"Countries agree to extend Kyoto Protocol"

MONTREAL (CP) - Delegates from 157 countries wound up a tense, all-night negotiating session by agreeing Saturday to draft a new, long-range plan to combat climate change.

The agreement, which Environment Minister Stephane Dion dubbed the Montreal Action Plan, calls for binding commitments to cut greenhouse emissions beyond 2012 when the current Kyoto Protocol expires.

*** The deal does not set emissions-reductions targets for developing countries like China and India, but provides mechanisms through which they can get access to clean technology and financing for climate-friendly projects.

*** Delegates praised Canada for hosting the conference and Dion for guiding the negotiations, but activists noted that Canadian record in controlling greenhouse emissions is dismal - worse than that of the United States.

Dion still insists that Canada will meet its commitment under the existing Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions are currently 24 per cent above 1990 levels.

Experts say Canada's target will be impossible to achieve without substantial purchases of credits on the international carbon market, and such moves are likely to be a hard sell.

Not to be a killjoy, but (as with Kyoto) the agreement essentially envisions a transfer of wealth from industrialized to emerging-industrial countries. Once again, as with the Kyoto Protocol, China and India have been asked to make no binding commitments regarding emissions:

"The deal [yet again] does not set emissions-reductions targets for developing countries like China and India, but provides mechanisms through which they can get access to clean technology and financing for climate-friendly projects."

Thus, while developed countries signing on to this new agreement must agree to cut their emissions, with consequent economic dislocation (see my weblog, "ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS", at http://environmentallegal.blogs.com/sholzer-- Posts under CATEGORIES-"Global Warming" -right-hand side of the page), two of the world's biggest polluting countries need make no such cuts. Perhaps developed countries were ready to agree to such a lopsided deal because they don't really intend to abide by the deal anyway (again, see Global Warming Posts on my blog). As the CNEWS article mentions:

"Delegates praised Canada for hosting the conference and Dion for guiding the negotiations, but activists noted that Canadian record in controlling greenhouse emissions is dismal - worse than that of the United States.

"Dion still insists that Canada will meet its commitment under the existing Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions are currently 24 per cent above 1990 levels.

"Experts say Canada's target will be impossible to achieve without substantial purchases of credits on the international carbon market, and such moves are likely to be a hard sell."

Clinton is been hailed as a hero on the euro mainstream-barf media. The UN conference is been reported thus:

The US did not want to sign the agreement

Clinton made a speech that shamed the Bush administration into signing

Que jubilant enviro-whackos deliriously celebrating this humiliation of GWB

Clinton likened to a cowboy hero riding in to rescue the planet.

So everyone is bashing Bush over something that Clinton wouldn't sign on to.

So we have all these "so called brilliant" scientists telling everyone that the US is the biggest polluter and that if we do not sign on to Kyoto the world is going to end.

Advice to envirwhackos:

1. Use the money that your benefactors are giving you to develop your own clean source of energy.

2. Market that energy to the US and other industrialized nations.

3. Take the profits and go to developing countries and give them the technology to do it themselves.

"Give a man a fish..blah blah blah"

Didn't Ralph Klein, the premier of Alberta, say a few years ago that if Canada formally ratified Kyoto then Alberta would apply for US Statehood?

This would make Americans happy: it would add a nice state, and a red state at that. A few years ago, polling revealed that Alberta would be the only province George Bush would have won.

It would also make Canada happy: it would get rid of a bunch of conservaitve seats, so the Liberals of Toronto could have a bigger majority. It would also make Canada "cleaner" because there'd be less oil and gas production.

Wanna hear my fantasy?

Here it is: GW has been gracious and polite to the Clintoons. So nice, so gracious that it causes FReepers' heads spinning from it.

That's because he's getting ready to finally DROP THE HAMMER on those lying thieves. His past behavior adds credibility to the charges that he'll level against them.

...That's my fantasy.

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