Canada First Nation To Pull Out of Kyoto Accord 561
Hugh Pickens writes "Canada will become the first country to formally withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, dealing a symbolic blow to the troubled global treaty. 'Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past,' says Environment Minister Peter Kent. 'We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto.' Kent, a Conservative, says the Liberals should not have signed up to a treaty they had no intention of respecting and says Ottawa backs a new global deal to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, but insists it has to cover all nations, including China and India, which are not bound by Kyoto's current targets. Kent adds that meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6 billion: 'That's $1,600 from every Canadian family — that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent liberal government.' Kent's announcement came just hours after negotiators in Durban managed to thrash out an agreement at the very last minute — an agreement to begin a new round of talks on a new agreement in the years ahead. 'Staying under 2C will require drastic, immediate action — with global emissions peaking in the next five years or so,' writes Brad Plummer. 'The Durban Platform, by contrast, merely prods countries to come up with a new agreement that will go into effect no later than 2020.'"
Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought Durban managed an agreement that China and India *will* now be included.
Is this guy speaking for the government, or just another political blowhard?
Tar Sands (Score:4, Interesting)
Conservative government that is about to make huge amounts of money for their oil buddies with the tar sands in the midwest part of the country.
Yeah I can see why they want out of the Kyoto protocol.
that $13 billion number is likely the amount they're about to reap from tar sand processing
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:4, Interesting)
By all accounts, it's a total shambles. There was an editorial in Nature a couple of weeks ago suggesting that its continued existence was a barrier to implementing a treaty that actually had some teeth.
Re:TCO (Score:1, Interesting)
I wonder how much a 2 degree change in average temperatures will cost Canadians?
They are assuming that the desert in the Southwest USA will never reach them.
That's the attitude normally called "hubris"
.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If they're not doing it, we're not doing it. (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe mainly an economic concern. It is cheaper for a company to pollute than it is not to pollute. Having to conform to environmental goals is like a "tax" on a company, which has to be passed down to the customer in the form of higher prices. There is tons of concern over all manufacturing jobs moving to China, imagine if now Canadian companies now had to spend even more to produce a product, and companies in China didn't.
What's the status of international law regarding tariffs on products from non-participating nations?
Re:Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoops screwed up the link:
here it is [thenation.com]
Re:Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:4, Interesting)
We're trying to tell the teeming masses in India and China that they can't aspire to have luxuries like refrigerators, washing machines and cars. Quite rightly, they don't give a damn about our rank hypocrisy.
False. We're trying to tell them they can't go the same way we went, because the planet can't sustain it. It's still hypocritical, but it's NOT the same thing you're saying. There are ways to have these things without destroying the planet. China is not exploring these ways.
Even if every decadent Western nation beggars itself (and we won't) then India and China will pick up the emissions slack within a decade or so (and they will anyway).
Well yes, that's why Kyoto fails.
There are essentially two solutions: cull about 4 billion people, or throw resources at clean power until it sticks, and I mean trillion dollar tranches of funding at fusion.
We have the technology TODAY to replace the MAJORITY of our energy consumption with wind, solar, biodiesel from algae, and the like. We are not using it. The problem is not technology but WILL.
tl;dr version - emissions will go down when it's cheaper to produce green energy than to burn coal, and not one moment before.
You forgot "when one world government forces people who now enjoy an industrialized lifestyle to live in mud huts"... I mean, that's not the only outcome I see possible, but it's another outcome.
More detailed explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
An interesting explanation of what lead to this was posted by an user on Reddit [reddit.com]. (Disclaimer: I'm not from Canada, so I can't confirm/deny what that user said, but there's plenty of upvotes and comments from other canadians lending some credibility to his explanation.)
"This is actually way more complicated than the one paragraph article makes it seem. To fully understand this, you have to know a little bit about Canadian politics. So now I'm going to talk a little bit about Canadian politics.
By some measures, Canada is the most decentralized country in the world, barring absolute anarchies in Africa and all that shit. Power is divided between the Federal Government and the Provincial Governments in an entirely non-hierarchical manner; provinces and the Federal Government each have their own distinct spheres of influence, and the Federal government cannot tell a Provincial Government what to do within the provincial sphere any more than a province could give the Federal Government orders within the federal sphere of influence.
