Canada Pulls Out of the Kyoto Protocol

[Smellincoffee]

I think their southern neighbors have been a bad influence. Canada needs a better peer group.

 

[GoodGame]

Without being able to count on the US and China, this was never anything other than wishful thinking and insignificant symbolism.

+1 This.


China says pooh anyway: http://www.voanews.com/english/news...rotocol-Withdrawal-Regrettable-135497323.html

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin expressed China's dismay at the news that Canada had pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol.

If AGW is real, the biggest losers are probably the island nations.

 

[warpus]

I admit we wouldn't be doing ourselves any favors by following through. Nor do I think the cost is all that high (are we talking $2000 in lost growth, or $2000 in fines?). But nonetheless, our collective names are on the treaty, and we have a responsibility to try. It's just good faith.

If we can't even do that, we deserve what we get. It'll teach us to make an effort to follow through in the future.

It's $500 per Canadian in fines.

I agree that it isn't teaching young Canadians anything good or worthwhile, but I don't mind this being done in the name of the Canadian economy.

IYou crazy son? Perhaps you don't know what a western winter is like, but I for one could use an extra 2 degrees

Oh, I know what it's like, I spent a week in Winnipeg once.. In January. I'm never going back there again

The thing with climate change though is that you can't just expect things to slowly get warmer until it's nice and toasty.. It's going to be far more chaotic than that and likely lead to colder winters as well.

 

[Yeekim]

Downright shameful, but hardly surprising.

 

[sysyphus]

One more sign that this country has gone to the dogs.

Look out Britain, Cameron is going to do to you what Harper has done to us.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

*Shrugs* Might as well. The provinces that were going to make honest efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, are doing so anyway, and the provinces that wouldn't, still won't, and we never even tried to enforce it anyway.

Here's to hoping Quebec at least can meet its 2012 objective (6% below 1990 emissions level by 2012), even if it won't mean much compared to even the RoC, let alone China and the USA does.

(Granted, all those hydro plants are kind of helping)

@Quebec

I think the asbestos embarrassment is evidence of how Quebec would behave if it had tar sands and no hydro. By the way, how is the shale gas exploration coming?

Quebec has nothing to be proud of compared to the rest of Canada. Your physical development has been just as much of a sprawled mess as the rest of Canada. Ontario has at least attempted to promote better development with it's green belt and growth nodes, while Quebec is just as littered with power centres, giant shopping malls, and low density subdivisions as anywhere else. Quebec City, for example, is a much worse offender than Calgary in terms of the last 40 years of build-out. Montreal is dense because it was old, but that is an inheritance, not recent action. Look at the south and north shores.

Why am I talking about urban development? Because it's a great indicator of how seriously things are taken. It is easy to inherit huge rivers, but hard to make a conscious effort at containing inefficient growth. But, congratulations on stealing Labrador's power and being next to James Bay. Good work.

@Europeans
Looking at the Germans/Austrians/French/Netherlands torpedo the world economy with their idiocy, why should we cooperate with the world? You are killing one of the few international organizations that could take serious action on climate change because you have sticks up your butts about inflation and government spending. It will be almost impossible to get people to really care about the environment if you don't first sort out the economic shortfall. That's just politics. Don't lecture Canadians about lacking international cooperation.

I personally think the tar sands are a mistake for Canada as we are specializing in a long-term dead-end. But criticism by Americans of tar sands is kinda like them spraying pesticides all over Colombian coca farms. It's U.S. demand driving the whole thing, so sort yourselves out. Attack demand, not supply. Build better cities for the next 50-80 million Americans and you will do much more good than you will stopping the tar sands. The average loud-mouth, hippie-punching, apartment-dwelling New Yorker from the 70s was easier on the environment than the modern do-gooder-celebrity-tar-sands-protestor living in a mansion and owning electric cars.

 

[Ayatollah So]

The pay-it-later cost will be bigger because of a series disasters at a later date that won't subside by taking action at that point. The beauty of that for politicians is that the worst consequence will probably not happen for a long time, giving them the appearance of doing the right thing.

About sums it up.

It doesn't morally matter if other groups are doing the right thing or the wrong thing when it comes to mitigating externalities. And North America cannot poo-pooh the developing countries, either.

