Kyoto was a farce

[jbg]

Kyoto, Copenhagen and their progeny were/are income redistribution schemes dressed up as environmental reform. Basically it was a world-wide system of taxation allowing groups of wealthy people to tax the productive class. Certain wealthy people always feel they know how to spend other people's money better than the people themselves.

It had very little to do with the environment. Just look at the selection of base years. 1990 was picked since it was an economic peak for Europe as the Iron Curtain fell and shut down large swaths of Communist-era industry. It was a valley for the U.S., Canada and other new economy countries. Exceptions to 1990 allowed mid-1980's years to be used by Eastern European counties who peaked in emissions before their Communist systems imploded.

And oh, I almost forgot, Iceland's aluminum smelter was an exception to Kyoto.

The exceptions show what it's true design was; taxing (the thankfully non-participant) U.S. Canada's decision to join was unfortunate, and now reversed.

[Evening Star]

I'm all for global wealth redistribution, actually, but, yes, I agree that 1990 might not have been a fair base year to use.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Evening Star

[GostHacked]

The Kyoto accord is over 20 years old and needs replacing or abandoning altogether. Canada with others at the conference in Durban the past week are moving to another method/group of reducing emissions. The Kyoto Accord was useless in reducing carbon emissions because it treated India and China as emerging markets, allowing them to be exempt from most of the rules in the accord. I guess if they hindered China we would not have all this wonderful cheap stuff that we are not willing to produce in Canada because of our environmental laws.

Listening to the CBC on the way in, the environment minister says that the money pumped into Kyoto does not benefit Canada and does not stay IN Canada. It's a waste of time and money.

[Wild Bill]

I've made this suggestion a couple of times before but it's obvious few or none have followed it.

If you're going to take a stand on the Kyoto Accord, FIRST READ THE DAMN THING!

Do what I did years ago. Google it, download it, print it out and READ it! Don't just scan over it!

It is as obvious as the sun rising in the east! It totally lets the planet's biggest polluters off the hook, like China and India. I'm talking bigger by hundreds if not thousands of times!

It IS just an income re-distribution scheme! The environment is hardly mentioned, except for the usual vague mom and apple pie stuff. It only gets serious with taking money from the west and giving it to the third world.

So don't just wrap yourself in the green flag as some kind of symbol that you are a wonderful person who cares about saving the planet for our kids! Maybe you are, but the folks that put together Kyoto aren't.

It's a scam and a flimflam job, pure and simple and it seems to have sucked in a good many of you!

READ IT!

[Hydraboss]

You may be on to something. Tell me more about sonar energy and sonar farms.

This kind of technolgy would be amazing! Think...for those of us on the prairies to not only be able to power our homes, but to be able to find advancing submarine fleets would help greatly in our fight against...uhm...who are we fighting?

And to be able to install a country-wide commercial flight trtacking network...awesome.

[waldo]

It had very little to do with the environment. Just look at the selection of base years. 1990 was picked since it was an economic peak for Europe as the Iron Curtain fell and shut down large swaths of Communist-era industry. It was a valley for the U.S., Canada and other new economy countries.

ah yes, the appease Russia meme... one trotted out quite regularly in past MLW threads... in fact, you've been one of those... trotters! Clearly you don't accept when you've refuted - once more with vinegar! Let's briefly recap your past related posts - then I'll follow-up with the references you can't be bothered to accept/acknowledge:

The problem with Kyoto is the "base year". The selection of 1990 for a treaty penned in 1997 was no accident. Most European economies had declined or were at best flat between 1990 and 1997 whereas the U.S. and Canada had come out of a recession and were vigorously expanding during that period. Add to it the fact tha the collapse of the Soviet Union and unification of Germany cratered the newly joined Germany's output levels.

why do you persist in spreading your purposeful disinformation?

... that 1990 base year reference associates to benchmark 1990 emission levels accepted by member parties of UNFCCC... effectively, the values of "global warming potential" calculated for the IPCC SAR Report (as used to convert various GHG emissions into comparable CO2 equivalents).

As I said, within the Kyoto Protocol, the 1990 base reference was used... was selected... in relation to the "global warming potentials (GWPs)" developed within the SAR report.

Kyoto Protocol:

The benchmark 1990 emission levels accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3) were the values of "global warming potential" calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report. These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable CO2 equivalents (CO2-eq) when computing overall sources and sinks.

