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Canada First Nation to Pull Out of Kyoto Protocol
Canada on Monday became the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, dealing a symbolic blow to the already troubled global treaty.
Canada is the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to the United States and is keen to boost output of crude from Alberta's tar sands, which requires large amounts of energy to extract. "Our government is abdicating its international responsibilities. It's like where the kid in school who knows he's going to fail the class, so he drops it before that happens," said Megan Leslie of the opposition New Democrats. (Photo: Stephen Leahy) Environment Minister Peter Kent broke the news on his return from talks in Durban, where countries agreed to extend Kyoto for five years and hammer out a new deal forcing all big polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Canada, a major energy producer which critics complain is becoming a climate renegade, has long complained Kyoto is unworkable precisely because it excludes so many significant emitters.
"As we've said, Kyoto for Canada is in the past ... We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto," Kent told reporters.
The right-of-center Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which has close ties to the energy sector, says Canada would be subject to penalties equivalent to C$14 billion ($13.6 billion) under the terms of the treaty for not cutting emissions by the required amount by 2012.
"To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car truck, all-terrain vehicle, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle off every kind of Canadian road," said Kent.
Environmentalists quickly blasted Kent for his comments.
"It's a national disgrace. Prime Minister Harper just spat in the faces of people around the world for whom climate change is increasingly a life and death issue," said Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada.
Kent did not give details on when Ottawa would pull out of a treaty he said could not work. Canada kept quiet during the Durban talks so as not to be a distraction, he added.
"The writing on the wall for Kyoto has been recognized by even those countries which are engaging in a second commitment," he said. Kyoto's first phase was due to expire at the end of 2012 but has now been extended until 2017.
Kent said Canada would work toward a new global deal obliging all major nations to cut output of greenhouse gases China and India are not bound by Kyoto's current targets.
The Conservatives took power in 2006 and quickly made clear they would not stick to Canada's Kyoto commitments on the grounds it would cripple the economy and the energy sector.
The announcement will do little to help Canada's international reputation. Green groups awarded the country their Fossil of the Year award for its performance in Durban.
"Our government is abdicating its international responsibilities. It's like where the kid in school who knows he's going to fail the class, so he drops it before that happens," said Megan Leslie of the opposition New Democrats.
Canada is the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to the United States and is keen to boost output of crude from Alberta's oil sands, which requires large amounts of energy to extract.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said all major emitters had to agree to cuts so that Canada did not put itself at a disadvantage.
Canada's former Liberal government signed up to Kyoto, which dictated a cut in emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. By 2009 emissions were 17 percent above the 1990 levels, in part because of the expanding tar sands development.
Kent said the Liberals should not have signed up to a treaty they had no intention of respecting.
The Conservatives say emissions should fall by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, a target that CAPP president David Collyer said would oblige the energy sector to make sacrifices.
"It's a stretch and we'd be kidding ourselves if we said it wasn't," he told Reuters.
($1 = 1.03 Canadian dollars)
(Additional reporting by Louise Egan in Ottawa and Jeffrey Jones in Calgary; editing by Christopher Wilson)
73 Comments so far
Show AllThat makes Canada and the US out of Kyoto and Russia and Japan stating that they were not interested in a follow-on treaty last year. (that may have changed...)
This climate conference has done nothing and I predict that the next one won't either.
When Stephen Harper won his recent majority government, he swore up and down that he would not use it to ram a right-wing Corporatist agenda down the throats of Canadians.
And everyone who had an ounce of common sense knew he was lying his ass off.
This is just documentary proof.
This decision, driven by short sighted Corporate profit motives, is beyond a disgrace, beyond a travesty. This action, prodded no doubt by the very large Corporate backers of the Conservatives and in no small part by US reticence to have a conscience over having an inhabitable planet, opens the doors for the rest of the Corporate dominated nations to abandon their Kyoto commitments and any measure of GHG pollution/emission control in favor of Corporate profits.
And just to add insult to injury, Canadians have no redress to this insult for another four (or five, if Harper delays calling an election) years because of the majority. We can't even call a non-confidence vote.
Bastard. This was calculated from the start.
