The current session is a make or break meeting. Mechanisms now in the protocol allow countries to reach reduction targets by means other than actually reducing emissions. Responding to lobbying of the oil, coal and nuclear industries, the U.S. delegation supports these loopholes. I am one of 200 students who have traveled to The Hague to let the U.S. delegates know we believe these loopholes should be closed. Three issues are of particular concern.
Green technology is transferred to developing countries, which is positive.
These two technologies are not sustainable. The American public is keenly aware of the dangers of nuclear technology, from toxic waste by-products to the serious heath risks it can pose. A second loophole is in the treaty's use of carbon sinks to earn emission reduction credits for a country. A carbon sink is anything that absorbs carbon dioxide, such as a forest. But the capacity for land to store carbon is finite.