UN REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES ON ITS THIRD SESSION, HELD AT KYOTO FROM 1 TO 11 DECEMBER 1997

Reaffirms that global warming potentials used by Parties should be those provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Second Assessment Report (1995 IPCC GWP values) based on the effects of the greenhouse gases over a 100-year time horizon

IPCC Second Assessment Report: Climate Change 1995 (SAR)

2.5 Trace Gas Radiative Forcing Indices - Table 2.8: Net GWPs per unit mass emission for halocarbons including indirect effects for time horizons from 1990

Exceptions to 1990 allowed mid-1980's years to be used by Eastern European counties who peaked in emissions before their Communist systems imploded.

previously dealt with; once again:

Basically yes. The Global Warming acolytes do this with abandon in allowing favorable Kyoto base years other than 1990; in some cases as early as 1984 or 1986, so that countries who can be bribed into supporting the treaty get their peak economic years to work with.

As for your specific slag, it's baseless, as the handful of countries that were excepted to the 1990 base year within the Kyoto Protocol, were done so based on their economies being 'in transition' (the so-called "EIT" countries)... the one's I'm aware of, the only countries granted exception to the 1990 base year, that I'm aware of, were Bulgaria (1988), Hungary (1985-8), Poland (1988) and Romania (1989).

[jbg]

As for your specific slag, it's baseless, as the handful of countries that were excepted to the 1990 base year within the Kyoto Protocol, were done so based on their economies being 'in transition' (the so-called "EIT" countries)... the one's I'm aware of, the only countries granted exception to the 1990 base year, that I'm aware of, were Bulgaria (1988), Hungary (1985-8), Poland (1988) and Romania (1989). Wow! You reached deep to support your blustering over, as you say, "Global Warming acolytes". Yeesh!

previously dealt with; once again:

Still not fair or objective. It still gives just about every country the advantage of using a peak emissions year against which to measure, except the U.S. and Canada. You haven't refuted that.

Why should an EIT get the benefit of picking and choosing a base year and not the U.S.?

[ironstone]

Kyoto itself was not a farce.

Canada's 'committment' to Kyoto was the farce, an embarassment on an international stage.

It's quite disturbing how much contempt Harper and his ministers display for the rest of the world. Obviously the only human beings who matter to them are the Alberta oil barons.

What a pathetic excuse for human beings they all are.

Could you describe,in detail,exactly what progress Chretien made in reducing emissions after signing Kyoto?

Could you explain what sense Kyoto made when it excluded countries like China and India?Can you find Al Gore's signature on the Kyoto accord?

[waldo]

Still not fair or objective. It still gives just about every country the advantage of using a peak emissions year against which to measure, except the U.S. and Canada. You haven't refuted that.

how are you singling out the U.S. & Canada? How is 1990 any different/unique for, oh... say... Australia, or Austria, or Denmark, or the EU, or Finland, or France, or Germany, or Japan, or Spain, or... etc., etc., etc.

Why should an EIT get the benefit of picking and choosing a base year and not the U.S.?

again, EIT - so-called "Economy in Transition"... undergoing the process of transition to a market economy. Again, as I'm aware, per my last post, only 4 countries were accorded the exception; specifically, Bulgaria (1988), Hungary (1985-8), Poland (1988) and Romania (1989). By... what... a year or two! You're reaching, clearly.

[waldo]

Could you explain what sense Kyoto made when it excluded countries like China and India?

try reading a few of the prior posts, hey? The initial Kyoto targets reflected upon those countries most responsible for the past accumulated emissions; in 1997 and years after, neither China or India had the level of emissions they now do. There was/is a reason they were labelled so-called 'developing nations'.

Can you find Al Gore's signature on the Kyoto accord?

typically, only the uninformed throw out unrelated references to Al Gore. If you're asking who signed Kyoto for the U.S., I believe that was their chief negotiator, Stuart Eizenstat (note distinction between signed and ratified).

[ironstone]

try reading a few of the prior posts, hey? The initial Kyoto targets reflected upon those countries most responsible for the past accumulated emissions; in 1997 and years after, neither China or India had the level of emissions they now do. There was/is a reason they were labelled so-called 'developing nations'.

typically, only the uninformed throw out unrelated references to Al Gore. If you're asking who signed Kyoto for the U.S., I believe that was their chief negotiator, Stuart Eizenstat (note distinction between signed and ratified).

