It is a failure of Kyoto if the targets set are unrealistic or impossible to meet while still maintaining a reasonably healthy economy — and even if they aren’t, given that the current science seems to indicate Kyoto’s formal targets simply won’t be enough anyway, why tie up resources and investment clinging to a treaty that isn’t being honoured by the worst GHG contributors, and wouldn’t do enough to address the problem even if it was being honoured?

“What’s often forgotten in this discussion is that investment in Kyoto obligations can create new industries, new jobs that replace old industries and old ways of doing things. The narrow view that complying with Kyoto means simply spending money but not creating anything is exactly that: narrow.”

This is true, but the problem is that having (insufficient) reduction targets mandated as policy by a government only creates the assumption that meeting those obligations and no more will be sufficient. Kyoto has always been promoted, even by its supporters, as a necessary sacrifice rather than an opportunity, and that kind of marketing doesn’t stimulate interest.

New industries and new ways of doing things only succeed when they are directly profitable. The single biggest incentive to the current investment in new transport fuels and technologies wasn’t anything any government did in the name of Kyoto, it was the market-driven price of gas. Governments have been known (rarely) to interfere with the free market effectively — but the Kyoto Protocol isn’t an example of it.

“So I agree, don’t throw money at a silly program like the One-Tonne challenge, but do some of the things I mentioned — create incentives, be creative with tax policy, support a carbon trading system, etc. Tell me how doing any of those things kills jobs?”

Tell me how doing any of them has enough impact on GHG emissions to justify the money spent on them? They might work (and I actually think they’re all good ideas), but it’s a roll of the dice whether they’ll do enough to meet Kyoto’s targets — and if they don’t, both the environmental fanatics (who’ll claim it’s proof that only unfeasible compulsory restriction will work) and the political opponents (who’ll have all manner of better ideas what to do with the money) will both make it that much more difficult to keep working.

On the other hand, take Kyoto’s targets out of the picture as an arbitrary make-or-break success threshold, and we can realistically assess each measure on its own ground and in its own context for results.

“There will be growing pains, yes, and I feel sorry for the truck driver, but I also feel sorry for the generations of people — all people — who must deal with the consequences of global warming left unchecked by our own self-centred generation who can’t seem to see the world beyond quarterly and annual earnings reports, or even the four-year election horizon.”

As do I; I’m just very cautious of that mode of thought which contends that what might happen to people not yet born is empirically more important than what will happen to people who are alive right here and now. The man who never looks farther than his feet will inevitably walk into a brick wall; but the man who never looks down from the horizon will inevitably trip badly over something.

As I said, I applaud Kyoto’s principles, and I do believe that achieving a sustainable GHG emission threshold needn’t require unbearable economic sacrifice. But Kyoto’s shortcomings as policy have already been enumerated: Its targets are not enough, its cost is too high, and its exemptions render it ineffective anyway. That the Conservatives refuse to follow the Liberal example of throwing good money after bad merely for the sake of appearing to be doing something — however ineffective in reality — doesn’t strike me as a bad thing.

If GHG reduction is an economic opportunity, let’s let the party dedicated to maximizing economic opportunities take the reins and do it their way.

I am not sure if this government “gets it”. However, if they can be convinced, it seems they are willing to act, not simply to chair conferences and hire Rick Mercer for some silly TV ads.

It commits cities to meet or beat Kyoto, to urge state and the Feds to do likewise, and to urge Congress to pass greenhouse gas reduction legislation and establish a national emissions trading system. See also the World Mayors and Municipal Leaders Declaration on Climate Change.

protocol. It goes against his home province’s economical interests and in his view it’s political suicide. Maybe the provinces

should come up with their own Kyoto protocol initiatives like

wind power ,hydro power and promote the use of electric cars

and plug-in hybrids…

Because that’s the truth: Kyoto not only isn’t working — GHG emissions are higher now worldwide than they were in 1997 — but would never have worked, not as long as China, India and other developing nations weren’t held to the same standards as the West. What few reductions some European nations have achieved are more than outweighed by the increases elsewhere, and the socio-economic cost of those reductions in Europe is already becoming apparent; check out the stagnant economies, freefalling birth rates and job-related riots in France, among other places. (Economies are just like the environment: Everything connects, and everything affects everything else.)

I’m not glad we’re dumping Kyoto because I want us to stop reducing GHG emissions; I’m glad we’re dumping it because in its current form, it costs far too much in return for far too little. If nothing else, the science behind Kyoto is nine years old at least by now, and some of the treaty’s base assumptions are probably significantly outdated at this point. And if we want to encourage looking at the big picture, hammering on a single treaty honoured more by most politicians as a sop to green voters than as a serious social or economic initiative might not be the most effective tactic.