Note: this illustration ran on the front page of today's paper,
with an accompanying article, effectively heralding this editorial.
Posted on 02/10/2007 8:30:29 AM PST by GMMAC
The folly of Kyoto
National Post: Editorial
Published: Saturday, February 10, 2007
Pablo Rodriguez, a Liberal MP from Quebec, has a private member's bill proceeding through the House of Commons that has the backing of all three opposition parties. If it passes, as appears likely, the resultant Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act would require Ottawa to honour Canada's Kyoto commitments and reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third over just the next five years.
Note: this illustration ran on the front page of today's paper,
with an accompanying article, effectively heralding this editorial.
Working Canadians and taxpayers had better hope Mr. Rodriguez's legislation fails, because there are only two ways to achieve his goal by 2012, both unpalatable. Either the federal government could force a radical change in Canadians' lifestyles -- restricting automobile use, limiting electrical consumption and shutting down industries employing hundreds of thousands of workers, thereby sending our economy into a tailspin -- or it could send tens of billions of tax dollars abroad to buy "carbon credits" from developing and underdeveloped nations.
Mr. Rodriguez, his Liberal caucus mates and environmentalists are reassuring Canadians that the emissions targets imposed by the new bill could be achieved with very little pain for ordinary Canadians. But that is a pipe dream. There is no magic new technology on the horizon that would enable a nation of 32 million to cut hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide output in five short years -- no hydrogen cars, no emissions-free smelters, no solar-powered 18- wheelers. In order to reach our Kyoto targets at this late date, Canada would have to shutter all its coal-fired power plants, plus all its auto plants and Alberta's oilsands. In the late 1990s, the Liberals' own economic forecasts projected 450,000 lost jobs from such reductions.
Mr. Rodriguez's bill is naive in the extreme. It would consign us all to freezing together in the unemployed darkness. And despite all this sacrifice, it wouldn't even do any good against global warming.
The Kyoto accords were more about symbolism than substance. None of the large developing nations -- China, India, Indonesia or Brazil -- is covered by its strictures. Not only do they not have to scale back their emissions under Kyoto, they are not even required to hold them constant. Their emissions may grow without penalty.
Russia and the former Soviet bloc states, which are covered by Kyoto, have since been exempted from its emission targets. Which means the only countries to which the reductions apply are Western industrial nations. And even if they all managed to cripple their economies to meet their limits, their actions would serve to delay the warming expected in the next century by only four years.
The other option is for Ottawa to buy emissions credits from other countries, notably Russia. (Russia has unused emissions room because since 1990, Kyoto's baseline, a lot of the country's old, dirty Soviet-era power and manufacturing plants have been closed.) This, though, is just a feel-good accounting trick whose only purpose would be allowing Canada to assert technical bragging rights about meeting its Kyoto targets -- it wouldn't result in preventing a single molecule of actual carbon dioxide from being emitted.
Canada has already spend about $1-billion buying up Russia's unused emissions room. To meet Mr. Rodriguez's targets, it would have to spend another $20-billion to $60-billion. As well as being a complete waste of money from the point of view of Canadian taxpayers, consider where the cash would be going: the authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin -- which is helping to protect Iran's nuclear program at the UN, turning Chechnya into scorched earth, bullying its European neighbours and rolling back domestic civil liberties to the Cazarist era -- would become Canada's biggest foreign aid recipient, larger than all others combined.
We have a question: If it were so easy to cut Canada's carbon dioxide output by nearly 35% -- the reduction needed to honour our Kyoto commitments -- why didn't the Liberals bring forward legislation when they were in government that obliged them to do so? The answer: Because it can't be done except by devastating the national economy.
The Liberals were in charge of the Kyoto file for over eight years. During that time, our greenhouse gas emissions went from 12% above 1990 levels to more than 30% above. From 1998 onward, the Liberals spent over $6-billion on environmental initiatives. But as former environment commissioner Johanne Gelinas said in her final report last fall, much of that money could not be accounted for, and none of the spending produced any measurable improvement in Canada's emissions. The Liberals -- including then-environment minister Stephane Dion -- could never figure out a way to reduce emissions, or even slow their growth.
Now for crass political gain, the opposition parties seem set to saddle the Tories with Pablo Rodriguez's pie-in-the-sky bill, and perhaps start a recession in the process. When the next election comes, voters should remember who set Canada down this road.
© National Post 2007
PING!
That would be the Kyoto Manifesto, I assume.
The socialist power grab at global environmental domination.
I work with a Candadian company and thus speak to many Canadians on a daily basis. They really believe this stuff and will succomb to Kyoto' folly.
Unfortunate....
This article assumes Canada is likely to adopt this legislation. How likely is that with the conservatives in power?
Forgive my total lack of knowledge about Canadian politics if this is a dumb question.
"Believe" is the key word. Global Warming® isn't science; it's a religion. It requires faith that hardship now will have it's reward down the road. It has its own apocalypse. Trying to argue against the devout is like trying to argue against a fundamental christian or muslim--you'll get nowhere fast and be branded a heretic.
Get ready for The Inquisition v2.0, folks. A new Dark Age is upon us...literally.
I say we need a guinea pig to test out the Kyoto Protocol. Let that guinea pig be Canada. Canada and any other stupid governments around the world that believe in the idiotic global warming farce. Once they "prove" that what they've done has made any impact on global warming, they can bring that proof to the other nations that didn't implement Kyoto.
My bet is that Canada and all of those other Kyoto proponents, once they realized how costly Kyoto was and how their economies had been set back, that they would come running to the non-Kyoto countries looking for help in getting them out of the idiotic Kyoto predicaments. That is, after they've become "third world" economies.
The Kyoto Protocol isn't so much about protecting the environment as it is a multi-trillion dollar shakedown.
With Chrysler Canada layuing of 2,000 auto workers, Would Canadians in Ontario be stupid enough to vote liberal, only to see them close down the Auto industry, and try force Alberta to close down tar sand development- the only other place where an unemployed auto worker might find a job?
Wait, that is lefty land, they probably would vote liberal.
The conservatives only have a minority government. it is possible that if all three opposition parties vote for this Kyoto crap, they could force it through. Would the Tories allow that? probably not. They'd be forced to call an election.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Thanks for the link. Good stuff. It looks like the bill is nothing more than an attempt to saddle the conservatives with legislation forcing them to do something the Liberals failed to do for years and wreck the economy in the process. In other words, pure politics. Maybe the best bet would be to call a new election. A national debate on the issue would seem to favor the conservatives.
Exactly.
I've just started analyzing the following.
It tells the truth about what's happening if only inadvertently
because it is written by those making money off this scam.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/getfile.php/fileelement_74094/Carbon_2006_final_print.pdf
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
let's see..China?..nope..they wouldn't give us money in the form of fines.
India?..nope too poor
Pakistan?...you kidding?
Africka?...nope
South America?...nope
hmmmmm...where's the $$$$?
I got it
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