Another First for Canada!

First Place: Canada
"The day’s fossil award goes to Canada for blocking agreement on using 1990 as the base year. Canada is now the only country more focused on finding creative ways to hide their emission increases and make their weak targets look ambitious than solving the climate crisis. Unfortunately, those emissions linger in the atmosphere much longer than Canada’s embarrassment about them."

~ From the Climate Action Network - "a coalition of over 450 NGOs worldwide dedicated to limiting climate change to sustainable levels"- yesterday in Bangkok.

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Harper's 'plan' is to reduce emissions 20% by 2020 using intensity-based targets. Translated, this amounts to a mere 3% reduction below our 1990 levels by 2020. Big whoop say the other countries at the conference.

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Meanwhile back here at home, Bill C311 - the Climate Change Accountability Act establishing 1990 as the base year, is holed up at the Environment Committee (6 Cons, 3 Libs, 2 Bloc, 1 NDP) :

* A long-term target to reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050
* A medium-term target to bring emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020

First introduced by Jack Layton in 2007, it actually passed in 2008 but then was shelved before it could receive the necessary blessing from the GG when Harper called the 2008 election .

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When reintroduced this session, it narrowly passed 2nd reading on March 31 with 141 Yeas to 128 Nays. All six Con members of the Environment Committee voted against it.

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Amusingly, in the debate in the House, Con Environmental Parliamentary Secretary and Environment Committee member Mark Warawa argued the bill was "probably unconstitutional" and they would prefer to have "a suite of eco-actions" instead. He also boasted that the Cons will give $1.5 billion in taxpayers money over five years to subsidize experiments by the fossil fuel industry in carbon capture and storage.

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Two months till the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and the Cons are still banking on The Jetsons to save us.

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Send the bastards a letter.

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Just this one time I'll let you use the big crayons.

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Oil sands : "Chinese takeover is good news for Alberta"

says Alberta Energy spokesman Tim Markle.

PetroChina, the world's second largest oil company, is buying a 60% majority stake in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp (AOSC) to develop two tar sands projects. The $1.9 billion deal will provide Chinese capital for Athabasca which controls about 1.3 million acres of oil sands properties containing as many as five billion barrels of reserves in Alberta.

"Sveinung Svarte, chief executive of Athabasca, said the company would likely ship its initial output to U.S. refiners, but would consider other export routes if they open up."

In 2005 the state-owned PetroChina signed a memorandum with Enbridge to take up to half the space on its proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the port of Kitimat in BC.
Enbridge is applying to build the pipeline this year, so presumably PetroChina will eventually be able to ship its newly acquired share of Alberta oilsands straight home to China.

Athabasca does not foresee any "issues" from Investment Canada.

Oilweek :

"Such a takeover would be subject to a new provision recently incorporated into the Investment Canada Act, under which the federal government could block a deal from a foreign firm if it was deemed to pose a threat to national security. But Ottawa will likely wave through the deal.
Geopolitics Central economist Vince Lauerman : "Given the environmental factor down in the states, it only makes sense to diversify our customers, especially to customers that are somewhat less concerned about the environment in general and greenhouse gas emissions in particular."
The Chinese takeover is good news for Alberta, said Alberta Energy spokesman Tim Markle."

Just in case this :

August 2009 : Washington approves oil sands pipeline
"The Obama administration yesterday approved [an Enbridge]pipeline to carry oil-sands fuel from Canada into the US, saying its action was designed to send "a positive economic signal in a difficult economic period"

reverts back to this :

June 2008 : Obama's fight against 'dirty oil' could hurt oil sands
"Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president -- and one of his first targets might well be Canada's oil sands."

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Good to know the Cons' criticism of China's crappy environment record - their stated reason for blowing off the Kyoto Accord - doesn't stand in the way of selling China the product of our crappy environment record.

And how will the US react to this possible threat to 'North American energy security'?

Oh wait - we're already obligated under NAFTA to send 70% of our oil south regardless.

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Related : Support divided for Enbridge Northern Pipeline

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Canada : Getting around our own principles

From "A History of Hypocrisy" by Regan Boychuk, in the Literary Review of Canada :

"In the 1980s, Canada was instrumental in creating and supporting the UN Working Group on Involuntary Disappearances, and in 2007 the Canadian delegate to the UN Human Rights Council reaffirmed that those responsible for enforced disappearances should not go unpunished. Nonetheless, as Human Rights Watch reported in 2006, Canada also worked aggressively to dilute key provisions of an international treaty on forced disappearances:

"To their disgrace, the United States and Russia strongly opposed the [treaty] effort, not least because each had begun using forced disappearances itself …
Canada contributed to this shameful opposition, not because it is known to forcibly “disappear” people, but apparently because Prime Minister Martin, eager to improve relations with the United States that had been strained under his predecessor, decided to run interference for one of his neighbor’s unsavory practices."

