File talk:Kyoto Protocol participation map 2005.png

U.S. Signing

"I think the U.S. should be removed from the 'Signed, but not intending to ratify' list and placed on the 'not signed or ratified' list. Why should the U.S. be listed as a signer when Al Gore's signing of the treaty was legally meaningless as, under U.S. law, a treaty has to be voted for by 2/3 of the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Senate voted down the treaty 95-0 six months before Al Gore signed the treaty. The fact that Al Gore signed the document isn't meaningful as he had no authority to represent the U.S. in that regard.

Links pertaining and backing up argument:

http://144.16.65.194/hpg/envis/doc97html/globalus1212.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

   I think you are confused - Gore was never prez so couldn't have signed - do you mean Clinton? Get your demons in order... As for the substance: signed but not intending to ratify seems to be exactly correct William M. Connolley 09:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm not confused. Yes, Clinton was president, but he didn't sign the document, Al Gore did when he was Vice President, in 1998. This was six months after the senate voted down a proposal to sign it 95-0. Hence, the document was never signed by anyone with the authority to represent the United States in any such capacity.

"On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[57] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification."

"the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[55][56] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States"."

   How very curious - but thanks for correcting me. However, the substance remiains the same: the US *did* sign but not ratify it William M. Connolley 19:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought the same thing if I hadn't read it. I would still argue that the U.S. didn't sign the treaty. One individual decided to sign it without the U.S. giving that individual any authority in the matter. It's no different than if any other environmental activist had signed it, even if they were a U.S. citizen."

there is no doubt at all that the US did sign the protocol. Gore was authorised to sign it on behalf of the US government and that's what he did. that the senate did decide beforehand that they would never ratify it, is another (yet related) story and doesn't remove the signature from the paper. by the way, the UN also thinks the US signed it (http://unfccc.int/files/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/application/pdf/kp_ratification.pdf) --Krueschan (talk) 21:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

United States ratification

From all the sources I can gather, neither President Clinton nor President Bush ever submitted the treaty for ratification. A treaty that is never submitted to Congress can hardly be considered "declined ratification". I do not believe the United States has declined ratification, and this should be changed.