I no longer consider myself a Canadian citizen, but rather a human being living under a Corporate Occupation government, that has openly declared war on myself, my family and my home. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to fight back, by fair means or foul, doing whatever it takes to ensure my children have a livable planet.
Galen, Canada is not just a political entity.
It is also a geography, a collection of peoples.
It is mostly an idea - how can you turn your back on Canada?
Of what Canada do you speak?
Manysummits - a Canadian
=========
'Canada' executed Loius Riel.
'Canada' allowed the atrocities of the Residential Schools that committed cultural genocide on the native populations who lived here historically.
'Canada' betrayed Sitting Bull to the Americans when he had sworn to live peaceably within it's border.
'Canada' has been politically blinded by Corporate greed since Deifenbaker.
'Canada' exterminated the Beothuk people of Newfoundland.
'Canada' attempted to cover up the murder of an innocent by it's 'peacekeeping' forces in Somalia.
'Canada' willingly participated in the violation of the UN Charter that forbids wars of aggression when it aided and abetted the US in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently, Libya. In doing so we have committed war crimes.
'Canada' has bent over forwards to allow the rape of it's sovereign lands and airspace to accommodate the raging paranoia of the US.
'Canada' is cheerfully participating in the commercial overfishing of the oceans, depleting species down to as little as ten percent of many predatory fish populations that humans value as food stocks.
'Canada' has allowed the US to decide who goes on travel watchlists, violating the UN charter that recognizes the free passage to and from nations.
'Canada' has promoted the extraction of the dirtiest petroleum product on the planet, the incredibly resource intense Tarsands 'oil'.
'Canada' has allowed it's economy to be dictated by US interests. For generations. To the US, 'Canada' is nothing more than a source of cheap raw materials to run their insatiable economy.
'Canada' provides the bulk of uranium to be used in US nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
'Canada' may be a large geographical area, composed of a variety of native and immigrant peoples, but I would have to say our actions and history, especially our recent history are less than nothing to be proud of.
Oh, and the whole 'turning you back on an idea' thing? The 'Flat Earth' theory was an 'idea'. Nazi Eugenics was an 'idea'. The 'Kyoto Accords' was an 'idea'. And every single one of them has been abandoned.
I always thought of Canada as one of the "good guys" of the Western Nations. I've visited many times over the past few decades. Its incredibly beautiful. It gave refuge to many who fled the MIC during the Vietnam war. Now its clear its just another bitch for Washington & Wall Street.
Hell, why not just take down the border crossings, tack another star on the flag and be done with it?
"Hell, why not just take down the border crossings, tack another star on the flag and be done with it?"
And you don't think that hasn't been Little Stevie's plan all along?
Actually 13 new stars - 13 big new states.
Y'all are arguing over the various colonies of the empire of "The City", and I don't mean wallstreet (which is just another outpost/fortress of the city's english-speaking empire. Oh yeah, the french-speaking portion became a franchise operation of the city's empire after napoleon, & the city's empire was always a joint-operation with amsterdam's, after the 1690's, BOTH being offshoots of venice operations; leftovers of the romans...a truely global empire).
Yeah. I do. Call what's going on right now with Canada and Mexico "The Big Merge". No doubt the plan goes way, way back. Stevie is just another grunt for America's 1%.
Truly sad. Canada was a beacon of light and freedom for so many.
We already have essentially.
The parallels between the USA and Canada are obvious: conservatives mean what they say and act on those principles. The erstwhile left says little and means it not at all. When conservatives get power, things happen. When the left gets power, nothing. That's why we on the left hate those that pretend to represent us in government. The pressure is building and an explosion is not far off.
One of the profound evolutions in my own thoughts during my last four or five years as an environmental blogger has been the realization, more fully, of the inherent defects in representative governments.
John Gofman alerted me to this in his 1979 book "IRREVY", ("An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power"), where he acquainted me with Lysander Spooner's "An Essay on the Trial by Jury" (1858). Later, I found Spooner had become, later in life, perhaps the first constitutional lawyer in history to become an individual anarchist, and his views on this and natural justice are powerfully made in "A Treatise on Natural Law, Natural Justice, and Natural Society; Showing That All Legislation Whatsoever is an Absurdity, a Usurpation, and a Crime."
