Countries agree on new roadmap for climate treaty

By macleans.ca - Monday, December 12, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

The 194 countries at the global climate talk in Durban, South Africa agreed on Sunday to negotiate a new global climate treaty by 2015. The post-Kyoto arrangement, though, would not take effect until 2020, the Financial Times reports. The new set-up extends the key provisions of the Kyoto protocol, which expires at the end of 2012, for another five years and envisions a new, successor pact that will include the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters: China, the U.S. and India. However, rules for developing countries would continue to be laxer than for developed economies.

The Financial Times

Kent shifts position in climate talks

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:19 PM - 0 Comments

Environment Minister Peter Kent pulled a U-turn at the global climate talks in Durban, South Africa, calling for negotiations on a new legally binding climate treaty by 2015. Two days earlier he had called the Kyoto Protocol a thing of the past for Canada. On Thursday, the minister also said a new treaty should include the United States, which did not join Kyoto. He rejected a suggested three-year pause in negotiations to allow the UN to review progress made by various countries on greenhouse-gas reductions.

The Globe and Mail

Kyoto might be finished, but what next?

By John Geddes - Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 9:48 AM - 0 Comments

The policy Stephen Harper’s government on climate change has been so weak that anyone interested in the issue could be forgiven for assuming that the official Canadian stance going into this month’s negotiations in Durban, South Africa is indefensible.

Environment Minister Peter Kent has been brushing aside questions about persistent reports that Canada plans to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol at the close of the conference, which is meant to set the stage for a new phase in the global protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Continue…

After Kyoto

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:20 PM - 0 Comments

Andrew Leach considers the past, present and future of Canada’s involvement in international climate negotiations.

So, while Canada is right to abandon Kyoto, and Canada is right that an effective treaty to address global carbon emissions needs to include most/all countries, I don’t think they’re on the right track in demanding an agreement with binding targets for all countries.  First, it’s unlikely you’ll see binding emissions targets imposed on developing countries. That makes it less likely that Canada will have a role in formulating whatever agreement does come around if they’ve disavowed interest based on that condition..  Second, an agreement with binding emissions targets for everyone is, in my view, the last thing Canada should be pushing for.  Canada should, and I will write more on this later, be pushing for an international standard by which a facility operated in the UK, in Alberta, or in India would face the same effective carbon price, or the same reward for reducing emissions. That doesn’t mean carbon tax – it means a system which measures effort, and doesn’t reward historic emissions.

In a follow-up, he explains what withdrawing from Kyoto means in practical terms.

China lectures Canada on climate change

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:31 AM - 0 Comments

Canada’s rumored plan to drop out of the Kyoto Protocol by year-end is “setting a bad example” for other advanced economies as talks on a new climate deal are underway in Durban, South Africa, China’s official news agency said on Wednesday. “While delegations from every country attend the Durban climate conference to discuss a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, one can imagine the damage done by this ‘rumour’,” Xinhua said. Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent refused to confirm allegations that Canada is about to withdraw from the current climate treaty, but told reporters on Monday that a new global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions would have to include binding targets for China and India as well.

Reuters

The Commons: Convictions without courage

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 28, 2011 at 6:04 PM - 0 Comments

Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press

The Scene.“Kyoto is in the past,” Peter Kent intoned today at an announcement about something else. Not that he was confirming his government’s intention to withdraw from it. But not that he was denying it either. “This isn’t the day,” he explained.

Doing stuff is easy. It’s justifying the doing that’s hard. And so Mr. Kent is not yet ready to say for sure that the government is willing to do something about what it now only implies. The correct day for that is apparently scheduled to be a month from now, just before Christmas. But then someone who knew as much went and told the evening news. Only now Mr. Kent is insisting on pretending that didn’t happen. ”I wonʼt comment on a speculative report,” he said this morning.

He will say that the previous Liberal government’s decision to commit to the protocol was “one of the biggest blunders they made.” And the Prime Minister did once dismiss the whole thing as a “socialist scheme.” And the Conservative platform in 2006 didn’t even mention it. And successive governments have now spent more than a decade successfully ignoring it. And the current government has said it won’t extend past next year its commitment to it. But let it not be said that the government is prepared to actually withdraw from it. At least not yet. At least not that Mr. Kent is willing to say.

Not that the government’s unwillingness to announce a decision stops the opposition from lamenting that decision. Continue…

Canada to withdraw from Kyoto Protocol

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 28, 2011 at 10:24 AM - 0 Comments

Canada will formally pull out of the Kyoto Protocol a few days before Christmas, CTV’s Roger Smith reported on Sunday. The development comes as countries gather in Durban, South Africa on Monday for a climate conference expected to pave the way a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires on Dec. 31 2012. Environment Minister Peter Kent criticized the Protocol for setting unrealistic emission targets and excluding major emitters in the developing world, such as China, India and Brazil. The Conservatives’ move amounted to “a very damaging act of sabotage,” according to Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

CTV News

The Commons: Back to the future

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 8:51 PM - 23 Comments

The Scene. Michael Ignatieff stood with a slight smile. His side cheered, government members jeered.

“Welcome back!” chirped one.

Then to the question, which was, lo and behold, something to do with the environment and the need for urgent action against potential ruin.

“Mr. Speaker, for four years, the government promised a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr. Ignatieff reported. “Today, the Environment Minister has once again postponed the announcement of any action until the end of 2010. We’re three weeks from Copenhagen. How can we protect the environment if the government takes no position?”

This was some riddle.

Up to answer was John Baird, an environment minister in a previous life.

“Mr. Speaker, this government is working constructively with our partners around the world to ensure that we tackle global warming and the challenge of climate change,” Mr. Baird declared. “What we will not do is make promises that we cannot keep.”

It is a testament to Mr. Baird’s abilities as a public performer that he did not here descend into giggles. Continue…

News from the Climate Change Skeptic

By Alex Shimo - Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 12:52 PM - 35 Comments

Bjorn Lomborg has written a challenging article on why Barack Obama should not do anything about climate change. Lomborg is probably the most respected of climate change skeptics, and author of two books, The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It. He doesn’t dispute that global warming is happening, but argues our money is better spent on other policy goals. He makes the following points.

1) Global food production is expected to decrease with climate change, but only by a small amount: 1.4 per cent. Even under the most pessimistic predictions, advances in technology mean food production can more than keep pace with this slight decrease to feed the world’s hungry.

2) Implementing the Kyoto Protocol will cost $180 billion annually. If we spent $10 billion annually on direct food aid, the United Nations estimates we could help 299 million hungry people now.

3) Sea levels are rising, but they have been rising since the early 1800s. (The last mini Ice age was from 1550-1850, which is why sea levels have been rising for that long. Since 1993, the rate of rise has in fact increased).

4) Coastlines are determined as much by the natural climate as by human intervention. The massive humanitarian disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina was mainly because of the lack of intervention to protect the coast and disorganized and poorly-managed clean up efforts. New Orleans needs to focus on how to protect itself against the next hurricane, as there will be another hurricane of equal ferocity regardless of how the planet is affected by global warming.

Anyway, you can read the full article here. I have some objections to his points, but I’d like to hear from readers first.