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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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All 15 European Union member states deposited simultaneously their ratifications of the so-called Kyoto protocol on global warming. They did it in New York in the HQ of the United Nations a day before the deadline they have self-imposed (1st June). With the almost imminent ratification of the protocol by Japan and the other European nations, the United States may become the only country unwilling to do so. But what in reality means this protocol and what kind of consequences it will imply if it's respected?

The Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 and obliged the industrial countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 5% by 2008-2012. To become an international law, this protocol has to be ratified by at least 55 countries producing at least 55% of all carbon dioxide emissions (the USA alone produce 25%, another 20% go to the European Union).

The lower house of the Japanese parliament voted in favor of the ratification of Kyoto protocol. Canada in spite of the province of Alberta opposition also signaled its willingness to ratify the protocol. Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics are too dependent on the Western Europe financial aid and will follow its pattern. Even if the United States continue to oppose the treaty, it will get the much needed 55% of all carbon dioxide emissions and will become an international treaty.

What will come next? What lies below the surface of the protocol? What in reality means to cut the production of carbon dioxides?

It won't be a simple reduction in the industrial capacity yet this will mean a global economic crisis, higher unemployment and all sort of imaginable negative political consequences. In order to be able to cut the carbon dioxide emissions simultaneously with the sustainable economic development, the industrial countries will have to change all the way of doing business, to destroy all the stereotypes about what the "normal" life should be.

In the field of the energy industry that will entail the major changes in whole energy infrastructures, stopping the coal and oil-generating facilities and their replacement with the wind, solar and geothermal power stations. Only in the US there are almost 500,000 MW of power station working on coal and oil. To build only 1,000 MW you need $1bn. To replace the whole park of old, obsolete and polluting power stations only in the US you will need $500bn. In Europe the numbers are similar. Who will pay for that replacement? Of course, the final customers will.

Further, you have millions of cars that also contribute to the global pollution and climate changes. Their owners will have to change the engines from gasoline to hydrogen or better start using the "individual human transporters".

All these necessary measures to respect the Kyoto protocol seem unrealistic in the near future but they are only the tops of the iceberg. The real, REAL change in our lives will come when we stop thinking of our home and our work as of two different places forcing us to use a "shuttle" (car) every day to travel back and forth. The factories will be full of robots and the humans will have only to rule the information flows. Sounds unimaginable, impossible? Well, the last 10 years the world said "goodbye" to the typewriter as well as to the gramophone, which have served well for more than a century. Why should we then always say "hello" to the gasoline-engine car?

If we don't need to live in a car-distance from work, why we should do that instead of living in a quieter and cheaper place? For what millions of people should be jam-packed in crowded cities if there are so empty spaces around? This will be really a major, unprecedented shift in our lives. Are we ready to meet this challenge?