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.'"
TCO (Score:2)
Re:TCO (Score:5, Funny)
Less snow, more farmable land?
Maybe they plan to become the first producers of bananas within the end of the century...
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More farmable land is actually one of the predictions: some models show America's "wheat belt" migrating northwards, so the plains of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba will become productive in the way that Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas currently are for the U.S.: here's a map [bbc.co.uk]
Re:TCO (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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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.
There are reasons to believe a hotter climate will cause expansion of deserts, although the effects aren't linear. The area you mentioned [wikipedia.org] didn't have a known history of droughts before the twentieth century. The whole Sahara wasn't a desert until about 4000 years ago, it's not known exactly what caused the desert to appear.
Deserts around the world are situated around 30 to 40 degrees latitude, both north and south of the equator. Those limits could vary both north and south with changing temperatures.
There
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Perhaps the excuses are contrived, but their point is true that any environmental treaty that doesn't take China and India to task is not going to change anything. You can't wash your hands 10 times and declare that a substitute for a shower.
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Of course, washing your hands is still better than not washing at all.
They are likely correct that any solution that doesn't account for all nations won't achieve much. Consider if the world was divided into two Blocs, the Green Bloc and the Brown Bloc. If "dirty" production can be shifted from the Green Bloc to the Brown Bloc then few (if any) gains will be made because the same production will occur just in an area where the laws won't penalize or prevent it. In fact, the few gains made will be wiped o
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.
By 2019.... (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
He's the Environment Minister. Official part of the "Harper Government"(tm).
Yes, it's an embarrassing time to be a Canadian. There used to be a time when we would take part in multinational initiatives and act as a positive mediator who helped countries reach consensus. Now we sabotage them.
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Yes, it's an embarrassing time to be a Canadian.
Welcome to the club... my whole adult life has been an embarrassing time to be a USAian.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
The USA is a fine place to live ... they'll even let you leave if you don't like it.
Why do people say this ridiculous shit? As if it's not permissible in America to point out a problem, criticize the government, or ask for change?
"Love it or leave it." One of the most despicable turns of phrase of the modern American nationalist.
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People in Gitmo are in Cuba and are POW's.
No, the Bush administration dubbed them "unlawful combatants" so they wouldn't have to be treated according to the rules for either POWs or accused criminals.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's the Environment Minister. Official part of the "Harper Government"(tm).
Yes, it's an embarrassing time to be a Canadian. There used to be a time when we would take part in multinational initiatives and act as a positive mediator who helped countries reach consensus. Now we sabotage them.
You mean "pretend to take part in multinational initiatives". The government that signed the stupid agreement in the first place didn't do much of anything to actually bring down our carbon emissions.
Re:Harper (Score:4, Informative)
It has been embarrassing to see my fellow Canadians elect Harper and his "Conservatives" (read: Reform Party in disguise/Canadian Republican Party) in the first place. I think his only goal is to maintain power so he can remake Canada into a miniature version of the US under the Republicans. No doubt he wants to have us give up our sovereignty and become additional states down the road. Sorry to all you US /. readers but I see that as a very bad thing :(
I wouldn't buy a used car from him. I am deeply embarrassed that my fellow citizens have been stupid enough to elect him and then give him a majority government.
Whatever they say is the reason for pulling out of Kyoto officially, the real reason will be that his corporate owners do not want to spend additional money to be environmentally responsible instead of making profits and he knows he has a stranglehold on Canada at the moment and can do whatever he wants.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Durban managed an agreement that China, India, the USA will be included in a new agreement, which agreement will be negotiated in the next three years and not come into effect until 2020.
Note that this new agreement (the one to be negotiated by 2015) hasn't actually been agreed to by China, India, or the USA.
Note that the terms of the new agreement haven't been negotiated, so it's impossible to say whether binding agreements are going to be included.
And, note finally, that China (at least) has said that they won't accept binding limitations on carbon emissions before 2030 at least.
If they're not doing it, we're not doing it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't see the validity in an argument justifying Western emissions based on the emissions of developing nations. Just because they're not doing their bit, doesn't mean we shouldn't do ours.
