An example of successful environmental legislation is the Montreal Protocol. This Protocol addressed issues with the hole in the ozone over Antarctica caused by the release of CFC’s.
The reason for the attainment of the Protocols’ goals was the imminent danger of skin cancer, which caused heightened awareness and necessity for action in the form of legally binding legislation. People should look to the framework of environmental legislation that worked in the past (the Montreal Protocol), in order to create other legally binding mechanisms.
Perhaps necessary when creating global warming legislation is an awareness of the serious threats of global warming so that people realize the necessity for legally binding legislation.
Stated in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration is that “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” The Montreal Protocol exemplifies clear signs of utilization of the precautionary principle. Therefore, why has the United States been so resist to signing and ratifying global warming legislation upon the grounds that scientific consensus is lacking?
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