I'm going to take the rare opportunity to disagree with El Mac. It does matter what others are doing, because you can use your own cooperation as a carrot to bribe others into doing the right thing. But you can't do so if you're giving the carrot away for free. Unilateral disarmament is usually not a solution to collective action problems.

Not that Harper et. al. are actually trying to get a more fair deal. This is just a favor for special interest buddies. Situation normal...

One more sign that this country has gone to the dogs.

Make like a dog catcher and put them in their place.

 

[History_Buff]

It's $500 per Canadian in fines.

I agree that it isn't teaching young Canadians anything good or worthwhile, but I don't mind this being done in the name of the Canadian economy.

Seems pretty reasonable. I stand by us paying it.

Huh? This winter hasn't been bad at all, so far. Just crappy snow removal efforts, but that happens every year.

I'm being sarcastic. This winter has actually been shocking temperate thus far. I could go for a few extra degrees in the day time to help the snow melt a bit, but I'll take what I can get.

And like you, I don't function well above the mid 20s.

I am pretty irritated by this. Especially the refusal to pay the penalties. Externalities in economics are well understood, and Harper is supposed to understand economics. It doesn't morally matter if other groups are doing the right thing or the wrong thing when it comes to mitigating externalities. And North America cannot poo-pooh the developing countries, either.

Harper is far more conservative that he tries to let on. He's more akin to the christian conservative community in the States. Even belongs to a fundamentalist church to boot.

He once endorsed Kyoto as 'a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations'. Wasn't even when he was young and free either, this was 2007.

Most of his positions on the topic seem to mimic those taken by 'Friends of Science', who are a think-tank that try and convince people that the science is still out on climate change.

 

[Evie]

Quebec has nothing to be proud of compared to the rest of Canada. Your physical development has been just as much of a sprawled mess as the rest of Canada. Ontario has at least attempted to promote better development with it's green belt and growth nodes, while Quebec is just as littered with power centres, giant shopping malls, and low density subdivisions as anywhere else. Quebec City, for example, is a much worse offender than Calgary in terms of the last 40 years of build-out. Montreal is dense because it was old, but that is an inheritance, not recent action. Look at the south and north shores.

Huge river or no huge river, Quebec has managed a significant drop in its CO2 emissions. Not just keeping them low, but actually lowering them further. That would seem to indicate an effort (that few others have managed).

The shale gas are in a standstill because while the government want their money, the political doability (read: popular support) to it is ridiculously bad. IIRC both a green belt and a massive slowdown on urban sprawl have been forced on the south and (especially) north shore just recently, though they were admittedly very slow in coming.

As for stealing labrador's hydro: a legal contract (ruled such) is a legal contract, not theft. You want to build a dam that produces way more power than you can use from the dam's position, you sell its power. If you want to sell its power, you sell it to someone in a position to purchase it. If it never occured to NF that that would pretty much mean "To Quebec" or "Through Quebec" and "Quebec will be able to dictate terms because they need the power less than we need to sell it", that's not theft, that's a bad economic decision. (On the flip side, I consider it fair for NF to attempt and get federal help in building ways to sell power without Quebec's involvement).

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Huge river or no huge river, Quebec has managed a significant drop in its CO2 emissions. Not just keeping them low, but actually lowering them further. That would seem to indicate an effort (that few others have managed).

Stagnant population growth makes things easier. Quebec is one of the most gifted places on Earth in terms of electricity. Alberta has almost nothing local except for fossil fuels and wind, which has only recently been available for practical investment.

The shale gas are in a standstill because while the government want their money, the political doability (read: popular support) to it is ridiculously bad.

Good for the people of Quebec... I like people from Quebec. Now tell it's government to stop lecturing other provinces.

IIRC both a green belt and a massive slowdown on urban sprawl have been forced on the south and (especially) north shore just recently, though they were admittedly very slow in coming. ).

Alberta had effective growth boundaries for decades UNTIL the early 90s because we had much better regional governnace than the rest of Canada (until Klein dismantled it). That's why those random tiny acreages and exurbs you see all over the GTA and Montreal area have only recently popped up here. Not to make the point that Alberta is so great, but merely that Eastern Canada has been a development nightmare on par or worse than the west for the last 40 years. If a greater proportion of Alberta is suburbs, it's simply because population growth has been weighted towards the last 40 years. But when we did go to sprawl, it tended to be much more orderly.