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Re:If they're not doing it, we're not doing it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm... No. (Score:3)
The point is how MUCH is being produced, not how many people are doing it.
That would be the point only in very-very-VERY-limited, overly generalized and utterly unrealistic approach to subject.
From any real life point of view, economical to biological, the number of humans producing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses is a VERY important factor in the equation.
Cause countries, being imaginary lines on the land drawn by humans, produce no CO2.
You're pointing to that yourself with that Germany example - draw a line differently and the country's numbers may change, but a person riding a
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By deobfuscated they (actually, the anonymous Wikipedia user who made it) mean apparently that:
"The data only considers carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacture, but not emissions from land use such as deforestation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions [wikipedia.org]
But without the per capita [wikipedia.org] numbers, all that data is useless.
With per capita numbers on the other hand you naturally have to ask yourself a few things.
Like, what the fuck are the Australians [wikipedia.org] building down there?
What do they know that we don't?
And where do they plan to go with that secret spaceship of theirs?
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:If they're not doing it, we're not doing it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Like China would give a shit. 1.3 billion people right there.
Like India would give a shit either, 1.2 billion people right there.
It's not as if they couldn't run their own macroeconomy independent and isolated from the rest of the World. They surely could with one third of the population between them. In fact, they could say to the rest of the world, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" and let the rest of us starve.
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).
Re:If they're not doing it, we're not doing it. (Score:5, Insightful)
There must be something to gain from research into greener ways of doing business.
I work in the maritime industry and green initiatives are working hand in hand with rising oil prices to make fuel and hull efficiency a source of great savings for owners and operators. This is driven by research and engineering in areas like CO2 scrubbers, hull coatings and simple things like using energy efficient lighting.
Sure, burning less fuel might put less money back into the pockets of oil companies, but there's got to be a better future at the end of this road than burning dwindling supplies of heavy fuel by the millions of tons and smogging up the place.
Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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).
Emissions restrictions are dead in the water on the global scale. Instead, how about we start from the premise that people are going to strive to live rich, comfortable, high energy lives, and that they're going to keep having lots of kids who will expect to have more than their parents had.
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.
tl;dr version - emissions will go down when it's cheaper to produce green energy than to burn coal, and not one moment before.
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Thought-provoking article, though her solutions are probably too 'radical' for many, by (Canadian) Naomi Klein:
http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate
Re:Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoops screwed up the link:
here it is [thenation.com]
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And if we could generate clean energy at half the price as energy from coal, then what do you think will happen to the price of coal, do you think it might go down, can you see a problem ?
Capitalism alone can not solve this problem.
No country can be allowed to act in its own best interests and ignoring the fate of everyone.
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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.
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No, the problem isn't WILL, it's COST. Even if wind/solar/biodiesel/nuclear cost about the same as coal/oil (nuclear does, the rest are headed that way, but not there yet), replacing all the existing infrastructure will have to be paid for over a short period.
During that short period (a decade or so?), costs for ene
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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.
That isn't what Kyoto was saying at all. We have have a high standard of living while reducing pollution and carbon emissions, it just costs a bit more so naturally developing nations complain that it holds them back. We have been helping them with it in some cases, and forcing them in others (e.g. ROHS).
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).
So you honestly think that by reducing pollution and carbon emissions through new technology and working practices a country will beggar itself? You may not have noticed by nuclear power doesn't produce muc
Re:Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:5, Insightful)
When the food supply drops so that the planet can only support one billion, the population will fall to one billion. The question is, which billion?
I doubt the sifting process will be pleasant.
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When the food supply drops so that the planet can only support one billion, the population will fall to one billion. The question is, which billion?
I doubt the sifting process will be pleasant.
That's one that stacks up well for the Canadians. On many models the grain belts move from the USA and Europe to Canada, the Norse countries and Siberia.
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That's one that stacks up well for the Canadians.
You mean, the US Annex? Maybe we'll just call it the Mezzanine.
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That brings up a good point... What kind of innovations would we see if we had groups of humans who could no longer talk to each other easily? They could share research, but the daily interaction wouldn't be there. There's almost nowhere on Earth that is off the internet... And certainly nowhere that's easily inhabitable.
