And a hearty “Hallelujah!” is heard among the self-impoverishing fellow believers in Europe. Per Bloomberg:

The U.S., the biggest emitter of gases blamed for global warming, said it will contribute to the next round of emissions cuts, a first step to setting limits since rejecting the Kyoto Protocol six years ago.

“We will also come through with what we believe will be our contribution” to limits that will be set during talks through next year, Harlan Watson, the senior climate negotiator for the U.S. Department of State, said today at a media conference in Vienna. He didn’t say by how much the U.S. would curb its emissions.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol sets limits for reducing emissions through 2012 by an average of 5 percent from 1990 levels. The European Union and 36 industrialized nations are bound by those targets. The treaty doesn’t assign targets to developing nations such as China and India, and the U.S. also rejected the accord in 2001. The next round starts after 2012. Preserving the climate is “is going to require tremendous cuts, well beyond 50 percent in a number of countries, not just in developed countries, but in developing countries,” Watson said. China may overtake the U.S. as the biggest emitter as early as next year, according to the International Energy Agency. …

Leford Anderson wants the U.S. to make a binding agreement to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The European Commission, the regulatory arm of the 27-nation European Union, wants developed nations to cut their greenhouse gasses by 30 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

Leford Anderson should be laughed off the edge of the continent. Of course the European Union wants their chief competitor economically to shackle themselves into irrelevance. Reduce our levels of greenhouse gas emissions ? a proxy for our productivity ? to levels they were thirty years prior? Are you insane? The U.S. doesn’t need a “senior climate negotiator,” we need an advocate to tell the EU no thanks, the U.S. will not commit suicide to suit your superstitions.