification. Strange. Three possible explanations and it's quite possible all are correct. First, they did not because they stood no chance of getting the requisite 60 votes (cloture issues) and did not wish to spend the political capital and government time in a lost cause. Second, they only, cynically, wished to have the issue to use against the reps in the 00 elections. And, third, there were fairly serious divisions within the administration about political issues surrounding the treaty which could never be resolved sufficiently to go public with it.
2. Schelling makes the point that the Kyoto Protocol (as he calls it) "should not be a partisan issue." One, of course, has to agree, but environmental issues are, unfortunately, highly politicized. And I'm certain Schelling is more than aware of that. So why the comment? I'm not certain.
But about the politics. It's my impression that the Bush campaign money largely comes from industries/companies who are strongly opposed to environmental concerns. That accounts for part of it. As for the Clinton/Gore folk, I think, but don't know, that it's more of a mix. Certainly they have a lot of the environmental movement contributing but as a result of their attempts to move the dems to the center of the political spectrum and their 8 years in power, they were getting contributions from some of the same folk as the Bush folk. Just that this latter group had much less clout with the Clinton-Gore folk because their money was less essential.
3. On the three concerns of the Bush folk, they strike me as misplaced.
a. How to get developing countries on board? Best I can tell from this text, the way to do so is for the developed countries to do something first.
b. The uncertainty of climate change and its impact, Schelling obviously thinks little of this concern by noting that whatever the case, any US administration needs to put serious money into research.
c. Voluntarism. This is the usual business groups approach. We'll do it if you just keep the govt out. Generally, it doesn't get done. Unless the profit matrix shifts. That's not a moral judgment; rather a systemic one. That is the judgment that it won't get done.
4. On the voluntarism score, I particularly liked Schelling's comments that that made the least sense within nations and was simply the only way matters could happen internationally (no global enforcement agency).
Ken, I have yet to read the full text of the article in the hard copy (yes, I did buy one) so all this is drawn from your post.
As for Rumsfeld, I read it, found it much more interesting than I had anticipated. |