Despite the efforts of the U.S. and Canada, the text of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance—modelled after the UN Convention against Torture—was approved by the General Assembly in December 2006. Seventy-two countries have since signed it, neither the U.S. nor Canada among them. "

Mr. Boychuk then cites the 74 CIA flights made through Canada since 9/11 and Foreign Affairs department spokesman Rodney Moore's 2006 statement that "whether any particular rendition is lawful would depend on the facts of each individual case".

A depressingly familiar Canadian refrain, this public purporting to support progressive principles on the international stage while working secretly behind the scenes to prop up regressive American interests conflated with our own. More recent examples include our non-commitment commitment to Kyoto and our backroom watering down of the provisions against the use and manufacture of clusterbombs.


Professor Barry Cooper, friend to PM Harper, Senior Fellow at The Fraser Institute, and creator of a slush fund at the University of Calgary which accepted monies from Alberta oil and gas companies to help finance Tim Ball and his anti-Kyoto Friends of Science group, doesn't much care for Mr. Boychuk's essay on Canadian complicity in the history of torture.
After dismissing it as "smug, and wholly predictable, anti-Americanism", Prof. Cooper complains, "In contrast, one might consider the [ancient] Greeks" - no, I'm not kidding! - and complains that instead:
"Mr. Boychuk accepts the sentimental definition of the United Nations, namely inflicting severe pain or suffering."

Yes, do let's look at something entirely else instead, Prof. Cooper.
Asshat.
If we do not accept that we have been complicit and blind to that complicity, we will never learn how to stand on our own principles.

Mr Baird goes to Bali

The Star : No climate deal without U.S., Baird says.

Shorter Baird : If we don't succeed in finding new excuses to continue trashing the environment, ultimately there will be no economy left to worry about.

As other nations discuss whether the Climate Change Conference in Bali will be successful in getting "rogue nations like China and the US to sign on to real targets", Canada throws up roadblocks to progress. Well, not Canada exactly, just our government according to Germanwatch :

"China's ranking on Germanwatch's 40th annual index, which ranks 56 industrialized and emerging countries, was an improvement of four places over last year, the group said Friday.
The United States and Saudi Arabia were the worst on the list, at 55th and 56th places, respectively.
Canada placed 53rd on the list, down two spots from last year's survey. It has prompted concern that the country lacks credibility on the international stage."

Ya think? In preference to Kyoto, "Baird uses the 1987 Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances as an example of what the world should strive for. "

Sure, let's ban hairspray again - we were great at that! But wait :

Matthew Bramley, director of the climate change program at the Pembina Institute, said :

"The Germanwatch ranking was developed by analyzing each country's emission levels, emission trends, and greenhouse gas reduction policies and combining the information to create an overall climate change performance target.
While Canada placed 46th and 43rd in terms of emission levels and trends, its governmental policies were ranked 55th, making them the second-weakest in the study.
"The people that compiled the whole survey have explained to me that if Canada substantially strengthened its policy, it could rise as much as 20 places in this ranking," he said."

That'll be our job - getting rid of these hairspray policy activists.

CUJO goes to Bali

At Kyoto talks in Bali during which China is talking for the first time about "commitments", the new Canada, US, and Japan org, henceforth to be known as CUJO for short, could certainly use a little branding help to clarify their crappy bad boys spoilers rep on the world stage. And a dangerous rabid dog seems about right.

"In the most contentious move of the conference so far, Japan insisted it is “essential” for the world to “move beyond the Kyoto Protocol.” Just a few minutes later, in what appeared to be a prearranged move, Canada threw its weight behind the Japanese position, lending crucial support to Washington's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty."

U.S.: the next climate agreement must be “economically sustainable” and must promote economic growth for people and nations “everywhere.”
Japan : there must be “compatibility” between environmental protection and economic growth.
Canada : there must be a “balance” between the environment and “economic prosperity.”

Synchronicity!

None of the three mentioned binding commitments or mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gases or short-term targets for an agreement to replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012.

And yet, most amusingly, despite Canada's assertion that there must be a 'balance' between the environment and 'economic prosperity', the G&M reports that "Canada is not sending any ministers to the meetings of trade and finance ministers at Bali."

Apparently although we place the highest priority on an economically sustainable environment treaty, somehow we just don't feel like talking about it right now.

Hopefully The Yes Men will yet make an appearance on our behalf.