There's no quick and easy way out of this, the legacy of hierarchical civilizations.
Learn the condition of your craft before ejecting.
Manysummits
========
Harper only has a majority government because the liberals/NDP and/or Bloc won't form a coalition. Where is the law that prevents coalition governments in Canada?
It's the one jingling in your pockets.
The Corporations play 'musical donations' to keep the parties divided, working against the interest of the populace.
Really well stated - as per usual from 'Galen...'. Tnx.
We're ready too. We've been petitioning forever about the pipeline tar sands and just learned what was going on in Canada. Looks like the noose is tightening and they're still talking about that school boy attention getting Romney's $10,000 bet. Can you believe?
Again, Naomi Klein's "Capitalism vs. the Climate" springs to mind.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate
----------------------
Herman Daly, environmental economist, speaks of 'dialectical' thinking, as distinct from analytical thinking, in his Foreword to "What Matters?", by Wendell Berry, a collection of essays from the man himself.
Climate and capitalism overlap, like the land and the sea.
They interact, affecting each other.
If capitalism advances along the business as usual line, the climate will be overwhelmed.
Are we more dependent, in the long run, upon capitalism or the climate?
Manysummits
========
Just canceled plans to visit. Hope people of Our World Occupy the Canadian Embassies.
Come and see us - ski out to Skoki Lodge by Lake Louise - this is Canada too.
Visit the T'Suu Tina and their casino five minutes from where I live -this is Canada also.
Come and see me - I am a Canadian, like Stephen Harper - well, sort of like Stephen Harper.
Manysummits
=========
Yes, come and visit Vancouver's notorious Down Town East Side, Canada's capital of destitution.
Come and visit Fort MacMurray, where the cancer rate is 1600% higher than the national average.
Come visit the national disgrace of the Tarsands mining operation, which irrevocably contaminates 100 barrels of water for every barrel of synthetic bituminous by-product produced.
Come to BC and visit our open ocean Atlantic salmon fish farms, which contaminate the sea bed with uneaten fish food pellets, contribute to a sea lice problem that devastates the ecology, and leads to seals and sea lions being killed illegally to protect fish farm profits.
Come and visit our northern Canadian First Nation's reserves, where people live in shacks and tents year 'round, with no running water or sanitation. Come and see the Inuit children huffing gas fumes to dull the pain of watching their culture be murdered by Capitalist Consumerism.
Come to Canada, and visit the Monsanto Genetically Modified Organism test fields, protected by the Canadian Government.
Come to Canada and talk to Weibo Ludwig, framed by the RCMP for 'terrorist acts' and sent to prison for standing up to the oil companies and protecting his farm and family.
Come and visit West Edmonton Mall, built by a corrupt family whose patriarch commits pedophilia in the mall access hallways.
Come to Ottawa to watch political prostitutes at work, selling 'Canada' off a piece at a time to their Corporate masters.
Come to Canada and meet tens of thousands of people just like you, slaving away at part-time jobs with no benefits, because that's all there is in this shitty Corporate economy.
Yikes!
Thanks for THAT info! I never knew.
I love Vancouver. Great city.
Effective, convincing presentation.
Though not exactly Canadian Tourism Commission...
Huh. Didn't see one word about NAFTA in this. Under the terms of NAFTA I beleive Canada would get sued by the United States for economic losses by a three judge NAFTA court. In the end it would be liable for not supplying tar sands oil to the USA. So much for national sovereignty. Kyoto is not part of NAFTA. Trade and financial deals trump environmental treaty.Until we get rid of corporations this is what we will see more of. Everything subservient to the corporate predators while the earth dies.
The only way we're going to reduce our carbon footprint is by finding an energy source that doesn't involve combustion. By the time the fuel runs out it will have been far too late as we'll be fighting huge wars over that last tank of gas. (unless the predicted outcomes of Global Warming are far more severe that the most alarmist of people believe)
Harper hasn't killed anyone by doing this, he's only pointing out that we're fucked no matter what we do. (gah, bastages! Making me say something nearly nice about the f-wits who are screwing this nation over)
Nikola TESLA ... he had electricity for everyone for free, easily captured from the atmosphere itself. But where did the plans go upon his lonesome death in 1943 after the state visited his almost barren hotel room and pilfered the papers from his personal safe?