So in 1997,neither China and India had the emissions they do now?So their emissions are rapidly climbing?Now I get it,Chinese(world's largest emitter) emissions are just peachy but not emissions from Canada.

Didn't the Kyoto accord allow us buy emission credits from developing countries if we couldn't reach our reduction targets?How would that reduce emissions?

Only the uninformed would sign and ratify such an idiotic accord.

[waldo]

So in 1997,neither China and India had the emissions they do now?So their emissions are rapidly climbing?Now I get it,Chinese(world's largest emitter) emissions are just peachy but not emissions from Canada.

the focus is no longer to provide exceptions to any country; notwithstanding China's own significant (voluntary) initiatives, at the recent Durban conference, China has offered suggestion it would be open to considerations of legally binding targets within the replacement 2015 agreement. You're just another guy with a bead on China... an uninformed bead on China. Like I recently said to MLW member PIK, perhaps you should extend your raised concerns to also include the United States, as the U.S. is most certainly currently doing less than China to reduce it's emission levels.

Didn't the Kyoto accord allow us buy emission credits from developing countries if we couldn't reach our reduction targets? How would that reduce emissions?

whether the right mechanism or not, "emission trading" is a recognized market based approach. In any case, you have it flipped and attributed incorrectly; that is to say, under the guise of incentives, developed industrialized countries (Annex 1 nations) that emitted less than their emissions quota, could sell 'assigned amount units' to nations that exceeded their quotas...

[Evening Star]

how are you singling out the U.S. & Canada? How is 1990 any different/unique for, oh... say... Australia, or Austria, or Denmark, or the EU, or Finland, or France, or Germany, or Japan, or Spain, or... etc., etc., etc.

Were those other countries experiencing the same recession that the US and Canada experienced in 1990?

[Tilter]

Kyoto was a farce

and still is

Canada produces somewhere about 2% of the world's CO2 0.2% of which is produced in the Alberta Tar sands, (for which the world shits on us for being a polluter).

The American entertainment community bitches endlessly about all the pollution caused by our petro industry, drive about 32 miles per week in their "clean" hybrid cars while the rest of the time drive Humvees, live in 12,000 Sq Ft homes using more energy than the average Saskatchewan town and have no problem filling up at service stations mainly supplied with gasoline by despotic Arab countries and the very same gas produced by distilling crude from the tar sands. Shut up Al Gore--- watch your own pollution for a while.

[waldo]

uhhh... let's finally put to rest further beaking off about China emissions and the initial Kyoto exemption... as follows, a most significant graphic showing the overall historical cumulative emission amounts, China versus U.S. - clearly, China's earlier developing nation status is plainly evident within the graphic display. Equally, the graphic provides a historical accounting of the world's country with the single-most responsibility for the accelerated increase in atmospheric CO2 levels... the United States.

... that's what my drawing attention to the

historical total emissions graphic

was all about...

[waldo]

Were those other countries experiencing the same recession that the US and Canada experienced in 1990?

"in 1990"? That's an interesting wrinkle I've not encountered before... to imply the Kyoto Protocol might have been 'jiggered' to pointedly impact the U.S. and Canada timed with the "90's recession". Notwithstanding I've provided the clear foundation for why 1990 was chosen as the base year reference, the "90's recession" trigger event, by definition, was the 87 crash with a shortly followed sharp recession. Trying to align that with the single year "1990" is a rather incredulous stretch, made even more so when recognizing that the accompanying recession was not localized, that there were global impacts (notably in Europe and Japan)... that other countries like those within the U.K., like Australia, were 'hit' as hard as Canada. Quite a stretch, indeed.

[TimG]

Notwithstanding I've provided the clear foundation for why 1990 was chosen as the base year reference

You love to spin but, as usual, you are blowing smoke.

1990 was choosen as the base year because it was politically acceptable to European countries. The fact that it happened to line up with the SRS is quite irrelevant. If a different year would have been better they would have choosen that year - just like the various eastern european countries were free to pick the year that allowed them to minimize their effort. You are truely naive if you believe the year was not choosen because it was politically advantageous.

In the end it is all a meaningless game that accomplishes nothing other than to line the pockets of carbon traders and corrupt UN officials.

Edited December 15, 2011 by TimG

[waldo]

You love to spin but, as usual, you are blowing smoke.

