Global warning

The Kyoto Protocol is fundamentally flawed. It uses the wrong model to address the wrong problem with inadequate, even dysfunctional, tools. It confuses ends and means. Put briefly, Kyoto is an attempt to impose a command-and-control, end-of-pipe mentality on the global economy and all the natural systems with which it is linked. Our cultural and value systems may in fact be the most important part of the climate change debate, yet they are strikingly missing from the Kyoto process. The ongoing global climate negotiations have been vigorously defended and criticized on a number of grounds, as nation-states, companies, and NGOs vie for strategic advantage in the policies that are emerging from the debate, and the requirements they will impose. It is therefore somewhat remarkable that this extensive dialogue has failed to identify the most obvious deficiency in the Kyoto process. How to address climate change is basically an ethical debate, as society confronts for the first time the profound question of what kind of planet we want to design.