Kyoto treaty will do nothing to the climate but create economic ruin

The effect of the Kyoto Treaty on temperatures will be hardly noticeable, but will cost billions of dollars and create mass unemployment, says the Investor's Business Daily.

In a study for the American Council for Capital Formation, economic consultant DRI-WEFA reports that:

Kyoto implementation will cost Britain 4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and a million unemployed workers every year from 2008 to 2012, the year the treaty expires.

The costs to Germany will be 5.2 percent of its GDP and an increase in unemployment of 1.8 million; the jobless rate in the country is already close to 12 percent.

Spain will lose 5 percent of its GDP and 4 million more workers will be unemployed by 2012.

If the United States joined the treaty, it would have cost every household $2,700 per year. The Clinton Administration, which supported the treaty, put the price tag between $225 and $400 billion a year with job losses of 1.1 million to 4.9 million.

IBD, however, doubts whether countries that signed the treaty will follow through on their commitments, especially once they see the damage it will do to their economies.

Source: Editorial, Healthy Scepticism, Investor's Business Daily, February 16, 2005; and Margo Thorning, "Kyoto Protocol and Beyond: Economic Impacts on EU Countries," American Council for Capital Formation, July 2002.

For text: http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/050215/issues01_1.html

For ACCF study: http://www.accf.org/publications/reports/sr-kyoto-econ-impact.html

For more on Global Warming: Economics: http://eteam.ncpa.org/policy/Global_Warming/Economics/

FMF Policy Bulletin/ 08 March 2005