Time to ditch Kyoto, experts urge

[Canuck E Stan]

Time to ditch Kyoto

Echoing sentiments long associated with politicians such as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President George Bush, the report says it is time to ditch the Kyoto Protocol because the United Nations treaty has "failed."

Not only has the decade-old treaty not delivered cuts in global emissions of greenhouse gases which continue to soar, but it is the wrong tool for the job, say Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and Steve Rayner at Oxford. Their commentary has top billing in the influential British science journal this week.

They say the focus should be emission reduction by the biggest emitters -- less than 20 of the 194 countries in the world are responsible for about 80 per cent of the world's emissions. China and the U.S. lead the top-20 list, which also includes Japan, India, Russia, Canada, the U.K. and several Europeans countries.

They also say carbon taxes and so-called cap-and-trade systems, which can target emissions reductions for countries and industries, cannot stimulate the level of action required. They "cannot deliver the escape velocity required to get investment in technological innovation into orbit, in time," they say.

What is needed is a massive increase in spending on clean-energy technologies, say Prins and Rayner, who want energy research and development placed on "wartime footing."

It's time for Kyoto to roll over and die, and all the wishful thinking by Dion and the left to bring it back to life will never happen.

Harper's on the right track with the environment and the Canadian people know that Kyoto is finished, and it's time to move on.

[jdobbin]

It's time for Kyoto to roll over and die, and all the wishful thinking by Dion and the left to bring it back to life will never happen.

Harper's on the right track with the environment and the Canadian people know that Kyoto is finished, and it's time to move on.

The authors also say that the world should be on a war footing and spend like crazy on c;ean energy techniques.

What is needed is a massive increase in spending on clean-energy technologies, say Prins and Rayner, who want energy research and development placed on "wartime footing."

"It seems reasonable to expect the world's leading economies and emitters to devote as much money to this challenge as they currently spend on military research -- in the case of the United States about $80 billion a year."

An equal amount should go toward global adaptation efforts, they say.

So, are the Tories going to spend billions a year in Canada on clean energy?

[Canuck E Stan]

The authors also say that the world should be on a war footing and spend like crazy on c;ean energy techniques.

So, are the Tories going to spend billions a year in Canada on clean energy?

Is Dion? Is anybody else in the world? These authors say this is the best way,and I'm sure money will be spent by the Tories for this purpose.

Instead of putting the pooper scooper behind the dead dog and waiting for something to happen as Dion is doing,the Tories know that Kyoto really is a dead dog and pulling it around by the lease won't make it come back to life.

Time to bury it,give up on dogs, and get a cat.

[jdobbin]

Is Dion? Is anybody else in the world? These authors say this is the best way,and I'm sure money will be spent by the Tories for this purpose.

Instead of putting the pooper scooper behind the dead dog and waiting for something to happen as Dion is doing,the Tories know that Kyoto really is a dead dog and pulling it around by the lease won't make it come back to life.

Time to bury it,give up on dogs, and get a cat.

And do nothing. I don't know that you can take the "ditch Kyoto" argument from this article and not the "spend billions" part out of it.

I'll wait to hear about the billions you talk about that the Tories intend to spend. So far I haven't heard a thing. Their website only had a few small lines on the environment in the last election. Who knows what their policy is now?

[geoffrey]

The authors also say that the world should be on a war footing and spend like crazy on c;ean energy techniques.

So, are the Tories going to spend billions a year in Canada on clean energy?

Why waste our time with government's acting, especially the Federal one?

Alberta has the incentives in place for industry to step up and develop wind and alternative energy on it's own. The real beauty of deregulation... it allows consumers to demand environmentally friendly energy (you can pay for wind specific energy if you choose to here).

The Chin Coulee project is a big investment from private business, namely Enbridge and Suncor:

http://www.enbridge.ca/investor/pdf/2006_0...huteopening.pdf

Calgary's mass transit light rail system is completely powered by wind. It won the city an award for the greenest city in North America, right in oil country.

I think market incentives, in Alberta, have proven to provide green energy technology without costly government intervention. Paying the true cost of electricity is step one in paving the way for truly sustainable green power.

(The big reason why we lost the lead in wind is because of transmission issues in the SW of the province, where wind potential is high... now that the cap is removed for wind generation, many projects are being announced seemingly weekly).

The government doesn't have to spend a dollar on clean energy if proper systems are in place, including full scale energy deregulation... which is of course, a provincial matter.