"The Conservatives took power in 2006 and quickly made clear they would not stick to Canada's Kyoto commitments on the grounds it would cripple the economy and the energy sector."
Most on the right are fueled by greed and cynicism but many in the political middle actually participate in the elite's economy via good-intentioned but illogical rationalizations, so to pick more off from the political middle for movement to the left, we may target their rationalizations.
First there is the idea of the crippled economy. It's largely an emotional affect the elites create in people to herd them in different directions. But economies are by/for the people, they are what the people make of them. It is one of the great crimes against humanity for elites to contradict this basic fact.
But it's been a familiar lie of kapitalism, like the lies of royalty in other times/places. If you suspect we're talking about elites sucking the people's energy like parasites, or whacking the people's rights/opportunities with a bayonet, those are accurate suspicions. Nothing says elites can manage an economy better than the people. They simply take, or steal, the economy from the people, dumb the people down with inadequate school curricula, and then lie about how the people can't do it without elites.
In fact the people are far better able to recognize the most effective means of supplementing human energy. It's well-known in Germany that all of Europe's energy needs may be met utilizing solar-thermal power plants on less than 1% of its land area. The only crime stopping Europe is fossil/nuke geo-politics. If you think that 1% of land area is significant, consider that the USA allocates over 40% of its land area to meat/dairy production. On a continent with an over-population of wild deer!
The lunacy on that continent is endless. Oh - wild venison doesn't taste right! Hilarious! The audacity of Merka is mind-boggling! The kids learn from an early age to defy reason. That we need fossil fuels because well umm sorta kinda heard from someone that there ain't no alternatives, umm duh. Such ignorance exhibited by one person at one time is tragic. But it's perhaps the worst crime against humanity for petro-fried elites to create such a culture of utmost ignorance, affecting hundreds of millions of people, generation after generation.
Canada, like Mexico, is jammed up against the USA by the gravity of human greed. In the past Canada did a decent job of keeping detached. Mexico less so. None of these three states have any decent long-haul public transport. They just can't bear the thought of cutting energy consumption by a factor or four while making travel one of the most exciting, pleasant experiences in a person's life. This is accomplished with high-speed rail. There is no better way to see the beautiful landscape. If you don't know this, try taking a train sometime. And please note that the elites will not suggest that, but suggest other things, instead.
Why don't you investigate what's behind the elites' favorite suggestions? Why would they want to get you somewhere fast (jet) instead of enjoyably (rail)? Maybe they want you to travel more miles? Maybe they want you to consume more fuel? At the expense of your enjoyment. And your peace of mind. Maybe you can tell them to stuff their jets where the sun doesn't shine? And their fossil fuel too? And all the rest of their defunct ideas? I guess the elites of Merka have reached ideational "bankruptcy"! I don't think those chimps can last another year.
"None of these three states have any decent long-haul public transport. They just can't bear the thought of cutting energy consumption by a factor or four while making travel one of the most exciting, pleasant experiences in a person's life. This is accomplished with high-speed rail. There is no better way to see the beautiful landscape. If you don't know this, try taking a train sometime. And please note that the elites will not suggest that, but suggest other things, instead."
A-f*cking men. Add light rail as well. Driving (especially commuting) a car is a waste of time and resources. Imagine all that spent on something worthwhile.
You can only imagine what type of society we'd have if we'd went with rail instead of highways. The interstate system was a Defense Department project. Another lie (like our wars and trillions spent on weaponry) in order to "protect us", all the while it was for the benefit of commerce, the 1%, and expansion of the empire.
This discussion has a western bias. Toronto has a good system of mass transit (fares are high though) - and also (along with the rest of Ontario) 100 percent carbon-free electricity, thanks to their hydropower and nuclear generating capacity. Their CANDU reactors use unenriched uranium and can even use abundant thorium.
