Kyoto, Iraq and Irony

Saw this online and wanted to share:

Is Kyoto Cheaper than Iraq?

University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein thinks so. He makes the case in today's Washington Post:

For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion. These numbers show that the Bush administration was unrealistically optimistic in its prewar prediction that the total cost would be about $50 billion. And the same numbers raise questions about the Bush administration's claim that the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be prohibitive, causing (in President Bush's own words) "serious harm to the U.S. economy."

The incidence of the two costs is not equivalent. Iraq is funded from general tax revenues while any Kyoto-style policy would be likely to increase energy prices. For some, these distributional differences may matter. Moreover, Kyoto represents but a tiny downpayment toward an emission stabilization policy. (Of course, one might say the same about Iraq and its relation to the overall war on terror.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the EU's fledgling carbon trading market has experienced tremendous price volatility, due in part to an over-allocation of emission credits. Europe has yet to impose real limits on its own carbon emissions, and questions remain how effectively its carbon trading market will reduce the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The comments on the post bring up some tired points about China and India, but also point out some flaws in the logic of the costs not being equivalent. I don't really know much about Kyoto as a specific program, but I have been reading about Europe struggling to meet its goals.

The more interesting connection to me, is what we are willing to expend financially and in terms of American and Iraqi lives to not change our current lifestyle. And that a bulk of our decision to go to war over oil, rather than reduce our use of the product is due to the rhetoric and marketing of some oil men.

Any thoughts on this or the original blog posts comparison of the two costs?