Other provinces have governments investing billions in wind farms, here private business does it. Why? How can we get the rest of Canada on board?

Edited October 25, 2007 by geoffrey

[jdobbin]

Why waste our time with government's acting, especially the Federal one?

Alberta has the incentives in place for industry to step up and develop wind and alternative energy on it's own. The real beauty of deregulation... it allows consumers to demand environmentally friendly energy (you can pay for wind specific energy if you choose to here).

The Chin Coulee project is a big investment from private business, namely Enbridge and Suncor:

http://www.enbridge.ca/investor/pdf/2006_0...huteopening.pdf

Provinces are setting tougher standards and putting more money into clean energy compared to the federal gooverment. However, I don't think the feds can wash their hands of it.

As for the Chin Coulee project, it gets a fair share of money from the Feds from the Wind Power Initiative set up by the previous Liberal government. It isn't all private.

[Pliny]

Provinces are setting tougher standards and putting more money into clean energy compared to the federal gooverment. However, I don't think the feds can wash their hands of it.

As for the Chin Coulee project, it gets a fair share of money from the Feds from the Wind Power Initiative set up by the previous Liberal government. It isn't all private.

Geoffrey is right if enough capital is left in the market and the demand shifts the market will meet it. If a government gets its revenues from a tax the only way change will occur is if they tax it until disappears - and things that are taxed too heavily do tend to disappear. The reason why alternatives have not replaced fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine as yet is because governments demand replaces market demand even though their only demand is for revenues and how to extract them from the economy. Kyoto is a prime example - it would accomplish nothing for the environment.

I wonder if Dion will change his dog's name?

[Topaz]

I think at the next premiers meeting with the PM they shall tell him if HE won't doing anything, the provinces who do what needs to be done!! Of course, it will be hard for Alberta is do anything with the pollution out there from the oil sands and Saskatchewan and British Columbia being on both sides of that province. Harper has been against anything that harms the oil industry all his life and nothing is going to change that unless maybe if his family has no connection to it.

[fellowtraveller]

Calgary's mass transit light rail system is completely powered by wind. It won the city an award for the greenest city in North America, right in oil country.

Has Calgary gotten out of the 70s yet with recycling and waste management in general?

[Borg]

Has Calgary gotten out of the 70s yet with recycling and waste management in general?

Actually they are doing quite well - and certainly better than Ottawa - our nations capital.

Then again Carp Mountain is certain to become a tourist attraction someday.

Borg

[geoffrey]

Has Calgary gotten out of the 70s yet with recycling and waste management in general?

I thought climate change was the #1 priority?

Nope, Calgary is still terrible with recycling. Then again, I've seen many studies showing that recycling has a negative effect on the environment... essientially the energy required to recycle damages more than just throwing things out.

[kengs333]

Time to ditch Kyoto

It's time for Kyoto to roll over and die, and all the wishful thinking by Dion and the left to bring it back to life will never happen.

Harper's on the right track with the environment and the Canadian people know that Kyoto is finished, and it's time to move on.

Just how exactly is Harper on the "right track with the environment"? Nothing that he ever said prior to his becoming PM suggested that he had any concern for the environment, that he thought climate change was a legitimate issue. Only when he realized after becoming PM that his remaining PM could be in jeapordy over the issue, did he start with all this smoke and mirrors business with the environment. It's sad when Canada has a PM that follows the lead of the Americans when it comes to the environment; we have much more to be concerned about, much more to lose.

Maybe in the end it's a good thing, though; the less action that is taken to save the environment means that water levels in the Great Lakes will continue to decline, drought will become more serious in the Prairies, milder winters will allow for invasive beetles to survive in the boreal forests and destroy large tracts of timber, artic ice will continue to melt raising coastal water levels, among other things that eventually erode the basis for our western civilization, which will thankfully go down the tubes.

[noahbody]

Maybe in the end it's a good thing, though; the less action that is taken to save the environment means that water levels in the Great Lakes will continue to decline

I saw a story on this on the CBC news. They first interviewed someone who blamed the 'unexplainable' lowering of Lake Superior on global warming, like you. It was doom and gloom as usual. Later though, they brought on someone who could explain the unexplainable. The lowering is a result of erosion of the river flowing out of Lake Huron.

drought will become more serious in the Prairies

It's been less of a problem in recent years. Is this trend going to reverse itself?