A lot of this is nullified by the suburban sprawl around the city, though. There were also plans for offshore wind in Lake Ontario, but the plans were nixed by the rich suburbanites who didn't want their view from their bluff-top homes spoiled.
But Toronto's urban residents probably have a far small carbon footprint than most of those other placed mentioned by Galen or Michael. And what is supposed to be their poor neighborhood (Parkdale) would be considered well-off compared to the US rust belt city I live in.
And as far public transit - don't spurn the ordinary bus. Nothing to build, and a lot cheaper to run than streetcars or light rail.
"100 percent carbon-free electricity, thanks to their hydropower and nuclear generating capacity. Their CANDU reactors burn unenriched uranium and can even burn abundant Thorium."
Bullshit.
Building hydro dams requires massive expenditure of fossil fuels for construction and constant maintenance.
Nuclear reactors require as much or more, and the extraction and processing of the nightmarishly toxic and radioactive uranium and thorium requires even more. The CANDU reactor does not 'burn' either of those elements, it uses them like any other reactor to heat water into steam by radioactive decay. And a small Ontario town was just appointed, against the wishes of it population, a designated nuclear waste site.
Just like the rest of Canada, the majority of Ontario's electricity comes from natural gas and coal fired generating stations.
Canada has nothing to crow about on the environmental front. Nothing.
The fossil fuels use for dams (but the Niagara Falls facilities don't use much in the way of dams) or a nuclear plant is no greater than those used for wind turbines or solar panels - and some nasty chemicals are used for making solar panels. Unenriched uranium or thorium in solid elemental form is no more toxic than a piece of lead. The waste from nuclear power is quite hazardous, but tiny in volume. Here is the total spent fuel waste - in it's bulkiest but most secure form (dry casks) from 24 years of a reactor's operation:
http://www.maineyankee.com/images/upload/1-5-06isfsi1.jpg
I believe I am correct in that Ontario has no currently operating fossil-fuel generating stations.
>>> LOUD BUZZER <<<
Wrong answer, Hans.
Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Ontario
Look for the section on 'Fossil fuel' generating stations.
Not only are there operating fossil fuel generating stations in Ontario, they provide the lion's share of electricity in the Province.
Oops.
See what a little research can do?
As for the 'safety' of storing nuclear waste. Well, all I can say is... FUKU-FUCKING-SHIMA! You have to wait years for the nuclear material to cool enough to even start the dry-casking process, and then you have to find a suitably geologically inert area for eternal storage.
The USA did go rail and trolley it was purposely destroyed by auto industry.
The UN should consider trade sanctions against Canada. While Canada may technically have the legal right to withdraw, by their own admission, there was never any serious intent to follow Kyoto. While the US, for example, should receive similar treatment, since it is a member of the Security Counsel, this would be impractical- instead, nations should pursue other forms of bilateral sanctions against criminal emitters. It can easily be argued that Canada's irresponsible policies are as threatening to world peace and security, as Iran's nuclear weapons program- in fact much more so, since the later is unproven.
Please, boycott Canada. No travel, no trade.
Show Stephen Harper that there is a dire economic consequence to his short-sighted profit-driven motive for the abandonment of Kyoto.
In a perverse way, I find myself sympathetic to this decision by the Canadian government. They are correct to ask what good it is for them to submit to Kyoto's carbon emission limitations (which, by the way, are woefully inadequate to actually reverse global warming), when the world's biggest polluters (including its lawless neighbor to the south) have failed to even make the symbolic gesture of signing this global accord. The Protocol itself is fundamentally flawed since it simply calls for nations to return to 1990 emission levels (excluding emissions by international aviation and shipping), while these levels of emissions were already causing global warming. Returning to 1990 levels would not stop the process of climate change but simply slow down its acceleration (perhaps). Then of course the Protocol allows for "flexible mechanisms", such as carbon trading, which weaken it even further. How long has this charade been playing out and how long has the U.S. been actively undermining this modest effort to curb global warming? The Kyoto Protocol is nothing but a symbolic "confidence-building" gesture which has failed miserably due to the intransigence of corrupt capitalist countries such as the USA, ruled by greedy oligarchs. The withdrawal of Canada is simply further confirmation that the global political class cannot be trusted to do what is right and necessary for the survival of the human race. This is a global oligarchy that must be overthrown if the planet is to have a future.
