The Kyoto Protocol Signed April 29, 2000
Entered into force February 16, 2005.

By 2008-2012, Annex 1 countries (Canada) have to reduce their GHG emissions by an average of 5% below their 1990, Canada is now 24% above 1990 levels.

The fall of the Paul Martin Liberal's saw the Liberal-NDP budget deal with $900 million for the environment, and the Liberal NDP Kyoto commitment burned in the subsequent Stephen Harper Conservative Victory.

     It was a clear blue sky and the air was beginning to get that smell of melting snow mingled with emerging Earth, it is a fresh smell that whispers of springs impending arrival. Quite the change from the arctic temperatures of only few days before, the weather is on my mind and the looming spectre of a radically altered Earth which we all call of home and depend upon in mostly unconscious ways. On the streetcar, which seemed to be running on a disjointed schedule I run into one of the performers for the event. Brian Macmillan steps on carrying an amplifier, a guitar, and a small collapsible buggy to carry it all later. It is March 11 the first day of the American Daylight Saving time scheme, which we have adopted as our own policy. It is also the Rally for Kyoto support “Canadians for Kyoto”, that international protocol so successfully scuttled by the World largest GreenHouse Gas emitter. The Americans, whose unilateral action on daylight saving time i am forced to comply with.

     We are going to Howl for Coyote, well actually rally for Kyoto but I can’t help but slip in the humorous attempt to my traveling companion. I muse how it would be funny if i showed up with a sign and a fur coat, a refugee of of protests past, confused about what the agenda is but always willing to show up at whatever cause needs representing. As i muse a little more about it, I realize i have become a little jaded with the “green” movement, and am not alone in that regard. At the event instead of the expected teeming thousands, there would be at best six or seven hundred supporters, with maybe a thousand and a half around 1:30 pm, which is probably the result over the confusion over what time it really is, does anybody know? However the Green peace polar bears are there, cavorting for the children and the cameras from all the major networks. Assessing the camera potential, i end up confusing the French CBC radio crew and opt instead for stalking the City TV crew to no avail. I am not a “photo op” but i feel like someone who is locked out of the public debate, but has something say.

     Trying to keep the media lens focused on climate change may prove to be challenging, as this is a problem that is decades long in scope. In 1992 Some 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, issued an appeal in November of that year, “The World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” was written and spearheaded by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of UCS's board of directors. The plea for immediate action, and warning of consequences were profoundly ignored, page 20 news at best. I remember thinking at the time, this is the most important document of our Time, it should be front page on every newspaper in the world.

     That was the time to take action, Mount Pintabuto had injected enough material into the stratosphere that there was about seven years of cooling, if we had used this time to reduce substantially our collective output of Co2, we might have leveraged that cooling to our advantage. We did not. It looked like something might have actually happened in those heady days at the end of the century with all the hopes and fears of a new millennium.

     On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the Kyoto protocol. Gore indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations. The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification, leaving it to the next administration. Despite the fact that the Democratic nominee Al Gore won the popular vote, with over half a million more votes than Bush, a month of ballot recounts and court challenges in the state of Florida where George’s brother was Governor led the Supreme Court to end the highly disputed race with its final ruling of Bush v. Gore, handing the electoral college victory, and consequently the Presidency, to Bush. Bush was publicly opposed to Kyoto. The matter was further pushed to the periphery of World affairs when three towers fell on September 11th. Although the Three towers that fell all presented evidence of controlled demolition and high temperature thermite reactions (the amount of molten metal at the base of the towers), that hypotheses was never debated in public as the “War on Terror” began in earnest and climate change was all but forgotten as we retreated into a media and stress induced stupor.
     
     Instead Exxon Mobil wrote US Environmental Policy and it was rubber stamped by the Pro Oil, Bush Administration. The Bush Regime’s response to any real attempts to save energy, or reduce emissions was a deliberate policy to hide from the World and the American Public the science and implications of Global Warming. The Bush appointed as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, a pompous, self aggrandizing simpleton, who was and still is Senator of Oklahoma. The man seems to possess no real intelligence or ethics, the fact that he was permitted to influence and draft policy at the highest level only underscores the level of dysfunction in US Government and complacency in the voting public. Despite the scientific consensus on climate change, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe voted on June 22, 2005 to reject an amendment to an energy bill that would have forced reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and created an emissions trading program, arguing that there was "no convincing scientific evidence" for global warming. He went on further to state that "Global warming is still considered to be a theory and has not come close to being sufficiently proven". Mr. Inhofe has led efforts to keep mandatory controls on greenhouse gases out of any emission reduction bill considered by his committee and has called human activities contributing to global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

      Against this backdrop it would have been difficult for any Government in Canada to achieve the agreed Kyoto targets. America had achieved critical tactical advantage and control over Canadian policy in this regard. In Fact the day of the Rally for Kyoto took place on the first day of the American extension of Daylight saving time. A move that many studies prove will not save any energy, but gives the appearance of doing something, that being moving the hands of a clock and having a little more shopping time which is incidentally is the real benefit of Daylight Saving Time.