[fellowtraveller]

I thought climate change was the #1 priority?

Nope, Calgary is still terrible with recycling. Then again, I've seen many studies showing that recycling has a negative effect on the environment... essientially the energy required to recycle damages more than just throwing things out.

Of course, that ignores the obvious benefit of large scale, household recycling schemes: creating an awareness in every household.

Edmonton, on the other hand, has an impressive waste management plan and an equally impressive facility at Clover Bar. They get visitors from all over the world, except Calgary apparently.

[Canuck E Stan]

Getting Over Kyoto

The notion that the Liberals might have brought down the Conservative government because it declared Canada's Kyoto Protocol targets unreachable would be funny if it weren't infuriating. The Kyoto treaty was the flawed means to a worthwhile end, not the end itself.

May Kyoto and it's advocates get over it's death.

[jdobbin]

May Kyoto and it's advocates get over it's death.

It seems some of the critics in these forums want Kyoto killed in favour of doing nothing. That is not what the two links you have posted have indicated. The first link indicated that billions and billions need to be spent to clean up emissions and the second link pointed out that Bush is going after big emitters.

For critics of global warming, this can't be what they want either.

[Michael Bluth]

Just how exactly is Harper on the "right track with the environment"? Nothing that he ever said prior to his becoming PM suggested that he had any concern for the environment, that he thought climate change was a legitimate issue. Only when he realized after becoming PM that his remaining PM could be in jeapordy over the issue, did he start with all this smoke and mirrors business with the environment. It's sad when Canada has a PM that follows the lead of the Americans when it comes to the environment; we have much more to be concerned about, much more to lose.

Could you explain the smoke and mirrors a little more?

It's obvious you are angry, but dismissing the PMs efforts so flippantly really does diminish from the quality of your argument.

[old_bold&cold]

Kyoto was flawed from it very inception, by the fact that a country could buy credits and do nothing to solve its emmissions. The very first thing that we need to do in any plan to reduce emissions, is allow people from neighbouring countries to sue the large emitters from the source countries, and have minimum awards to be in the millions. This would then stop the factories in the west of one country, to just pollute freely as the winds blow it all over the second country. This would all have to be worked out in the world court and set the rules for this.

That would mean that each country can be held responsible for its own emmissions even if they blow away from their own populations. Smoke stack emissions are an easily doable solution and not really all that costly, but until there are methods that will make it so it is a financial positive for that company, they just do not do them.

Places like India where most of the rural population still cook over wood fires, will always have large polluting emissions. But we can see the reduction of a lot of this with propane or other type of methods for cooking. The burning of forests to reclaim land from the jungles, is still going on in most third world countries. This should also be solved by foreign aid to show them better ways and methods. But the need for land to feed the masses is always going to be a big issue, even if we can show ways to double crops in any given acreage.

If we are ever going to have a true Global emissions strategy that will work, it will have to be one where the wold court can be the overseer and the final say in what the damages are. That way it government will have to make sure its own companies and utilities, follow the wiser more emissions friendly ways. Each government can point to the world court as saying non conformation will have huge monetary affects, and use that to force compliance on each and every emitter.

Kyoto never had the will of all the people, and it would be next to impossible to get that agreement by all. If the world court is given this power, then even those who do not recognise the court would soon find that they must folow this or life alone in the world can be even more costly. What is needed is a all encompassing power to independly look at all the data and then make decisions and penalties. That way it would be easier for all governments to get the people to go along with it. If they are any other enities that would do this better then the world court, I would be glad to hear about them.

[Moxie]

Great post old

Instead of focusing on Global Warming should we not be looking for ways to reduce pollution, my priorities are the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we poison. IT's not to late to undo the damage our greed has done. If that means going after big industries like lumber and oil that's fine with me. They'll scream and shout and threaten to leave but our Country is to important to poison for short term financial gain.

[godzilla]

gald to hear that everyone agrees that _something_ needs to be done...

now we just need to vote with that desire and see _actual_ reductions in carbon emissions as the _only_ proof that government is doing something.

i'd like anyone to point out that i'm wrong, but the current recent feds have done nothing. its either the liberals who said that we were meeting kyoto but did nothing to actually attempt to meet it or the conservatives who say they will do nothing till 2050! i don't expect anything better from any other party until people start voting representatives out of office because they haven't met the desires of their constituents.