Posted on 08/24/2007 11:27:50 AM PDT by Clive
The United Nations suggested this week that wealthy nations ought to be able to reduce their own emissions by paying developing countries to do it for them.
This practical idea from Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was met with predictable outrage from environmental groups. They insist the problem of climate change cannot be altered unless rich and poor nations curb their emissions together.
What rot. This is a clever plan that just may work. Why should I, a middle-class Canadian, have to count the number of plastic bags I use, worry about my carbon imprint, give up my red SUV and buy local produce? Far better if I could hold my head high secure in the knowledge that my government is paying the country of Haiti or Zimbabwe to do so for me.
Such an arrangement would rid Port au Prince of those emissions-spewing ancient Citroens and would surely spare Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe from using so much electricity. Right now, it is gobbling up power at a horrendous rate in order to print dollar bills in ever larger denominations as the inflation rate rises above July's 7,634.8% level.
Now, I'm not swallowing de Boer's idea whole, clever and practical though it may be. I do have some reservations, the largest of which is that it simply does not go far enough. It is too limited.
Take the problem of the homeless. Why should Canadians do anything about the people living on our streets? If we pay the Sudanese government to round up more and more of their homeless and put them in camps, then we can, in good conscience, ignore our own. Better yet, we can simply ship our homeless directly to the Sudan.
Such a plan would be particularly attractive to Vancouver as the 2010 Olympics approach. Provincial and civic officials are already worried about the city's highly visible homeless. Left to their own devices, they are sure to clog up the streets and embarrass us in front of foreigners coming in for the games.
And speaking of the Olympics, Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, recently discomfited the Chinese government by stating the obvious. The heavy pollution in Beijing, he said, will impact on the athletes' ability to perform in the 2008 Games, particularly in endurance sports such as cycling. Some events may have to be delayed.
The red-faced Chinese government has since vowed to quickly improve this situation.
Fat chance. Unless of course they take a page out of de Boer's book. The boys in Beijing would do well to consider paying, say, the government of Brazil to reduce emissions in Rio de Janeiro, known to have one of the world's worst smog problems.
Or perhaps they could pay Dalton McGuinty's Ontario government to reduce smog in Toronto which can be rather nasty on bad days. That's the only way China can significantly lessen its own pollution figures in time for the 2008 Olympics.
But nowhere is de Boer's plan more practical than in the area of human rights.
Canada could show the way by paying Vladimir Putin to start treating the Chechnyans nicely, so that we can stop concerning ourselves with wrongs done to First Nations peoples here in Canada over the years. No more land claims.
Vladimir meanwhile, can pay the Chinese to treat the Tibetans with more respect so that he can stop behaving fairly with the Chechnyans.
The Chinese in turn can pay the Sudanese government, insurgents, militias and rebels to stop murdering their own people, and so on.
It is obvious that should the rich nations decide to adopt de Boer's suggestion and use it to its full capacity, the world will be a better place with each nation taking its responsibilities seriously.
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Ping
“That’s where all credibility was lost.”
I think what’s lost is sarcasm, on you, apparently.
Clever.
The sin of emission — something I commit whenever I eat beans.
The US must not sign Kyoto and it needs to be unlawful for States to separately participate in any aspect such as Carbon Credits..(I understand so far 6 Do). The whole Carbon Credit Scam is a International tax on working people.
W
Belching moose add to global warming
Leo DiCaprio, Expert Climatologist
Global Warming on FreeRepublic
I had chili for dinner tonight. I’m expecting my short term emissions to increase considerably.
“wealthy nations ought to be able to reduce their own emissions by paying developing countries to do it for them.”
They’re going to “develop” and reduce emissions simultaneously? ... or would we really be paying them to “un-develop” themselves... Typical looney-left thinking.
Bump for later. Working for a living is cutting into my Freeping! ;)
Sounds like a modest proposal to me.
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