But moving some of us to Mars... Not only would the adverse conditions promote innovation, but the lack of easy contact with the rest of us would also promote home-grown solutions for
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The same kind of innovations we saw before groups of humans could talk to each other easily, i.e., less of them?
Re:Good, hair shirts won't save us (Score:5, Insightful)
India and China will develop anyway. It's not like they don't have enough consumers, and it's not like all the knowledge and information required is not available to them. Ultimately, the only competition between India/China and the west is for natural resources. The west has been able to grab a large proportion of the world's natural resources because the west is much better at producing things - cars, aeroplanes, chemicals, drugs, software, services - which it can swap for them. (And as soon as India and China become as good at that resource prices will be enormously higher).
As The Economist pointed out recently, large numbers of people die in heatwaves in India but few in Texas. The differences is air conditioning. It's difficult to tell Indians they aren't allowed to have it. I would go on to say that it'll ultimately be politically impossible for the west to argue that everyone else is allowed a lower limit on emissions per person. China's emissions are approaching European levels, but India's are much lower and they're both a long long way from US levels (and, given self interest, it'll obviously be the US they'll compare themselves to). Reducing western levels of emissions to contemporary Chinese levels, especially in the US, is a political precondition to getting any action from China and India. And, of course, the same technology can be used there.
BTW, IIRC China have claimed to have done more than anyone else to reduce their CO2 emissions - via their one-child policy. I can't remember where or when, but whether they have or not they'd have a point.
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China is full of crap.
China's population growth is still positive, which means their actual rate is the near the usual 2.3 children per family, not "one child per family".
And their CO2 emissions didn't outpace the US CO2 emissions because they've been reducing them.
What they're saying is that their CO2 emissions would be even higher than they are if they hadn't had the "One Child Per
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
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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
Or kickbacks for the politicians...
Re:Tar Sands (Score:4, Insightful)
So, Canada is going to let a multi-trillion dollar resource sit in the ground? That resource is going to get developed and shipped south to the USA and west to China. The oil sands will be developed. The oil sands contribute about 5% of Canada's carbon emissions currently so eliminating them completely would not put a dent in our carbon usage.
The fact is Canada is a cold, sparsely populated country with high energy needs.
Japan started first (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-30/world-shouldn-t-wait-for-u-s-resolution-on-climate-agreement-japan-says.html [bloomberg.com]
Canada may have been the first to formally withdraw but Japan started the ball rolling by refusing to extend the Kyoto Accord.
problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that we need people who think long-term to solve this. But none of the people in power do.
In the west, politicians think roughly until the next election and that's it.
The 3rd world countries either don't care or are so unstable that anything that hurts now in order to get a big pay-off tomorrow means the end of the current regime.
And China, India, Brazil, etc. are growing so fast that pretty much the same holds true, except that it's because of the growth dynamics and not political instability.
So basically, we're heading for the wall. We know it. Nobody dares to grab the wheel because it means unbuckling your seat belt.
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."
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So I guess the Canadian Constitution doesn't have anything equivalent to the Elastic Clause or the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution? Lucky them...
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I live in Ottawa (the national capital, for the benefit of non-Canadians). Unlike the US and Australia, we weren't smart enough to make the capital a distinct jurisdiction, so we have municipal, provincial and federal governments playing havoc with our city, and nothing gets done in any reasonable time. Worse, the "national capital region" extends into Gatineau, which is in a different province altogether (Quebec). There are actually two independent bus systems because of this, and language laws that make n
Bad PR (Score:4, Interesting)
http://tinyurl.com/85xkhka [tinyurl.com]
First Nation (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one who initially read the headline to mean that one of the Canadian First Nations (i.e. what USers call Native American tribes) had pulled out of the Kyoto Accord, and wondered when they became recognized for international relations?
Dear Harper (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Stephen Harper:
Fuck you.
You've obviously decided my family (and every family in Canada) can afford the $3,800 we're putting toward the new F-35s [flightglobal.com]. But thank you, thank you, for saving me the money that would be wasted doing my part for the world.