     The Chairman for the Environment, Mr. Inhofe based most of his decisions on one book he had managed to read that supported the viewpoint that he wanted to have. Bjørn Lomborg, a business school professor in Copenhagen, wrote “The Skeptical Environmentalist”. Even the title was misleading, Bjørn claimed to have been a member of Greenpeace, however there was no record of him ever being a member or supporter. The media, and Inhofe initially represented him as a former Greenpeace activist, when in fact the only association with Greenpeace he had was an unsubstantiated donation.

     The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Inhofe the chairman of the Environment, implemented deliberately misleading and flawed policy. While Kyoto languished the Planet began giving ever more alarming signs that we were headed for a period of intense climate instability as CO2 readings climbed to levels not seen in 650,000 years. And that's a fact, Jack, and all the caulking in the world won’t put it back.

     To be fair, Chairman Inhofe has read more than one author on the subject, that would be Michael Crighton, no friend to science but a noted science fiction author of many books such as Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. Michael Crighton testified at a Congressional hearing on climate change, having been invited by Senator James Inhofe, to advise the Environment and Public Works Committee, despite having no expertise in the subject. Painful but true, a Science Fiction author with odd ideas and rambling incoherent speeches advises the US Government on Environmental Policy.

     Meanwhile in 2001, the then head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Robert Watson, issued an emotional plea to governments to act upon the near certainty that human activity was in fact a major contributing factor, threatening large scale climate change with cataclysmic risk. Watson is credited with forging global scientific consensus on key issues within the IPPC. Exxon requested that Dr. Robert Watson be removed, the Bush administration withdrew support for him and applied pressure for his replacement, his position was not renewed. It was against this corrosive backdrop that Canada ratified and endorsed Kyoto. Without American Support any real action on our part would have and will be undermined by the U.S., however it is time to take a stand against such an intellectually bereft, scheming and immoral regime.

     At the “Canadians for Kyoto” rally, there was no representation from the Conservatives. The Liberals were represented by MP Maria Minna who went on to say “We have to do it ourselves, get rid of this government so that we can actually ratify the Kyoto accord, which we're all committed to,”. The NDP represented by Jack “get out the caulking guns” Layton came out swinging, big on rhetoric but shy on real solutions although he mentioned the word at least 10 times.. The Conservative party absence sends a clear message, Stephen Harper will not honour Kyoto. Instead it will be a “made in Canada” solution, remarkably complimenting the “made in America” climate change policy (basically no real action on Greenhouse Gas Emissions).

     Jack was ambiguous about whether he was willing to tackle the Harper Conservatives, it is worth remembering that Layton and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives took out the Liberals under Paul Martin. After the 2004 federal election, the NDP wielded significant power and contributed much to the Liberal budget . Then Prime Minister Paul Martin reached an agreement with the New Democrats in April of 2006 to earn support for his minority government's budget. The deal included a $4.6-billion boost in social program spending over two years. It was a historical budget, and a coup for the NDP, the NDP had accomplished something that was way beyond expectations. What was remarkable is that the budget ever passed at all. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business all criticized the government's attempts to get the budget passed and stay alive. The opposition Conservatives denounced the Liberal-NDP budget deal and threatened repeatedly to vote against the budget and bring down the government. But on June 23, the Liberals deployed a rarely-used procedural tactic to limit debate. In a midnight vote, the Liberal's amended budget passed third reading by a vote of 152-147.

The April 2006 deal between the Liberals and the NDP included:

• $900 million for the environment, with one more cent
of the federal gas tax going to public transit.

• $1.6 billion for affordable housing construction

• A $1.5-billion increase for tuition reduction and better training through EI.

• $500 million for foreign aid to bring Canada in line
with a promise of 0.7 per cent of GDP.

• $100 million for a pension protection fund for workers.