"When the world's biggest polluters..."
Canada IS one of the worlds biuggest polluters! In per-capita emissions of carbon, it is jsut a bit behind the US, well ahead of Australia, and far ahead of any European country, not to mention China or India.
Yet China and India, which have bought into the whole Capitalist Consumerism meme, are now doing their best to build a 'standard of living' which only a handful of their population will ever achieve, are dragged out as the boogy-men for not complying to Kyoto.
At the same time, China and India are now performing the jobs and labor that Americans consider 'beneath' their privileged dignity.
Americans in the mean time, aspire to all become vapid, brainless celebrities who make 'money' by increasingly arcane and criminal economic swindles on a cyclopean international scale, without actually producing anything of intrinsic value.
This entire sick charade called 'civilization' is a nightmare best ended quickly.
Galen: "At the same time, China and India are now performing the jobs and labor that Americans consider 'beneath' their privileged dignity."
Whoa! The tens of millions of unemployed would disagree with that statement!
And the reason those people are unemployed is...?
If it wasn't for the insatiably hungry Corporations seeking ever higher profits, many of those jobs would still be in the US, as would the factories that employed them.
Up until the mid-seventies, labor was at a premium in the US, and employers offered pay and benefits accordingly. Once automation proved successful, those job requirements were decreased. And once the unregulated financial and service economy was in place under Reagan, all bets on holding a good-paying American job were off.
I think you missed my point. China as a nation may have overtaken the US as the biggest carbon emitter, but their per-capita emissions are less than a fifth of US or Canadian emissions. India's emissions are a hundredth of US per capita emissions.
We need regime change in Canada. Just not from America.
Wait, wait,,, don't be dismayed,, carefully read what they are saying.. This is actually very good news... Canada is going to set the standards for the entire worrld to follow..
Canada will ban all vehicle use in Canda by the year 2020... That will cut their Co2 emissions by a tremendous amount and the "tar sands" argument will be a moot issue, nothing to be concerned about.
Peter Kent said, (""To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car truck, all-terrain vehicle, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle off every kind of Canadian road,").
You see? They just don't want to do that yet, but they will do it by 2020 plus even much more to reduce Co2 emissions than just no more vehicles on the roads.
The Conservatives say emissions should fall by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, a target that CAPP president David Collyer said would oblige the energy sector to make sacrifices.
So there ya go... Cutting Co2 emissions by 17% of 2005 levels is a lot more than just cutting them by 6% of their 2009 level by 2012.. To meet that standard would require no more vehicle use in Canada, none, not even Ski-doos... They just want to wait untill 2020... Hey, so do all of the other richer nations want to wait until 2020... So we should all relax, calm down and wait until 2020 and everything will be alright.. Right?
The thing about all of this type of double talk yakking by world leaders that makes me feel much better is,, We can see that it isn't just the United States who have fools running the show, so we aren't all alone.
Ha-ha. - Now I'm relaxed and hopeful. :-) Tnx for explaining that. - For a moment there after reading the article I forgot to trust the authorities, my mistake (?)
To meet that standard would require no more vehicle use in Canada, none, not even Ski-doos.
POWERED by OIL and GAS, you mean. There are and have long been other solutions.
Well, it was either pulling out of the Kyoto protocol, or shelling out $13 billion to some third world dictators. The end result as far as the CO2 levels is the same, except that now Canada gets to keep 13 billion. I say good choice. The whole signing of the Kyoto protocol by the Chretien gov was just for show. They weren't planning to implement any changes anyway....
Go find a deep hole and pull that slime covered rock you crawled out from under back over yourself.
What, you have a problem with reality, Canada-hater? I bet you were one of those cheering China for its "CO2 cutting proposals".
You're accusing me of being blind to reality, you Corporate-worshipping troll?
Yep, you got it. Canada is responsible for less than 2% of total CO2 emissions. But i guess nobody wants to step on Chinese and US toes. As a Canadian you should be ashamed of yourself for the posts i have seen from you on this thread.