Without getting into huge amounts of details about how power is divided, it's sufficient to say that much, if not all of the powers that would be required to enforce the Kyoto protocol are within the Provincial sphere of influence, however the Kyoto Protocol was signed by the Federal Government essentially unilaterally. So then the Federal Government has to try to bring the provinces on board with Kyoto, to avoid shirking international responsibilities, but it has no power to force the issue. So then, surprise surprise, some of the provinces dont feel like shooting their oil economies in the foot to play ball with a treaty that they never agreed to. Particularly Alberta, which is basically Canada's Texas, decided that the Federal Government had nothing big and scary enough up their sleeve to threaten them into compliance, so they decided they were not going to enforce the Kyoto Protocol internally at all, and the Federal Government could do absolutely nothing about it.
So now it's in a position where it has to either severely cut carbon for every other province that's willing to play along or pay internationally for Alberta's decision to not give a shit. Yes that's right, the Federal government would have to pay for Alberta not meeting the pollution requirements. Not fair? Well then the Federal Government should have made sure people were on board with this before signing instead of bringing home an unpopular treaty it had no power to enforce. OR the Federal Government can drop out of the Kyoto Protocol, as it has done, learn from the mistake and make sure to get the approval of Provincial governments before signing the next environmental treaty that will undoubtedly come up.
TL;DR: Canadian politics is hella complicated, and while no one likes pollution, Peter Kent is 100% right in the article: Signing Kyoto, especially in the way Canada signed it without enough internal support, was a mistake."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Bad PR (Score:4, Interesting)
http://tinyurl.com/85xkhka [tinyurl.com]
Re:Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:TCO (Score:5, Interesting)
They are assuming that the desert in the Southwest USA will never reach them.
That's the attitude normally called "hubris"
.
It is a common misconception that deserts are caused by heat. There are cold deserts and hot rain forests. Deserts tend to be caused by other factors, primarily latitude (see a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_pressure_area#Climatology" this) and the rain shadow of mountain ranges.
An increase in temperature will not necessarily cause deserts to expand, though they might move if the equatorial low pressure (=wet) area expands. In the tropics, the summer tends to be the wet season: more heat leads to more evaporation in the oceans. The land gets much hotter than the sea, forcing hot moist air to rise, forming clouds and bringing rain. During the exceptionally hot 90's and early 2000's, the deserts in northern Africa actually receded. During the cooler 80's, the same area suffered droughts and desertification.
Will an X degree increase in temperature cause the deserts to shift all the way north to Canada? This is equivalent to asking whether and X degree increase in temperature will cause the southern Mexican jungle to expand all the way into the Mojave desert. X would likely have to be pretty large.
None of the above is relevant to TFA by the way. Canada pulled out of this treaty because they argue it is pointless as long as China and the US, the two largest polluters, aren't bound by it.
Re:TCO (Score:4, Interesting)
Hello from balmy Edmonton, Alberta. We had a high of -3C (27F) today which may seem cold to many of you but given that it's supposed to be closer to -15C this time of year -3C is nothing. We don't have the humidity so our -3C is like +10 in a place like London England.
What concerns me is what temperatures we're going to have to hit to average only a few degrees warmer than usual over the entire year. We'll be hitting -40 or lower in January to make up for this...
come and visit.. it's quite an experience.
oh.. the desert already reaches Calgary... a dry, windy and almost treeless city... but very cool place otherwise.
Re:If they're not doing it, we're not doing it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that at the moment their population can't afford to buy all the stuff they make. If the trade cut off abruptly, their economy would collapse (until they retooled for weapons, anyway).
The tragedy of the commons (Score:4, Interesting)
In our case the commons resource is the amount of oil extracted and spent to generate CO2 in the atmosphere. Since you can bet all you want no nation will back off until they feel bitten in the ass, we are like lemmings deciding that they will not break before jumping off the cliff, if the other don't break either. I am sad for the children born today and tomorrow which will inherit from our gluttony and be left with their eye to cry (in 50, 100, 200 years take your pick).
