No More Environmental Hot Air from Canada

I, for one, welcome that the Canadian Government has finally stopped blowing hot air on the Kyoto Protocol. Listening to an environmentalist going off on George W. Bush on CTV NewsNet right now only reinforces that it's probably the right thing to do. She hasn't once mentioned that Canada's emissions are up dramatically and that we're an embarrassment to the entire process, it's all Bush-bashing. When critics of Canadian government policy have no recourse other than to slam the President of the United States, it means they have no salient "made-in-Canada" argument to speak of; hence, play up the anti-American card.
The simple fact is that the Liberal government defected from Kyoto very soon after the ink dried. I have often raised the point in debating this issue with colleagues: who is worse? The government that says no and develops its own alternative, or the one that says yes and then systematically ignores its international obligations while chastising the government that said no and has actually done a better job on the issue? If you said the one that says yes and proceeds with proselytizing its neighbour and friend, you win the prize. If one were to look at Canada & Kyoto through the prism of Robert Putnam's "two-level games" theory, we said yes at level I (international) and then did no at level II (domestic). It wasn't done involuntarily; Canada had a choice, and it chose to blow hot air for 8 years and do nothing. Our environmental record has been abysmal, and I'm glad that the Conservatives are finally injecting a dose of realism into our international politics discourse. The Liberals can cry until there's enough water to fill a small lake, the bottom line is that after 8 years it is literally impossible for this country to lower its emissions to a level that is 6% below the 1990s levels. They set out for a feel-good photo-op by setting our target 1% higher than the other developed states required to lower their emissions, allowing them to claim a moral high ground over both the United States (for not participating at all) and the rest of the world for going further. And then Chretien came home. The end.
The Liberals "plan" was to buy up carbon emissions credits en masse from developing countries so that we could still claim this moral high ground while the smog and pollution over Canadian skies got progressively worse. That is actually true. Even though our own emissions would still have skyrocketed--due to the lack of a coherent reduction plan--we technically could have "met" our targets by pumping billions of dollars into autocratic regimes in the developing world. This is the fundamental flaw of the Kyoto process, and of the Liberals' environment "policy strategy."
I am not giving the Conservatives a free pass on this. Their record in previous House votes on the environment is more than a little circumspect, and those who voted against Kyoto, crossed the floor, and claimed a conversion to loving the environment should be embarrassed. As yet, there has not been an alternative, "made-in-Canada" approach, and reports indicate that the government is exploring the option of pursuing the "Kyoto lite" Asia-Pacific Partnership with the United States, Australia, and others who rejected Kyoto because they were realistic in their appraisal of their ability to meet its requirements. Canada, apparently reading the dictionary that day, decided that in all situations photo-op comes before principle. In the process, the government made a mockery of the spirit of Kyoto, setting up the current government for the international thrashing it has received in recent days and weeks.
No more. I hope that a sustainable alternative is developed and that it is realistic in its prescriptions for targets and outcomes. It will be a refreshing breath of fresh air for a change.