The Globe and Mail repeats GOP climate change spin.
Look, I don't totally disagree with the gist of this Globe and Mail editorial: Canadians are not by any stretch world leaders in sustainable greenhouse gas emissions. And we have a long way to go to meet the Kyoto targets. And liberals everywhere too often confuse claiming to care about global warming (Clinton himself is a pretty recent convert to the cause) with actually doing things about it -- things that involve pissing off the primary, utility and manufacturing industries whose lobbies fund campaigns and whose workers vote.
This, however, is spin:
The Kyoto Protocol, which formally went into effect last February, requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2012. Canada's emissions are now 24 per cent above the 1990 levels and, although they dipped slightly at the start of the century, they have since inched steadily upward. In contrast, in the scofflaw United States, emissions are up by only 13 per cent since 1990. And as Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, patiently told the delegates, U.S. emissions actually fell by nearly 1 per cent between 2002 [sic; they mean 2000. Emissions rose between 2002 and 2003 according to the numbers I found] and 2003 while the economy grew by $1.2-trillion (U.S.) and the population expanded by 8.6 million. What is wrong with this picture?
But as Elizabeth Colbert writes in The New Yorker this week:
In Montreal, the Administration’s chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, has been touting the efficacy of the voluntary approach, pointing out that between 2000 and 2003 the United States’ carbon-dioxide emissions dropped by .8 per cent. Conveniently left out is the fact that since 2003 they have shot back up again. According to the latest government figures, the country’s CO2 emissions are now three per cent higher than they were three years ago. (The brief dip, it should be noted, had nothing to do with government policy; it was entirely a function of the downturn in the economy.)
It was also partially a result of increased industrial outsourcing, according to a recent Financial Times analysis. Also, Canada's recession was much lighter than the US recession (for the first time in history). To the extent the economy stumbled, it was mainly via, and limited to, the non-emitting info-tech sector. This explains our smaller dip in emissions during the early '00s.
And, anyway, there is a good reason, beyond electioneering, for all the political bloveating about our responsibilities to mother earth. Bloveating, selling attention to climate change for votes, is what keeps the issue in the news, makes it worth pissing off those polluting industries for. Colbert explains:
Kyoto is, and has always been understood as, a first step, and a baby step at that. As President Bush likes to point out, the protocol imposes no restrictions on countries like China and India, whose emissions are growing rapidly. (China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest carbon emitter sometime around 2025.) Kyoto, moreover, is a temporary measure; it lapses in 2012, at which point it will need to be replaced by something much more ambitious. The protocol took almost three years to negotiate and seven years to ratify; at that rate, work on its successor should have begun back in 2002. Many countries are pressing for post-Kyoto talks to commence immediately. In characteristic fashion, the Bush Administration is refusing to participate.
The Bushies may have dumped Kyoto; and the Senate was never likely to ratify it anyway. But high-profile US participation in the 90s helped nurse the protocol into being in the first place. (Clinton gets that; it's why he's there in Montreal.) And it's needed to push the next step along too. So let the Prime Minister scold. The more points he scores with the scolding, the more likely the scolding is to turn into serious action -- like passing legislation allowing the government to regulate and fine industries that don't meet national greenhouse emission standards. Since the Conservatives forced the Liberals to back down on their toughest provision in order to pass the 2004 budget, Harper himself has flipflopped on Kyoto. The more bloveating, and the better the bloveating polls with the public, the more likely we are to see other such flipflops in the future, until opposition to dealing with global warming really is limited to only a few die-hard American Republicans.
Update: Via Kevin Drum, it appears that Clinton's appearance at the conference has driven the Bushies completely around the bend. Good. Who says Kyoto isn't good politics?
This, however, is spin:
The Kyoto Protocol, which formally went into effect last February, requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2012. Canada's emissions are now 24 per cent above the 1990 levels and, although they dipped slightly at the start of the century, they have since inched steadily upward. In contrast, in the scofflaw United States, emissions are up by only 13 per cent since 1990. And as Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, patiently told the delegates, U.S. emissions actually fell by nearly 1 per cent between 2002 [sic; they mean 2000. Emissions rose between 2002 and 2003 according to the numbers I found] and 2003 while the economy grew by $1.2-trillion (U.S.) and the population expanded by 8.6 million. What is wrong with this picture?
But as Elizabeth Colbert writes in The New Yorker this week:
In Montreal, the Administration’s chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, has been touting the efficacy of the voluntary approach, pointing out that between 2000 and 2003 the United States’ carbon-dioxide emissions dropped by .8 per cent. Conveniently left out is the fact that since 2003 they have shot back up again. According to the latest government figures, the country’s CO2 emissions are now three per cent higher than they were three years ago. (The brief dip, it should be noted, had nothing to do with government policy; it was entirely a function of the downturn in the economy.)
It was also partially a result of increased industrial outsourcing, according to a recent Financial Times analysis. Also, Canada's recession was much lighter than the US recession (for the first time in history). To the extent the economy stumbled, it was mainly via, and limited to, the non-emitting info-tech sector. This explains our smaller dip in emissions during the early '00s.
And, anyway, there is a good reason, beyond electioneering, for all the political bloveating about our responsibilities to mother earth. Bloveating, selling attention to climate change for votes, is what keeps the issue in the news, makes it worth pissing off those polluting industries for. Colbert explains:
Kyoto is, and has always been understood as, a first step, and a baby step at that. As President Bush likes to point out, the protocol imposes no restrictions on countries like China and India, whose emissions are growing rapidly. (China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest carbon emitter sometime around 2025.) Kyoto, moreover, is a temporary measure; it lapses in 2012, at which point it will need to be replaced by something much more ambitious. The protocol took almost three years to negotiate and seven years to ratify; at that rate, work on its successor should have begun back in 2002. Many countries are pressing for post-Kyoto talks to commence immediately. In characteristic fashion, the Bush Administration is refusing to participate.
The Bushies may have dumped Kyoto; and the Senate was never likely to ratify it anyway. But high-profile US participation in the 90s helped nurse the protocol into being in the first place. (Clinton gets that; it's why he's there in Montreal.) And it's needed to push the next step along too. So let the Prime Minister scold. The more points he scores with the scolding, the more likely the scolding is to turn into serious action -- like passing legislation allowing the government to regulate and fine industries that don't meet national greenhouse emission standards. Since the Conservatives forced the Liberals to back down on their toughest provision in order to pass the 2004 budget, Harper himself has flipflopped on Kyoto. The more bloveating, and the better the bloveating polls with the public, the more likely we are to see other such flipflops in the future, until opposition to dealing with global warming really is limited to only a few die-hard American Republicans.
Update: Via Kevin Drum, it appears that Clinton's appearance at the conference has driven the Bushies completely around the bend. Good. Who says Kyoto isn't good politics?
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