Believe it or not the whole idea behind Kyotto is use the strengths of capitalism to solve climate change and the looming energy crisis.  The first step is to make dirty fuels like coal more expensive.  That would in turn send market signals and cause people to invest in alternative energy.  Kyotto would also set up the groundwork for further restrictions on carbon emissions.  The cycle would then repeat itself.  Right now there are several ways to solve the energy problem and climate change.

1. Carbon Credits: Use carbon trading to force people to invest in cleaner alternative fuels
1. Make dirty fuels more expensive, hope that forces companies to compete
2. Sets up the groundwork for further restrictions on carbon emissions.
3. Has been called "critically important for providing a central signal to business about the rising cost of carbon" by 14 corporate leaders including the Chairman of Shell UK.
2. Carbon Tax
1. Similar goals as the carbon trading but it's a simple and highly transparent tax
2. Supported by Duke Energy, JPMorgan, et al
   
3. Technology: An Apollo style program to develop new energy technology
1. Has a huge backing among experts
1. Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley literally campaigned for an Apollo energy program untill he died of cancer.
2. Army Core of Engineers
3. Lieutenant Colonel John Amidon - US Airforce
4. Nader Elhefnawy - US Army War College¹
5. Tony Blair
6. A lot of people at MIT
7. Heavy R&D is supported by many corporate leaders.
8. Many more
2. A 5 cent gas tax could pay for it
3. Wouldn't have to change our lifestyle
4. Provides cheap clean energy, oil independence and could solve or provide an acceptable path solve to the worlds top 10 problems.
5. We invest in this list of technologies 
6. Create an army of scientists which will drive our economy much like Apollo scientists did after the space program.
4. Conservationist: Dramatically change our lifestyle
1. Give up cars, lights, etc this option is only supported by a very tiny minority.

Option number 4 isn't very unlikely so we are stuck between #1, #2 and #3.  Many people like the Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley think that changing peoples lifestyles is extremely difficult so #2 is the only option.  Tony Blair says "The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will sacrifice it's economy in order to meet this challenge,"1,2  Because of this realization, he has switched from the carbon trading camp to the technology camp.  Other people are still a big fan of carbon trading and Kyotto.  However, performance of many countries that have signed the Kyotto accord has been dismal.  The European Union (EU-15) have simply failed to meet their Kyotto targets and greenhouse gases are still increasing. The carbon trading system is currently being abused. Thomas C. Heller, the Stanford law professor that helped design parts of the Kyotto protocol, is even critical of it's current design. At 1:12:00 this Google Talk video Heller states: ""I spent years developing that mechanism. And now it's completely screwed up because I didn't realize how it was going to be gamed by people who are willing to work their way around the rules."  The British newspaper Guardian and Businessweek wrote some highly critical articles of carbon trading.  William Connolley, a climatologist and realclimate.org blogger, openly states that he has a "lack of trust" in the carbon offsetting industry.

Total EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions in relation to the Kyoto target

Source: European Environmental Agency

Source:
Guardian, The inconvenient truth about the carbon offset industry, In the concluding part of a major investigation, Nick Davies shows how greenhouse gas credits do little or nothing to combat global warming, Saturday June 16, 2007

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