Re:Dear Harper (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to second the "Fuck you.", and also throw in the absurd "crime bill" that comes at a time when crime rates are their lowest in decades, and is still being pushed through, despite Texas Republicans writing an open letter saying, paraphrased, "that shit don't work".
Fuck Harper, and the Conservatives. A majority with less than 40% of the popular vote? Maybe you should worry about pissing off the Canadian public just a little too much.
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It isn't that we're against national defence. It's that they chose an unproven fighter that has severe cost overruns, is unsuited for the vast Canadian north (with hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between a landing strip capable of landing a fighter, you want two engines for redundancy, not one) and gave a pricetag that even the Americans are saying is unrealistically lowballed (they're reusing the Liberal estimates, but those were from the early 2000s).
Replacing the aging CF-18s, most Canadians wil
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).
Blame Obama (Score:4, Funny)
It is so over (Score:4, Insightful)
you can now officially 'Kiss Your Ass Goodbye".
So the triumph of emotion over logic is essentially complete. I was a fool to think it would be any other way.
Stupidity: it's a renewable resource!
China and India? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Summary: " including China and India "
This has to be from an American news source. I was listening to Radio Japan (shortwave radio geek) last night when they also announced Canada's stance, but claimed last night that it was because China and the *United States* do not adhere to the accord, so it's pointless, because the two biggest polluters in the world are ignoring the treaty.
Funny how the USA gets left out of the summary here. Hrmmm. Shades of 1984 when the news is changed to make your country seem not as bad as it actually is. I'd be suspicious of anything I read or hear from American news sources. Clearly there's substantial bias.
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.
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Informative)
Wait... you know that the US was never in the Kyoto Accord, right?
And that part of the reason Canada is pulling out is that the world's biggest CO2 outputting nations (US and China) weren't reducing their output?
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Informative)
China and the US not pulling their weight is only the official reason I guess.
The true reason must be the enormous CO2 pollution that the exploitation of the tarsand oil or what is it called is causing.
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.
Global Warming is a Scam by Goldman Sachs (Score:3)
To create a global currency - based on trading securitized CO2.
There are no technical or behavioral measures in any proposed treaty. Only carbon trading. How is this accomplished? Always by establishing derivatives. You know, like they did for real estate.
The whole scam is a part of the war for dominance between financial capitalists and energy capitalists.
Enlightened, educated and well-intentioned folk are the useful idiots of speculative, financial capital oligarchy on this one - just as the backward
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.
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:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Regardless of the reasons for pulling out of the protocol (which I don't suspect too much, as even the Canadian Conservatives are somewhat more enviro-friendly than the US Democrats) it was the best thing to do. Kyoto is a relic that needs to be replaced.
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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.
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yea, and it's not that those coutries aren't in an economic strangehold by some large corporations and international institutions ...
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If you want the US to make reparations payments for our global hegemony, just call it that, and stop pretending that you're doing it for other reasons, then.
I hate fucking bullshit like this.
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be more accurate to measure output per capita rather than per country? From a rough estimate that puts the US and Canada neck and neck at about 2.5x the per capita output of China.
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Except that a good portion of Canada's output is actually fossil fuel production which, by any sane measure, should be counted against the country that burns the oil, not the one that produces it.
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Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is easy to promise that later presidents or governments will do something, then do nothing except watch the divide between the emissions and the emissions target grow larger every day. What mythical president is it that will slash emissions by 20% + whatever increase there has been between 2005 and whatever year the reductions will start? If we can't start now, what makes anyone think we can start later, when the costs will be even greater?
Note that China has not even promised to reduce its total emissions. As long as its GDP is growing by double digits every year, reducing the intensity of the emissions even with 80% won't reduce their total emissions by 2020.
And meanwhile the scientists are debating whether we are passing the threshold of catastrophic changes the next few years, or if we already have passed it.
We are so screwed.
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It is easy to promise that later presidents or governments will do something, then do nothing
We are so screwed.
Notice how it's the EXACT same thing going on with our financial problems. Kicking the can down the road is easy til the can ends up filled with lead.
We are so screwed.
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"Envirowack" - person who suggests that the curernt scientific consensus may be correct.
Sigh.
