Apolitical Staples

If horses had wings…. If is always a big qualifier. The biggest. If the United States wasn’t run by oil and coal interests. If China wasn’t run by thugs. If Canada…, well you get the point.

But China is run by thugs and they will negate any and all (and more) gains made by Kyoto. That makes Kyoto not worth the paper it is written on.

So let me get this straight. You’re opinion, Greg S. is that if bags of trash are being thrown on your lawn faster than you can clear them away it means you shouldn’t even bother attempting to do so. Is that right? Seems to me that’s a rather defeatist argument. Even if the Kyoto targets, which I’d like to point out are just the first phase, don’t produce a net reduction in ghg emmissions they will still help to slow the rate of global warming buying us more time until the inevitable point of no return is reached.

It sounds like the CPC wants just to sit down and have an end of the world party. Why bother trying, pass the beer.

Sorry I got interrupted. We need your can-do attitude. Don’t be so defeatist! :)

Kyoto was sold as a way to reduce the effects of global warming. As long as the US and China are not involved (and very quickly India as well) then it is an empty shell.

Sure we should do more to reduce ghg emissions. We should also do a lot more to reduce smog producing emissions.

But the environmental lobby should not peddle doomsday scenarios and then turn around and peddle Kyoto.

If the “greens” truly want to affect change (or stop change, whatever, you catch my drift) then they need to get beyond their Kyoto high horse and find a way to get China and the US on board.

And yes Robert, if bags of trash are being thrown on my lawn faster than I can remove them I stop trying to remove them….and I stop the person who is throwing them on my lawn. The first option is futile the second stops the problem.

But Greg, they aren’t mutually exclusive. If the U.S. has a good way to bring down CO2, that’s fine. We can even join their group if you want to. But if the only reason to join is to slow down our CO2 reduction by abandoning our Kyoto reduction targets, then I say that’s just irresponsible. In the end the politics of this will not matter. If we screw up CO2 we are toast. Literally.

“If we screw up CO2 we are toast. Literally.”

No. Not correct. If we screw up it is barely relavent because we do not emit enough to make a difference. That is the only point I am making. If you are trying to save us from being toast you have to get the top emitters on board. Unfortunately Kyoto failed in that.

The USA is reducing their GHG emissions. China and India re the biggest problems.

Kyoto “Money for Smog” just another ponzi scheme brought to us by the pile of corruption at Turtle Bay known as the UN.

Corrupt from the loading dock to Kofi’s Swiss bank accounts, from the millions of $$ his son has pocketed to the $Billions siphoned off in the ” Oil for Palaces” ponzi scheme that Kofi ran out of his office.

Kyoto is a farce of treaty but it has been the most successful fund raising scheme ever designed by the champagne sucking, latte loving enviro-weenies.

The sooner it dies a well deserved death, the better we’ll be.

May 18, 2006 STANDARD-FREEHOLDER Rookie environment minister taking heat over climate change

She’s stopped telling the lie and unleashed a major hoopla in a portfolio that was never one of Harper’s top priorities

Don Martin CanWest News Service OTTAWA

The bureaucrats suggested she duck. Keep her head down for another 18 months until safely after the next election. Pretend the Kyoto accord was a pollution-reduction target fact and not a mission-impossible fiction.

In other words, continue spreading the big Liberal lie even knowing the former government’s $10-billion plan would never come close to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to a level six per cent below 1990 levels.

To her credit, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose arrived at her new job and asked them to translate the Kyoto-enforced reduction of 195 megatonnes of carbon into terms she could understand.

The bureaucrats fiddled with calculators and pencils. Well, they said, it’s a bit more than all the power generation in Canada. If the country went dark and cut back a few hundred thousand cars, it could hit the target.

That’s when the rubber hit the road for the petite firecracker MP from Alberta. She declared Kyoto, as we know it in Canada, dead.

Ambrose takes the chair job in Bonn, Germany, this week at an international conference on climate change in a curious position. She’ll represent the first signatory of the Kyoto accord to publicly admit her home country can’t meet its treaty commitment of reducing gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels.

Long before the $45 million (!!!!!) conference in Montreal in the thick of last November’s election campaign, the event where an electioneering Paul Martin scolded the United States for having a superior gas-reduction record, that much was obvious.

“At that time, they knew we could not meet the targets and no one said a word,” Ambrose said in an interview Friday. “We could have kept lying and continued through the next election, but I told them we should admit it and get out of the target business. It sent shock waves through the department. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.”

TRIUMPH OVER PIPEDREAMS In a triumph of pragmatism over pipedreams, Ambrose went to work eliminating plans to purchase hot air abroad in favour of tangible investments at home.

She killed Canadian plans to purchase a forest in Costa Rica as part of the Kyoto caper. She vetoed trips by senior environment officials to Russia to buy fixer-upper factoriese for the emission credits they could generate.

And she axed a continuing push to direct Canadian foreign aid and development assistance away from the most needy recipients into the hands of less-deserving beneficiaries just because they offered clean-up credits.