Why Canada has no mandatory GHG caps

From Environment Canada: Canada's 2005 GHG Inventory

GHG emissions 1990 to 2005 - Up 25%

Amount over Kyoto target - 32.7%

SUVs & Light duty trucks - Up 109%

Petroleum Industries - Up 56.4%

"Much of the increase in the Petroleum Industries sector is attributable to the rapid growth in crude oil and natural gas exports to the United States over the period.

Fugitive releases (e.g. methane leaks from pipelines) contributed just as significantly to GHG emissions - a growth of about 54 percent. Much of this increase is the result of higher crude oil and natural gas exports."

DeSmogBlog : 5 Reasons Canada is NOT a leader in reducing GHGs.

SPP : Naomi Klein vs Tom Flanagan

Tom Flanagan, US poli-sci prof at the University of Calgary; Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute; and all-round 'eminence grease' to Stephen Harper, this Tom Flanagan, writes in Saturday's G&M : "In times of perceived crisis, a conservative party can win by positioning itself further to the right, as shown by the victories of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, and Goerdon Campbell."

G&M, Saturday Sept 8 :

 "In Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, she argues that an idea that began with Chicago School economist Milton Friedman has determined much of the course of recent history – that a time of crisis, whether a war or a hurricane, offers a strategic opportunity to overwrite the resulting “blank slate” with market privatization and corporatism."

She also argues that such a crisis can be a man-made destabilization of public infrastructure.

Flanagan also has a book out : Harper's Team : Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power.
I'm guessing it isn't going to be "behind the scenes" enough for us though, so I thought we'd have a look at a 2003 policy paper from the Fraser Institute, the think tank where Flanagan is a Senior Fellow.


Mandate for Leadership for the New Prime Minister

• Bank of Canada : Create a new currency—the amero—and a North American Central Bank for Canada,Mexico and the United States.
• Convert existing dollars into ameros. 
• Retain Canadian national symbols on notes and coins.
• Exchange Rates : Remove the Bank of Canada’s power to set interest rates and leave as its main responsibility the convertibility of Canadian into US dollars at par.
• Environment : Withdraw from Kyoto protocol
• Allow export of water for use in non-irrigation projects.
• Labour : Increase flexibility in labour market by, for example, introducing worker choice legislation for those covered by federal labour laws.
• Int Trade & Foreign Aid : Remove Canadian regulations that restrict free trade (unilaterally if necessary), such as the Wheat Board.
• Remove Canadian restrictions on foreign ownership of banks and other financial institutions; airlines and railroads; newspapers and electronic media.
• Allow individuals and firms to sue provinces for damages if trade barriers remain in place.
• Health : Repeal or change the Canada Health Act to remove limits on provincial autonomy over health care, as recognized by the constitution.
• Allow competition in health-care delivery, including, private insurance, for-profit and non-profit hospitals, and private surgery and other treatment facilities.
• Defence : Work for inter-operability with NATO and US for air, naval and ground forces.
• Introduce biometric screening of travelers.  Share air passenger information with the United States.
• Judiciary : Abolish the Court Challenges Program to discourage special interest groups from bypassing the political process to obtain special privileges.
• Aboriginal Policies : Restructure aboriginal policy to empower the individual, not band elites.
• Create a new overseas intelligence service to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts.
• Abolish all policies related to “industrial strategy,” particularly regional economic development agencies.  In Atlantic Canada, the money saved could be used to virtually eliminate corporate taxes.

And skipping down a bit :

"When Canada did not agree to take part in the US ballistic missile defence (BMD) program, the US worked around it, locating the necessary radars in Alaska and Greenland. Space-based assets have made Canada’s geographic position less important than that of Poland or Rumania. 

All of these issues (and there are many others) must be addressed in the very near future. They all point in the same direction: Canada can preserve its sovereignty and its prosperity only by a closer relationship, particularly in military and security policy, with the United States."

Gosh, those all seem so familiar to us now, don't they?
From Flanagan and the Fraser Institute' lips to Harper's ear.
And he who has the ear of the king is more important than the king, yadda, yadda.

Actually the above disaster capitalism wish list is so complete a description of Harper's SPP policies, I'm somewhat disappointed to find no mention in it anywhere of his infamous jelly beans.

Link fixed : Mandate for Leadership for the New Prime Minister
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CBC's metaphor-gate

The head of CBC News was grilled by Con MPs on Tuesday about the use of this photo of the Toronto skyline to illustrate a story on the Kyoto Accord.

Calling the darkened stock photo "a complete misrepresentation" that had the effect of "misleading Canadians", the apparently metaphor-challenged Con MP Chris Warkenton complained in a brilliant rhetorical flourish that the photo "was there to support an opinion that was being brought forward with the article that it was published along with."

And here I'll pause for a moment to allow you to enjoy the unintended hilarity produced whenever a Con MP complains about misrepresentation of Kyoto.

