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By Noah Grand

Daily Bruin Reporter

While many Europeans discuss environmental treaties as moral questions about their lifestyle of consumption, the U.S. government is looking at the same question in terms of dollars and cents, said UCLA law professor Kal Raustiala.

Thursday’s round-table discussion in the Faculty Center focused on whether the Kyoto Protocol, a multinational agreement aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, could accomplish this goal or succeed as a basis for future agreements on the environment.

“The main purpose of the Kyoto Protocol is to figure out how to set an international regulatory agency,” said Rob Lempert, a scientist for RAND, an independent California-based research group.

Many doubt whether the treaty can reduce emissions because of difficulties in enforcing the treaty and resistance from the United States – one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide – to agree to the treaty.

In the past, nations complied with environmental treaties because they don’t require many stipulations, Raustiala said.

Treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol are based on all participants negotiating targets for emissions.

If the United States approves the treaty, it would be obligated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990 emissions levels by the year 2012.

Carbon dioxide, emitted by cars and most power plants, is generally considered one of the main contributors to the greenhouse effect and global warming.

But it is difficult to predict the effects of global warming 40 or 100 years from now, which Lempert said is one of the main reasons the United States has opposed the treaty.

“The U.S. State Department is more focused on costs than the European Union,” Raustiala said.

Lempert predicts the Bush administration will push for more research and new technologies, such as improving fuel efficiency to cut down on automobile emissions.

Other research to find renewable energy sources are possible, Lempert said.

But some audience members were not convinced such technologies would be implemented.

Richard Turco, director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment who moderated the discussion, said UCLA is implementing renewable energy through the campus’ cogeneration plant, which supplies most of the campus’ power.

The Institute for the Environment is also working to implement additional sources of sustainable energy, such as an energy efficient cooling tank under its new building, he said.

The institute must educate people in addition to implementing ideas, he said.

“We need an organized effort to teach students about one of the major issues that will affect their quality of life,” Turco said.