“The tentacles of this target-chasing went through almost every department,” she says. “That really blew my mind.” And yet, she hedges still in delivering last rights to the contentious global treaty, pushing for Canada’s greenhouse gas reduction requirements to be softened.

By how much? you ask. She doesn’t know. “If we set a domestic target, it will be a reachable target.”

And what’s the penalty if we break our international commitment? Again, she doesn’t know for sure.

But on this point, Ambrose sounds resolute. Canadian taxpayers will not be sending billions overseas to buy hot air rights. The money to fight our pollution will be invested in Canadian know-how.

It sounds simplistic. But transferring pollution rights from countries that have no intention of polluting to those seeking a bigger carbon belch doesn’t add up to a reduced global discharge in my rudimentary math. OK, true, companies forced to pay for their pollution will find ways to eliminate it, but it still smacks of a massive transfer of wealth from developed to developing countries, which might not be the best Earth-saving strategy.

So give Ambrose credit. She’s stopped telling the lie and unleashed a major hoopla in a portfolio that was never one of Stephen Harper’s top priorities.

Beyond the greenhouse gas fight, she has set in motion water, air and soil reviews, an environmental-protection overhaul and a renewable energy strategy, which will be unveiled in a few weeks.

But the toughest fight will be killing Kyoto once and for all. “It’s not like I don’t know the Liberals haven’t sold Kyoto to Canadians. It’s got the support of 89 per cent of Quebecers. But we’ve got to tell Canadians the truth.”

That’s one heckuva green minister talking. But in this department, that’s a compliment

Canada only accounts for 2% of the world’s carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas).

But other pollution - air, land and water is more.

Kyoto does NOTHING for pollution -just like the Liberals have done NOTHING about either.

I bet Murace Strong Paul Desmarias and the other verious originators of the BS Koyoto plan and massive wealth transfer to developing countries are pretty POed. I wonder what the commission would be on that kind of money transfer?

Kyoto is a feel-good word that does nothing, just as Maria has stated.

Greg, sorry I was offline until this morning.

“If we screw up CO2 we are toast. Literally.”

The “we” I am referring to is everyone around the world. This is a world problem and it must be tackled globally. Saying “Well the American and Chinese governments don’t like it so rather than try to change their minds we’ll abandon what we are doing and basically do nothing”, makes no sense to me. What those governments are afraid of is a good example. They are terrified that Kyoto will work and they will do virtually anything to make sure it doesn’t. That way they won’t have to do anything either. I know the Liberals screwed up so badly that even the name Kyoto is a reminder of every corrupt and stupid policy of 13 years of corrupt and stupid government. But please don’t destroy Kyoto because the Liberals were incompetent.

I have no faith that the Chinese can be shamed into doing anything.

This is a government that murders its own people. What’s a little CO2 to them?

—I have no faith that the Chinese can be shamed into doing anything.—

A week or two ago I was reading in the (UK) Guardian an article about the Chinese starting to build the first of three completely environmentally sustainable CO2 neutral cities. It was pretty fascinating. The first of the three is unlikely to be completely CO2 neutral but will be a million times closer than any Canadian City. The next two will build on the success of the first two. It is a hell of a lot more than Canada is doing.

Is China a potential problem? Yes, but I don’t dismiss them yet. They recognize that they must deal with major smog problems and they recognize that the way for them to become a (or the) world leader is through environmentally sustainable technology. Because of their population density, it will be China’s desire to be the most powerful country and economy in the world that will fuel their environmental awakening.

Let’s not forget that per capita Canada produces 8 times the CO2 emissions as the Chinese. China will never reach our ghg emissions per capita, so for us to blab on about how they have to clean up their acts is pretty hypocritical.

Greg, you make my head spin. First you want us to kill Kyoto and join the Chinese, Americans and Australians. Then you say the Chinese don’t care about CO2 anyway. Am I to assume that you want to join with the Chinese because you don’t care about CO2 either?

Yeah, I know, I am still feeling my way through this.

By allowing developing countries to have no targets Kyoto ceased to be about saving the world and became balancing the world. You cannot talk about stopping global warming without having the top polluters on board.

I actually think our current position is sound. Instead of hoping China and the US get on board by setting an example we get them on board through negotiations.

If I understand what Minister Ambrose is saying it is a) we will not reach our targets so we need to get over that, b) we will not agree to further targets unless developing nations have targets as well and the US is on board and c) if and when we accept targets they will not be based on the old targets but rather targets we can keep.

If we can get the top polluters on board through this then it is a victory. If the top polluters are not involved then there was no plan anyway.

I think it will be to our long run comptetative advantage to clean up our act, with or without the big polluters. If we do it, we will end up develop new technologies (as Bush says he wants to do, but without any targets why bother?) and transform our economy from a 20th century model to a 21st century one. We can be on the ground floor of a potential gold mine of cleaner energy techology. We can then export our technology to China, India, etc. Think of it as an opportunity rather than a burden. :)

I think you inadvertantly outlined the CPC policy as outlined by Minister Ambrose on CTV today.

