Stephen Harper should call the environmental accord what it is -- a train wreck

Could Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pictured) or Environment Minister John Baird please explain what they mean when they say Canada continues to be a participant in the Kyoto accord?

How can we be a participant when the PM has said we cannot do what Kyoto requires of us -- lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by an average of 6% below 1990 levels between now and 2012?

We're 29.1% above our Kyoto target. Achieving that target is the point of Kyoto.

So what, exactly, are we participating in?

Yes, the Liberals are hypocrites for ratifying Kyoto and then doing zilch to implement it.

Yes, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion supports a carbon tax he once opposed.

But the Conservatives have been no more coherent.

In opposition, they didn't complain the Liberals were doing too little to implement Kyoto, as they do now. They complained they were doing too much, consistent with Harper's views at the time that Kyoto was a socialist, money-sucking scheme.

Kyoto is a socialist, money-sucking scheme. Why don't the Conservatives just say it?

I know -- I hear it from Conservatives supporters all the time -- Harper has to pay lip service to Kyoto to win the next election.

Nonsense. First off, voters know when politicians are bulls...ting them. If the Conservatives think they're getting a boost from pretending to support Kyoto, they're not.

Worshipping at the altar

More important, with the Liberals, Bloc, NDP and Green parties, and most of the provinces, all insanely worshipping at the altar of Kyoto and ready to "green" tax us to death, is there not one mainstream party with the courage to denounce Kyoto for the train wreck it is?

Look at the thing. Why do you suppose the main instigators of Kyoto -- the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United Nations -- happened to pick 1990 as the base year for reducing GHG emissions?

It wasn't written in stone. Kyoto wasn't even agreed to until 1997 and didn't come into effect until 2005. The drafters could have picked any year as the base year.

They retroactively chose 1990 because that was just before the Soviet Union imploded, meaning the European Union was able to take advantage of the dramatic drop-off in GHG emissions of the former Soviet satellites which later became part of Europe, countries which dramatically cut their GHG emissions not by doing anything, but by suffering a recession.

Also by 1990, the U.K.'s "dash for gas" was well underway -- again, unrelated to Kyoto. But by replacing coal power with natural gas, the U.K. was also able to benefit from Kyoto without doing anything.

These countries, along with the UN, whose interest was transferring wealth from the First World to the Third, crafted the treaty right down to exempting the entire developing world, led by China and India, with one purpose in mind.

Not ratified

That was to damage the U.S. economy by putting it at a competitive disadvantage had the Americans been stupid enough to ratify Kyoto. But even with Al Gore as their vice-president, they weren't.

We were. We ratified it because a reckless Jean Chretien was looking for an environmental legacy.

Chretien's top political aide, Eddie Goldenberg, has since acknowledged the Liberals knew Canadians weren't ready for what Kyoto required when they ratified it in 2002.

Of course, the Liberals weren't ready either, the proof being what they did to implement Kyoto after they ratified it. Nothing.

Ironically, even with all the advantages the U.K. and EU handed themselves in Kyoto, many of their own citizens are now revolting against the usurious carbon and green taxes they're being asked to pay.

Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism, under which developed countries fund environmental projects in developing ones, is rife with charges of corruption and profiteering.

Even if every one of the 37 member states in Kyoto (including us) required to reduce their GHG emissions (as opposed to the 143, which aren't) meet their emission targets (which they won't), the coal plants China and India alone are building will more than wipe out all the cuts Kyoto calls for.

And this is the deal the Conservatives say we need to be part of?

Why?

Are we nuts?  Source