I have to commend the Prime Minister for delivering an excellent speech at the United Nations. I will probably have more to say on this later but for now I encourage you to watch the video over at the CTV website.
I take my shots at Prime Minister Martin but in the
case - good on 'em. Many of the things he said during the speech were spot on and I am glad that he delivered a speech with levelled necessary criticism to the UN especially the UN Commision on Human Rights.
This is the forum where PM Martin really shines and it makes me wonder if he is miscast as Prime Minister and should instead be an Ambassador. I guess there is not enough power or spotlight in such a position though.
Update: Looks like this speech is getting PM Martin attacked from the left.
...he shied away from highlighting one of the summit's central failures - that of increasing global development aid - and painted an optimistic picture of looming negotiations on climate change in Montreal, despite evidence to contrary.
Critics suggested Canada will have to put up or shut up on both issues.
"Clearly the prime minister has just come up empty," said Gerry Barr, head of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation and the co-chair of the Make Poverty History Campaign.
"Canada is on the hook to deliver some goods" in Montreal, added Andrew Deutz, the lead negotiator on climate change for the IUCN, the World Conservation Union, which has observer status at the UN.
I guess you can't please all the people all the time. By the way, do you think PM Tony Blair let PM Martin in on his little secret. You know, the one where Kyoto is dead.
...Blair, a longtime supporter of the Kyoto treaty, further prefaced his remarks by noting, "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years." So what does he think now? "No country, he declared, "is going to cut its growth." That is, no country is going to allow the Kyoto treaty, or any other such global-warming treaty, to crimp -- some say cripple -- its economy.
Looking ahead to future climate-change negotiations, Blair said of such fast-growing countries as India and China, "They're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto." India and China, of course, weren't covered by Kyoto in the first place, which was one of the fatal flaws in the treaty. But now Blair is acknowledging the obvious: that after the current Kyoto treaty -- which the US never acceded to -- expires in 2012, there's not going to be another worldwide deal like it.
So what will happen instead? Blair answered: "What countries will do is work together to develop the science and technology….There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it." Bingo! That's what eco-realists have been saying all along, of course -- that the only feasible way to deal with the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming is through technological breakthroughs, not draconian cutbacks.
Hat-tip SmallDeadAnimals