CBC editor-in-chief Tony Burman answered that the photo, which was pulled as soon as the mistake was realized, was "misfiled" and "an inadvertent error" and had not been specifically "retouched for use on air".

The Cons, who have recently taken to air-brushing entire people out of their caucus, then promptly squandered whatever dubious moral high ground they might have tried to claim by whining that CBC hadn't given sufficient coverage to their fetus fetish rally on the Hill last month. Wankers.

Note to CBC : Use a bigger brush. Some Cons obviously don't get concepts like 'metaphor' and 'illustration' easily. Next time you run a photo to illustrate a story about Canada's relationship to Kyoto, I would suggest you use something clearer and more to the point. Like this one from Havril :

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Sing Us A Song, JimBobby

From Ross in the comments below, a link to JimBobby Sez :

Sing Us a Song, You're Enviro-Man
It's nine o'clock up in Ottawa,
Most of the MPs are there,
They're all in their seats, except Steve's on his feet,
Tryin' to prove that he cares.

Now, Steve is an egghead Prime Minister,
There's a pit bull named Baird at his side,
Who snarls and snaps about emission caps,
While his limousine's idling outside.

And the Speaker is practicing politics,
As the insults and taunts fill the air.
While the climate is changing, they're just rearranging,
The Titanic's three hundred deck chairs.
La la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Sing us a song, you're Enviro-Man,
Tell us another one, Steve.
We're all in the mood for Kyoto compliance,
So, what have you got up your sleeve?

This is just an excerpt. If you go over to JimBobby's you can hear the whole thing.
Sing along. Sing really loud! It'll do ya good.

CathiefromCanada likes it too.

The cure is cheaper than the disease

It would cost $1 per barrel of oil produced to bring the oil sands into compliance with Kyoto emissions-cutting targets, the Pembina Institute told the Clean Air Act commons committee yesterday.

Cost to produce one barrel of oil - $20-$30
Selling price - $60

Gord Lambert, VP of sustainable development at Suncor, one of the oil sands' biggest producers, said that new technology is the key to curbing emissions, but government funding would be needed for implementation.

Suncor profit in 2006 - $3 billion

Cost of complying with Kyoto - $1 per $60 barrel

Yet Suncor expects taxpayers to foot the bill.

Suncor also wants direct access to Kyoto to purchase GHG emission reductions on its own behalf.

Because big government is bad, very bad, for its interference in the marketplace, unless you can finangle a taxpayer-funded handout out of them.

Link

Kyoto a killer? Or Chrysler

Remember MP from CRAP* Jeff Watson warning that any attempt to meet Kyoto targets would result in :
"job loss, anxiety, depression, bankruptcy, domestic violence, costs to employment insurance or retraining, loss of charitable dollars in communities for people who used to have high-paying jobs but don't anymore and the social services that are funded by those, and in rare instances, suicide."

And this guy is on the Clean Air Act Committee.
He was particularly troubled about "the impact of tough regulations on industries such as the auto sector", noting that he "is the only representative of Ontario and the auto industry on the committee."

Say, didn't Chrysler just lay off 2000 Canadian autoworkers in Ontario on Valentines Day?
Surely Jeff's suicide watch would more properly apply to those layoffs than to any future possible compliance with Kyoto.

Over at his "Getting Things Doner"** webpage, Jeff, a former Chrysler employee himself, bemoans the fact "The Opposition ...conceal their zeal for extreme auto emissions standards".
He explains that "his thoughts and prayers are with his fellow lineworkers", but "DaimlerChrysler will be more successful in the market of tomorrow" and "The Big 3 are making product decisions that will guarantee their future will be bright".

Well, good for them but the rest of us are gonna hafta wear shades.
And Jeff, who the hell do you think you are representing on that Clean Air Act Committee?

*CRAP - Conservative Reform Alliance Party. Jeff ran for all three.
** "Getting things doner"TM - Mes Amis

Alright, if you insist : Sex, nudes, feuds, death threats!

John Baird - Pull my finger

because it's a far far better thing to light even one fart than to curse the darkness.

Waving that stubby little finger around, Environment Minister John Baird proclaimed yesterday that, in addition to not even trying to meet our Kyoto goals lest we wind up like Russia or something, we also wouldn't be going in for any funny business like implementing a carbon tax on industry or joining the international carbon trading market.

Huffing the high moral ground, Baird said buying credits in the international market would be a bad investment for Canada and that the government would rather spend the money at home. For Canadian families.

Actually there is a connection between not meeting our targets and not trading in emissions but John neglected to mention what that was and no one called him on it. Signatories to Kyoto who don't show any progress in attempting to meet their emissions targets by 2012 - and at this rate that would seem to be us - aren't allowed into the international emissions trading market anyway.