Original sentence: Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that it is caused by humans, the lay population in America |accessdate=2007-07-27}}</ref>
Edited sentence: At the same time, developing country exemptions from provisions of the Kyoto Protocol have been criticized by the United States and have been used as part of its justification for continued non-ratification.Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that it is caused by humans, the lay population does not share such viewpoints..  A variety of industries, especially the oil industry, have systematically funded think tanks and contrarian scientists to sow doubt about the scientific consensus and make the public think that the situation is not as severe as it is.Fossil fuel organizations and companies such as American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil, represented by Philip Cooney, and some think tanks such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute have campaigned to downplay the risks of climate change,.In the Western world, the idea of human influence on climate and efforts to combat it has gained wider acceptance in Europe than in the United States.Increased awareness of the scientific findings surrounding global warming has resulted in political and economic debate.Now, the claim is made that even if the warming is due to humans, the warming will be small and not possible to stop.Poor regions, particularly Africa, appear at greatest risk from the suggested effects of global warming, while their actual emissions have been negligible compared to the developed world.Recently, some fossil fuel companies have scaled back such efforts or called for policies to reduce global warming.Such attempts at denial have focused mainly on the United States and the fraction of the public which accepts the scientific consensus about global warming is much smaller in the United States than in other modern countries such as Japan  The global warming skepticism movement started by first claiming that the Earth was not warming.When that no longer worked, they claimed that the warming was not due to humans.while environmental groups and entertainers have launched campaigns emphasizing the risks