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's true, the Conservative Party of Canada who currently form the Government of Canada tend to base their views on what's "best" for Alberta, where they control all but one of the seats. The Prime Minister moved to Alberta as a child and has essentially become a caricature of Albertan disgruntlement with rest of Canada. It looks like the government was facing over $9 billion in fines for failing to act on Kyoto, mostly due to the tar sands projects which they haven't even bothered to monitor.
Although the CPC blames the previous Liberal Government, the CPC has been in charge for almost 6 years now. The Liberals didn't do much to meet the targets, the CPC has never had any intention of even trying to reach the targets. They've been actively working to sabotage international agreements since they came to power.
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Some time ago there was a fellow getting a lot of tv time here in Canada who suggested that the production process could be improved significantly by changing the process from one in which hydrogen is added, instead of carbon dioxide being released*. The catch, of course, is that the best way to produce sufficient amounts of hydrogen involved using nuclear reactors to provide the electricity. Needless to say, that idea didn't fly. Sad, really. Of course, if we weren't so squeamish about updating and exploiting nuclear power, we wouldn't need to process the tar sands at all. But that's another thread and another flamewar.
* This was a few years ago now, so consider this a very vague, likely inaccurate description of a more complicated process.
We do think long term (Score:2, Interesting)
I have yet to see a Global Warming argument that shows how rising temperatures would have any deleterious effects on me or my descendants. Yes, climate will change. Yes, farmers may have to start planting different crops to adjust for that. Yes, the sea levels may rise and some poor vagrants out in Nigeria may have to pack up their dirty rags and hike a few miles inland. Oh, and all of that will happen over a hundred years or so. A hundred years ago, there was a forest where I live. Three hundred years ago there was no sign of human habitation around here aside from an occasional indian.
After the planet warms up, life will still go on just fine. The Earth is not a fragile christmas ornament; it always finds a way to keep on going just fine. Half a billion years ago, when CO2 concentration was ten times it is today, and the global temperatures were quite a bit warmer, life thrived. Life will adapt and so shall we. The Earth will not become uninhabitable, only a little different.
In light of that, the anti-CO2 argument is basically that I and my kids should reduce our standard of living now without any tangible benefit to us in the future. My response, naturally, is "forget it".
Re:Global Warming is a Scam by Goldman Sachs (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, no. Global Warming is quite real.
Scum, like Goldman Sachs, will use anything to try to line their own pockets. Carbon trading is an inferior solution that financial systems prefer to outright taxes and regulations because they will find ways to profit from the trading schemes and divert money away from the public good and into the pockets of the wealthy elite. However, trading schemes do actually produce results, sulfur emissions have dropped around 50% due to the trading scheme imposed on those emissions in the states. Of course, countries that implemented taxes actually had the rates drop around 60% and countries that simply regulated how much could be produced saw drops in the range of 70%, if I remember correctly.
Points of Consideration. (Score:4, Interesting)
#1: I think it is funny that Peter Kent is our environmental minister. He is best known for being a business commentator for a TV show. How is this guy our minister of environment!
#2: In Canada's defense the treaty makes no sense if the big guys aren't on board. I mean Canada is pretty brutal per capita, but we only have 30 million people. We are really small potatoes. Without countries like USA, China, India, Brazil, etc... what is the point?
#3: We were at least part of the treaty at one point in time, unlike all the a fore mentioned countries (sort of, I know some are members, but are required to make no sacrifice, which is BS). Of course that is not to say we actually made a like of progress towards those targets during that time. If fact I wouldn't be awfully surprised if we had increased CO2 since then.
#4: Yes this is about the tar sands. It is obvious. However as a government, they have to weigh the pros VS the cons. Yes this will increase CO2, and cause environmental trouble. However it would be a HUGE boon economically. The future of Canada for the next 50 years. It is understandably hard to throw that away. I think they have just proven they are willing to take a bit on the chin if it means keeping that advantage. This position is also made easier by the likes of the USA and China (which is funny as they called it preposterous!) Hell there is serious implications in that the USA certainly does not want us in it, and closing down the tar sands, which is really the only way they are going to have some independence from middle east energy issues. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a fairly weighty amount of pressure being applied by the USA to Canada to withdraw.
Before you flame me all to bits, I consider myself on the left and an conservationist/environmentalist. I am merely a little more pragmatic than most.