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Stock Ideas Top Headlines Kyoto Protocol What is Happening
Stock Ideas Top Headlines Kyoto Protocol What is Happening 
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| Classical economics and common sense tell us this is no recipe for prosperity. But wait...Mr. Michael R. Sesit reports in the International Herald Tribune that there’s more to the story. | |
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| Kyoto Protocol What is Happening |
| Wednesday, 03 October 2007 | ||||||||
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Having boxed Canada’s opposition parties into a choice between supporting his coming throne speech and forcing an election that will almost surely end with another minority Conservative government... Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to have turned his skills as a political operator to the world stage and the debate over climate change. Harper jumped into the coal mine for his US counterpart last week, singing of a new consensus on “flexible” targets as the best means to address global warming. He did so at a meeting called by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the purpose of building momentum toward an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol. The next major forum to discuss international climate action is in Bali in December at the annual meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Kyoto Protocol members.The Canadian prime minister said the global community needs to balance environmental protection with economic growth. Harper said there’s an “emerging consensus” on the need for a rethink on how to respond. He referred to recent meetings of the leading industrialized and Asia-Pacific countries, where talk on climate control steered clear of setting binding targets. “We are building on the dynamic created by the G-8 and APEC summits to promote international cooperation in the fight against global warming,” he told the UN summit.Harper will attend the next meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership, an agreement among Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and US that allows each country to set its own goals and has no enforcement mechanism. Harper followed his inside-the-Kyoto-tent act during a question-and-answer session after a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations: “If you go for hard caps as the only kinds of target (to limit global emissions), by definition the only countries that will sign on are countries that have no population growth and fairly limited economic growth. That’s what happened with Kyoto.”
President Bush acknowledged last week that climate change is real and that human activity is a factor. He said the US supports the UN process for an international climate agreement but argued that a long-term, nonbinding global goal should be set by the end of 2008 and finalized at a summit he would host. Bush has rejected Kyoto because he said it would harm the US economy and didn’t require emissions cuts by China and India. The bottom line of the Bush approach is that each nation establishes for itself what methods it will use to rein in the pollution problem without stunting economic growth. That precludes mandatory obligations. New technologies and voluntary measures are the essential elements.The US hasn’t enacted legislation to enforce Kyoto because the agreement establishes emissions reduction requirements for developed nations only; and developing emitters--led by China and India--don’t want climate sensitive restrictions to impede their economic growth. Canada’s House of Commons and Senate passed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act in June. It gave the government 60 days to come up with a plan for Canada to meet its target, a 6 percent cut in emissions below 1990 levels by 2012. But the minority government’s plan, rolled out Aug. 21, wouldn’t hit the Kyoto target until 2025. Trying to achieve the cuts by 2012 would be disastrous for Canada’s economy, Environment Minister John Baird said. Because of Canada's resource-based economy, growing population and “vast northern geography,” attempting to follow the Kyoto timetable would cut Canada’s gross domestic product by more than 6.5 percent, reduce personal incomes, lead to higher unemployment and energy prices, and kick the economy into a deep recession, the August plan states.Britain, Germany, France and most of the rest of Europe favor mandatory targets. And Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian reported that even China and India acknowledged that the voluntary approach wouldn’t work and favored binding measures. The Asian tigers still disagree with the Europeans, however, on how mandatory rules would be implemented. Bush hopes to establish a new framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and will use the Asia-Pacific Partnership to pursue his vision. Source : Maple Leaf Memo This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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