Greg Staples,

—By allowing developing countries to have no targets Kyoto ceased to be about saving the world and became balancing the world. You cannot talk about stopping global warming without having the top polluters on board.—

I honestly think that opposing Kyoto is simply about trying to keep the poorer countries poor. Just because emissions reductions for developing countries were not part of the first part of Kyoto does not mean that these countries will not be asked to set targets to reduce emissions in the next section which is currently being negotiated. That was always the plan, Rona knows that. The developed world has probably emitted 95% of the ghg over the last 200 years. Nothing hypocritical about people driving SUVs 200 km to work and back every day complaining about people riding bicycles.

—If I understand what Minister Ambrose is saying it is a) we will not reach our targets so we need to get over that,—

More like we will not reach our targets but everyone and everything else is to blame.

—b)we will not agree to further targets unless developing nations have targets as well and the US is on board and—

A question. Per Capita we emit 110 times more ghg than Afghanis. So how much should those people living in mud huts, without vehicles or any thing else that emits ghg be expected to cut? Just wondering. That goes for the people of Bangledesh and lets not forget those animal herders in Africa. They had better step up to the plate.

c) if and when we accept targets they will not be based on the old targets but rather targets we can keep.

You mean targets like the US in the AP-6 to keep on increasing emissions? I am sure we can keep those.

Trevor, please be fair. You know I am not talking about Afghanistan or Bangladesh and you and I both know that they contribute little in the way of ghg’s now and into the far future.

If we are talking about saving world then absolute ghg emissions are what matter not per capita amounts.

And I am not bound to AP6. If we can get something better then let’s try.

Greg Staples,

I am trying to be fair but I just wonder when you say that “absolute ghg emissions are what matter not per capita amounts.”

I can not see any way that is more fair than per capita emissions. Canadians produce the 3rd most emissions per capita (after australia and the US). China has about 40 times the population of Canada. How fair is it for us to blame the Chinese for causing the problems when they produce 5 times the emissions with 40 times the population? (and historically speaking I guarentee that we have created more ghg then China despite our small population)

Lets just say that we decided that each country had to cut 20% emissions.

Canada has a per capita of about 22 tonnes of CO2 at the moment. If we cut 20% we would still be allowed to average 17.6 tonnes per capita. China has a per capita of about 2.8 tonnes of CO2. If they cut 20% they would only be allowed to average 2.2 tonnes of CO2. The problem is that yes there are many chinese that are using a lot of CO2, but at the same time there is still a huge rural population that is living is the rice fields producing next to none. And a huge population of factory workers who also have nothing and produce next to none themselves. Our 20% cut would be shouldered by a population that is almost uniformly wasteful and wealthy making a 20% cut. Their 20% cut would have to be done by way less than half of the population (probably 10%), so that group would have to make much larger than 20% cuts in order to make up for the rural and urban poor majority that can’t make cuts because they produce so little in the first place.

You don’t see Chinese driving Escalades. It is much easier for us through positive policies to make huge cuts. We have the economy and the wealth to push for Wind and Solar power. We have the money to purchase a huge SUV, so why not buy a hybrid instead? And if we change public policy to give tax incentives to buy Hybrids and develop alternative power instead dumping money into the Tar Sands we could make a huge difference and we would encourage larger profits on hybrids, wind power, solar power etc, allowing the prices of environmentally friendly to fall significantly. Then sell those technologies to developing countries allowing them to enjoy a small fraction of the life we enjoy without destroying the planet.

It is only the developed world which can drive the development of these new technologies. The west must take the lead. If Harper, Bush and Howard refuse to take part then people like Ambrose have to move out of the way and let the other western countries gain the benefit of developing these technologies instead of Ambrose trying to derail the whole process.

By the way, Rona just complained on CTV that Brazil doesn’t want to make cuts in the future.

Emissions per capita in Brazil: 1.8 tonnes and has gone up about 28% since 1990. Canada’s as I have said is 22 tonnes and has gone up about 28% since 1990. Those Brazillian bastards.

She’s stopped telling the lie

THAT is the million dollar statement right there. The reason Brison is screaming for her resignation is that he knows that she knows that he knows Kyoto won’t work, and he doesn’t want us to know that he knows or we’ll know how full of crap he really is…..

DazzlinDino: Ambrose is spining her own BS by arguing we can’t meet targets or even really try; furthermore, her instructed purpose is to get everything based on voluntary targets, or we’ll come to pull out of Kyoto.

Kyoto was always just considered a first step. Signatories like China and India, which were not classified as developed nations, are not to start reductions until 2012 under whatever agreed-upon formula, which is currently under negotiation.

Using come common sense here, which appears to be sadly lacking in Ottawa, Kyoto called for the world’s major greenhouse gase emitters to get their house in order before requiring emerging economies to do so. Yes, current projections have China and India emitting huge volumes of greenhouse gases in a few decades, but we aren’t there yet. Where we are now has Canada emitting more greenhouse gases then all of Africa, and America producing 25% of the world’s total. If we (as in developed countries) aren’t willing to reduce, having been the major cause of the problem in the first place, then why should China and India do anything?

Looking at AP6, apparently they aren’t supposed to. Looking at Ambrose’s negotiating intructions, apparently volunteer targets are to be the thing.