If you have begun to curb that just recently, good, but it obviously has nothing to do with drops in C02, and the people of Quebec have sacrificed virtually nothing as of yet for climate change. Ontario, and McGuinty in particular deserves 100 times the credit of Quebec for having the courage to act on sprawl and energy supply.

As for stealing labrador's hydro: a legal contract (ruled such) is a legal contract, not theft. You want to build a dam that produces way more power than you can use from the dam's position, you sell its power. If you want to sell its power, you sell it to someone in a position to purchase it. If it never occured to NF that that would pretty much mean "To Quebec" or "Through Quebec" and "Quebec will be able to dictate terms because they need the power less than we need to sell it", that's not theft, that's a bad economic decision. (On the flip side, I consider it fair for NF to attempt and get federal help in building ways to sell power without Quebec's involvement).

I was just trying to be difficult there.

The only differences between Alberta and Quebec are the oilsands and population growth. That's it. The people of Quebec haven't lifted a finger to slow climate change in terms of their lifestyle or personal investments. All the government action was taken before anyone cared about climate change because hydro was easy and cheap. It wasn't because they were worried about GHG. Beyond that, Quebec benefits from the general improvement in auto-emmissions technology the same as the rest of the world. Quebec doesn't build any cars (except Obama's bus), so it deserves little praise.

Most emmission growth in the west is from the oil and gas sector and more specifically the tar sands. That development is export-oriented. The money from those exports flows east as well. Quebec can pay for it's it's social programs and (meagre) transit expansions with tar sands revenue, which of course it is effectively doing. Canada as a whole is getting an immediate financial-injection from the oil exports to the U.S., which is the real laggard on change.

Now, you could make the argument that the East has to take tar sands money partially because the oil exports make manufacturing exports less competitive. You'd be right, and that is why I say specializing in that industry might be a mistake for Canada. Canada should change strategy, but Quebec deserves little praise.

 

[Evie]

To be fair, I wasn't going for praise in the first place. I was merely expressing a hope Quebec at least would manage to lower its emissions compared to the Kyoto reference years, while admitting that Quebec did have an easier time of it thanks to the hydro plant.

Ontario's sacrifices I knew little about (despite living in Ottawa since september 2010), but the mroe provinces fighting against GHG, the better, and if Ontario has been making efforts, great for Ontario. Anyone who's trying to get results deserves noted.

(PS while this doesn't really change the point - Alberta, Ontario and BC have experienced much faster growth, Quebec's population is not really stagnating, at least not compared to any province except the above three, all of which are growing more slowly, actually stuck with the needle in the -1 to 1% per decade change rate, or actively losing people (NF))

----

And yes, it often comes down to effective local and regional governance. Which is probably why Quebec (a nightmare of local and regional governance) saw little green belting and regional ecological plans, with local mayors wanting nothing to do with restricting local development, and the provincial authorities afraid to get in those political battles, especially after the fiasco of trying to create a single city out of Montreal.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Quebec's achievement is not very meaningful since much of the Canadian money that helps support Quebec comes from the tar sands and other western resources. I don't think you can really disassociate the Canadian provinces and say one is doing well and another isn't. They serve different functions in the same economy and are inseparable in that respect. Tar sands provide a strong local economic benefit for Albertans through good jobs and royalties. However, it is also a Canada-wide "cash crop" due to our fiscal, monetary, and labour market union.

Canada also serves a particular function in the wider North American economy and Americans, if they want to criticize tar sands have to first ask how aggressive they have been in their want to stop "dirty oil" but you still burn conventional oil? you use up oil that the Chinese could have used. Now the Chinese have to demand oil from elsewhere. You drive demand for unconventional sources worldwide. You can't disassociate these parts of the unified continental and global economies.

As for Quebec's population growth, yes it hasn't been flat, but compared to Alberta, it can be considered stagnant. We have growth by a third in just about 15-20 years. Quebec would be pushing 9.5 million if that were the case there. And it's non-export-industry emmissions would have gone way up. But yes, Quebec does grow. That's why rest of Canada is wrong in thinking Quebec is over-represented in parliament. It's correctly represented as it's grown at the Canadian average for decades. It's the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan and Manitoba that have been stagnant over a 40 year timeframe.