1990 was choosen as the base year because it was politically acceptable to European countries. The fact that it happened to line up with the SRS is quite irrelevant.

no spin presented; none required... per usual you can't provide anything to support your claim... other than your own purposeful disinformation. Quite obviously its been another masterful job of TimG conspiracy... clearly, after all this time, with all the countries and personnel engaged through Kyoto progressions and successive COP conferences, no one has "spilled the beans" on your claim concerning the 1990 base year reference decision. Go figure!

I've presented multiple citations supporting my statements/position... you, uhhh... not so much, hey?

As I said, within the Kyoto Protocol, the 1990 base reference was used... was selected... in relation to the "global warming potentials (GWPs)" developed within the SAR report.

Kyoto Protocol: The benchmark 1990 emission levels accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3) were the values of "global warming potential" calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report. These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable CO2 equivalents (CO2-eq) when computing overall sources and sinks.

UN REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES ON ITS THIRD SESSION, HELD AT KYOTO FROM 1 TO 11 DECEMBER 1997

Reaffirms that global warming potentials used by Parties should be those provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Second Assessment Report (1995 IPCC GWP values) based on the effects of the greenhouse gases over a 100-year time horizon

IPCC Second Assessment Report: Climate Change 1995 (SAR)

2.5 Trace Gas Radiative Forcing Indices - Table 2.8: Net GWPs per unit mass emission for halocarbons including indirect effects for time horizons from 1990

[Evening Star]

I wasn't suggesting that it was done deliberately, or even that it was necessarily unfair. I was just actually curious whether 1990 was a recession year for the other signatories as well, since I didn't know.

"in 1990"? That's an interesting wrinkle I've not encountered before... to imply the Kyoto Protocol might have been 'jiggered' to pointedly impact the U.S. and Canada timed with the "90's recession". Notwithstanding I've provided the clear foundation for why 1990 was chosen as the base year reference, the "90's recession" trigger event, by definition, was the 87 crash with a shortly followed sharp recession. Trying to align that with the single year "1990" is a rather incredulous stretch, made even more so when recognizing that the accompanying recession was not localized, that there were global impacts (notably in Europe and Japan)... that other countries like those within the U.K., like Australia, were 'hit' as hard as Canada. Quite a stretch, indeed.

[waldo]

I wasn't suggesting that it was done deliberately, or even that it was necessarily unfair. I was just actually curious whether 1990 was a recession year for the other signatories as well, since I didn't know.

then I was clearly off-base... given the constant numbing drumbeat of the nattering false skeptics, I erred by including you in that logjam and assuming on the rationale behind your statement.

[Evening Star]

I'm not a sceptic about AGW itself.

[TimG]

no spin presented; none required... per usual you can't provide anything to support your claim... other than your own purposeful disinformation.

What have offered? A bunch of IPCC quotes which reveal absolutely nothing about the politics that went into the treaty making. In other words, you have nothing but your own naive assumption that politics had nothing to do with the choice of date.

The fact is if 1990 did not give Europeans an advantage they would have picked another date. This is common sense since the treaty needed to have a core group of countries that felt they could meet the targets. Of course, you do not understand common sense. You insist on constructing implausible narratives designed to prop up your alarmist mythology.

[waldo]

What have offered? A bunch of IPCC quotes which reveal absolutely nothing about the politics that went into the treaty making. In other words, you have nothing but your own naive assumption that politics had nothing to do with the choice of date.

no - I verbalized the decision and cited the actual UNFCCC Kyoto document that precisely detailed the decision... one that drew directly upon the physical science reference I further cited (IPCC SAR); i.e., the actual IPCC graphic that itself was internally cited to a, 'Daniel et al, 1995' paper - here:

in this case, there was a need to arrive at CO2 equivalents - a scientific source was required to act as the standard bearer. Science... not politics. Perhaps you could advise an alternate source... one that might better fit your politicized bent and conspiracy leanings, hey?

[Martin Chriton]

Good decision to drop out.

I'm glad they actually talked about the options, e.g.: <1> pay $14 billion and meet Kytoto or <2> drop out and save 14,000,000,000.

It would be good the gov. actually published job savings over what the Liberal's signed us up for, e.g.: 14 billion is saving XXX,000 jobs.

Good contrast to green party leader crying that we didn't lay all those folks off.

[olp1fan]

every time May opens her mouth she pollutes the air

Edited December 15, 2011 by olp1fan