The Kyoto accord on climate change is flawed. Many of its signatories, including Canada, have not lived up to its goals. The United States has refused to ratify it. But it exists. This is its virtue.
It remains the only international pact on global warming that virtually all countries of the world have agreed on.
That is why it is so depressing to see Canada’s Conservative government doing its utmost at this week’s climate-change conference in Durban, South Africa, to deep-six Kyoto.
Environment Minister Peter Kent says that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is unfair — that it requires only developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while allowing emerging countries like China and India to pollute at will.
Kent is technically correct. But that’s because Kyoto was designed that way. The international deal, which was hammered out in the 1990s, deliberately put the onus for reducing carbon emissions on industrial countries like Canada. That’s because they were most responsible for the problem.
To a large extent, we still are. In per capita terms, Canada is the world’s 15th largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The U.S. is No. 12. (Tiny Qatar has the dubious honour of holding first place.)
By comparison, China, according to the U.S. government’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre, ranks 78th. India is No. 139.
True, China and India produce more greenhouse gases in total than Canada. But that’s because both have more people. Is it unfair for them to ask the developed world to scale back its per-person emissions before they seriously tackle climate change? I’m not sure it is.
The conventional wisdom on Kyoto now is that it failed and should be allowed to die. Global emissions have risen since 1997. Under its previous Liberal government, Canada had pledged to reduce its greenhouse gases by 6 per cent. But the Liberals did nothing and emissions have risen instead by 15 per cent. Even well-meaning observers ask: What’s the point?
The point is that it is easier to build on something than nothing. Yes, the U.S. is absent from this pact. But if Canada and the world waited for the U.S., there would be no International Criminal Court. Nor would there be a United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to sort out underwater Arctic resource claims.
Kent talks of trying to forge an agreement that would require China to reduce its carbon emissions. But China won’t do anything until the big per capita emitters — like Canada — act first. That was its position in the 1990s. As it made clear in Durban this week, that is its position now.
Kent’s dismissal of Kyoto might be forgiven if the Conservative government had a serious alternative to propose. But it does not. It has never believed that climate change was a serious issue. It has always catered to the interests of the oil industry.
It appears to be trying to ensure that any potential international agreement on carbon emissions is voluntary, unenforceable and meaningless.
In this, Harper’s government looks likely to succeed. Along with Japan and Russia, it is refusing to extend Kyoto past 2012. Its unrelenting negativism is having an effect. Even European countries that have successfully controlled greenhouse gases are reluctant to extend an agreement that is being so effectively sabotaged. So is notoriously green New Zealand.
“You will not carry public opinion if the debate is: ‘You are the only idiots doing anything,’” New Zealand’s chief envoy to the Durban talks was quoted as saying Tuesday.
Score one more victory for the wreckers who control Canada’s government.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
It remains the only international pact on global warming that virtually all countries of the world have agreed on.
That is why it is so depressing to see Canada’s Conservative government doing its utmost at this week’s climate-change conference in Durban, South Africa, to deep-six Kyoto.
Environment Minister Peter Kent says that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is unfair — that it requires only developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while allowing emerging countries like China and India to pollute at will.
Kent is technically correct. But that’s because Kyoto was designed that way. The international deal, which was hammered out in the 1990s, deliberately put the onus for reducing carbon emissions on industrial countries like Canada. That’s because they were most responsible for the problem.
To a large extent, we still are. In per capita terms, Canada is the world’s 15th largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The U.S. is No. 12. (Tiny Qatar has the dubious honour of holding first place.)
By comparison, China, according to the U.S. government’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre, ranks 78th. India is No. 139.
True, China and India produce more greenhouse gases in total than Canada. But that’s because both have more people. Is it unfair for them to ask the developed world to scale back its per-person emissions before they seriously tackle climate change? I’m not sure it is.
The conventional wisdom on Kyoto now is that it failed and should be allowed to die. Global emissions have risen since 1997. Under its previous Liberal government, Canada had pledged to reduce its greenhouse gases by 6 per cent. But the Liberals did nothing and emissions have risen instead by 15 per cent. Even well-meaning observers ask: What’s the point?
The point is that it is easier to build on something than nothing. Yes, the U.S. is absent from this pact. But if Canada and the world waited for the U.S., there would be no International Criminal Court. Nor would there be a United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to sort out underwater Arctic resource claims.
Kent talks of trying to forge an agreement that would require China to reduce its carbon emissions. But China won’t do anything until the big per capita emitters — like Canada — act first. That was its position in the 1990s. As it made clear in Durban this week, that is its position now.
Kent’s dismissal of Kyoto might be forgiven if the Conservative government had a serious alternative to propose. But it does not. It has never believed that climate change was a serious issue. It has always catered to the interests of the oil industry.
It appears to be trying to ensure that any potential international agreement on carbon emissions is voluntary, unenforceable and meaningless.
In this, Harper’s government looks likely to succeed. Along with Japan and Russia, it is refusing to extend Kyoto past 2012. Its unrelenting negativism is having an effect. Even European countries that have successfully controlled greenhouse gases are reluctant to extend an agreement that is being so effectively sabotaged. So is notoriously green New Zealand.
“You will not carry public opinion if the debate is: ‘You are the only idiots doing anything,’” New Zealand’s chief envoy to the Durban talks was quoted as saying Tuesday.
Score one more victory for the wreckers who control Canada’s government.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
No comments:
Post a Comment