"Reduce the Intensity" (Score:4, Informative)
"China announced that it will reduce the intensity of its carbon dioxide emissions..."
Please be aware that the term "intensity" refers to the increase of the rate of production i.e. the acceleration. It's not putting the brakes on.. not even coasting... just lifting your foot a bit off the accelerator. I hope the U.S. numbers are indeed about reducing emission rates.
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Informative)
They're not. They're carbon trading with India, among other places. So while developing and third world nations are trading worthless cash for a carbon cap they will NEVER hit this Century unless by some freak accident the country catches fire, the US, China and other industrialised nations carry on as normal and PRETEND that they have reduced their carbon output. No, all they've done is buy an offset to top off their own cap which they're hitting so hard it's bruising.
It's all one big con, a huge lie and a fucking ripoff, and the losers in this are you and I.
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You're missing the obvious, if they are buying carbon credits, they're actually paying for the release of at least some of their pollution which is an improvement over paying for none of it. Why? Simple economics, anything a company has to pay for, it will look for ways to reduce what they're paying. That means once there's a cost for carbon emissions they will actually have a financial reason to reduce them. It's not a guarantee that they will be reduced, but it's a step in the right direction.
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Informative)
>>And that part of the reason Canada is pulling out is that the world's biggest CO2 outputting nations (US and China) weren't reducing their output?
Are you aware that the only countries that significantly reduced their output... didn't? That it was only a statistical artifact from the badly-chosen start date of 1990? And that 1990 was deliberately chosen because it would give these fake savings to the UK, Germany, and Eastern Europe?
The UK "reduced" its emissions by choosing 1990 as a start date, which was right before they switched from coal to NG as a way of fighting the coal miners' unions.
Germany "reduced" its emissions by absorbing Eastern Germany. Eastern Germany reduced its emissions via the mechanism below.
Eastern Europe "reduced" its emissions by having the USSR implode, which subsequently killed its industry and thus CO2 emissions.
Australia also liked a 1990 start date, due to unusually high emissions during that year.
Read Liverman's discussion of the process here: http://www.environment.arizona.edu/files/env/profiles/liverman/liverman-2009-jhg.pdf [arizona.edu]
She makes a very good point that the date was set so that business could continue as usual, with certain countries winning "free" carbon reductions via a shady political process. Well worth the read.
Re:We could learn a thing or two.... (Score:5, Informative)
The UK switched from coal to NG? That's news to me.
At this exact moment in time, UK electricity generation is:
Coal: 21.42 GW
CCGT 12.23 GW
Nuclear 7.29 GW
Wind 2.9 GW
It's not a switch from coal, rather increased capacity via CCGT. Coal still produces the lion's share of electricity.
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No, they pulled out because they finally realized the whole thing was full of completely unrealistic expectations that they can not afford to implement.
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So I figure if you can't beat 'em, obsolete 'em.
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Yes, but it would be nice if it didn't happen soon (Score:3)
I don't know about you but I'd rather the earth has its next climate burp in a few thousand years, not in this century thanks to our emissions. Citing natural climate cyles in a vague handwaving style is currently fashionable amongst the Ostriches , as if because something happens naturally that means its excluded from happening due to human intervention. I guess in that case because beavers build dams then there's no way we could have done the same. Or because tree's fall down on their own in a forest then
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Either you replied to the wrong post or you forgot to post AC this time. Whoops.
Sorry if you can't handle criticism but I guess you'll just have to suck it up.
"Jesus fucking H Christ... Sometimes I understand mass murderers..."
Now you're making no sense at all.
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How frickin dumb are you?
If it's caused by human emissions of CO2, then it would seem that stopping the emissions before it gets too bad would indeed be stopping it. Not stopping pumping CO2 into the atmosphere would be making it worse.
So, it doesn't matter whether we're the cause or simply incidental, you're an idiot either way.
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They would never do that, because then they stop getting cheap stuff.
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Why? Do scientists and others need a chance to party in exotic locations on the general public's dime?
It's not like scientists and others can even SIGN a legally binding Treaty (unless they also happen to be the appropriate politician).
Much less make it legally binding....
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