US Carbon Emissions to Rise by 20%

The first rule of how to manage bad news is to bury it. The Bush Administration has delayed a report for over a year that admits that emissions of greenhouse gases by the United States will rise by 2020 to 20% above 2000 levels

Flying in the face of warnings from scientists that drastic action to cut emissions is needed, the report estimates that US emissions of greenhouse gases will rise from 7.7bn tons in 2000 to 9.2bn tons in 2020 – an increase of 19.5%.
In contrast, the Kyoto protocol, which the Bush administration has refused to ratify partly on the grounds that it would damage the US economy, demands of most developed countries that they reduce their 1990 emissions levels by 5% by 2012.