So what I've established is you can't pick apart the Canadian emmissions by province meaningfully. But what is true is that there was no Canada-wide referendum to determine what Canada should specialize in. Alberta made a unilateral decision to develop the tar sands to a massive extent. The rest of Canada was pulled along for the ride. Now that is wrong and it represents a flaw in our political system. But that's a slightly different issue. It doesn't change the fact that Quebec's control over emmissions growth isn't meaningful. I also think Quebec would have developed the tar sands in a heartbeat if it had the world's largest reserves. Could you imagine the positive impetus for sovereignty?

 

[warpus]

Seems pretty reasonable. I stand by us paying it.

I could afford that, but a lot of families wouldn't.. not in these tough economic times.

 

[Pangur Bán]

The tragedy of the commons strikes again. To every Canadian supporting this, I hope you feel comfortable uttering these words to your grandchildren:

"Little one, hope you know I've decided to feck over your future to buy Ipods more often and go to more restaurants. The fat ogre next door is doing it too, so it's ok".

You'll be vilified by your descendents and rightly so, not just Stephen Harper but every Canadian (though I know this is a source of embarassment to many Canadians).

 

[Evie]

DH - fair enough.

Pangur Ban - and what, praytell, will they say of the rest of the world? How many countries, exactly, are even close to meeting their obligations under Kyoto? How many countries even made a honest effort to meet them?

Our descendants won't throw the stones at Canada alone. Our descendants will throw the stone at all humanity, all of which refused to work, each for this or that reason. Some because they needed the coal to drag them out of proverty, some to maintain their lifestyle, some because no other energy was available.

That Canada has officially stated it wouldn't respect its signature on a piece of paper is not the death knell of Kyoto. It's a diversion from the lack of political will (against the tyranny of economics) that killed Kyoto years ago. And in that regard, Canada is no more culpable than many, and less culpable than quite a few.

 

[Pangur Bán]

DH - fair enough.

Pangur Ban - and what, praytell, will they say of the rest of the world? How many countries, exactly, are even close to meeting their obligations under Kyoto? How many countries even made a honest effort to meet them?

Our descendants won't throw the stones at Canada alone. Our descendants will throw the stone at all humanity, all of which refused to work, each for this or that reason. Some because they needed the coal to drag them out of proverty, some to maintain their lifestyle, some because no other energy was available.

That Canada has officially stated it wouldn't respect its signature on a piece of paper is not the death knell of Kyoto. It's a diversion from the lack of political will (against the tyranny of economics) that killed Kyoto years ago. And in that regard, Canada is no more culpable than many, and less culpable than quite a few.

Noble! So when they're screwed the Canadian victim generation can take comfort in the fact that the grandparents of people in other countries helped screw them too.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

This is pretty much exactly what I expected from Harper. I'm deeply disappointed and embarassed by this setback. Well, we'll do what we can to keep trying to reduce our emissions, and build up political will for a second try at doing the right thing.

 

[Evie]

Noble! So when they're screwed the Canadian victim generation can take comfort in the fact that the grandparents of people in other countries helped screw them too.

I'm going to do what I can, continue doing what I can, and vote to get a better government when I can. Which is nothing new for me: it's been known for years that this government wouldn't do anything for the kyoto protocol, and I voted against it at every turn.

But I'm not going to lose sleep over a piece of paper. I already lost enough when they were elected and promply undid what little had been done for the environment, which was an actual meaningful gesture that deserved being fought against.

This, on the other hand, is an utterly trivial, meaningless gesture that changes absolutely nothing to absolutely anything else, except for giving some people an occasion to sneer at Canada from the countries they think (wrongly) are so very better.

 

[Pangur Bán]

This, on the other hand, is an utterly trivial, meaningless gesture that changes absolutely nothing to absolutely anything else, except for giving some people an occasion to sneer at Canada from the countries they think (wrongly) are so very better.

Well it's not a meaningless gesture. Ignoring the fact that Canada itself is a polluter, Canada is admired around the world and its actions and stances are those of a role-model, especially to opposition factions in the closely-related United States.

 

[Evie]

Canada has been blocking any attempt at improving the environment situation, and widely denounced by just about every environmentalist organisation (rightly so) for the past half-decade.

I don't know how we could possibly have a good reputation for environment, let alone be a role-model, at this point.