Americans find emissions addiction hard to quit
- Source: Global Times
- [23:13 December 14 2009]
- Comments
By Sun Weichi
There are 15,000 delegates and officials at the United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009, and 5,000 journalists there to cover them. And 98 world leaders, including US President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, have shown up.
It is a conference of unprecedented scale, which reflects the stress on climate change by countries worldwide.
Most people believe that it is carbon dioxide emissions that have led to global warming, and that cutting emissions is the best way to curb the trend. The term "low carbon economy" has become popular as a result.
In order to cut carbon emissions, countries are paying more efforts to new "clean energy." Governments are encouraging people to change their lifestyles and switch products to help.
But can the low carbon economy guarantee the same quality of life? This is the problem that the US, the world's biggest consumer of energy, faces.
The US did not sign the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. But this does not mean US citizens do not understand the dangers of the greenhouse effect.
Take the state of California. It passed the first state level law to cut vehicle exhaust emissions early in 2004, and the standards are even stricter than those of the US Federal Government.
