Slashdot Mirror
Canada First Nation To Pull Out of Kyoto Accord
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.'"
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The key is to learn to ADAPT to the changing climate, not try to exercise control we don't and can't have.
And that is exactly what is happening. Continuing to cut down forests and emit CO2 during a warming trend, would be failure to adapt.
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.
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.
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.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.