Sunday, May 06, 2007
Kyoto: Just Doer
Manitoba's NDP Premier Gary Doer is a big supporter of the Kyoto protocol. In fact, Doer is such a Kyoto supporter, that he's campaigning on making Manitoba the first province in Canada to adopt Kyoto targets in legislation, to be met by 2012.
The problem is that Manitoba's emissions are growing, not shrinking. From 1990 to 2003 Manitoba's Greenhouse Gas emissions rose by 11.5%.
Probably most importantly, Gary Doer and the NDP don't have a plan to reduce emissions in Manitoba. The only plan the NDP has in place too meet Kyoto targets is to generate more hydro-electricity for export to Ontario, which does nothing to reduce emissions at home, but will hopefully provide enough carbon credits to meet our Kyoto targets.
The problem with reducing emissions in Manitoba is that most of our emissions come from transportation and farming, ie. the bulk of our economy. So to meet Kyoto targets, Doer had to come up with a way to reduce emissions without reducing emissions... and believe it or not, the carbon credit trading scheme in the Kyoto accord allows for just that!
The problems with carbon credit trading are detailed by the Financial Times here and here. Basically the problem in Britain is that government incentives to reduce emissions have artificially raised demand for carbon credits beyond what technology can be supplied. This artificially high demand for carbon credits raises the price of a carbon credit through the roof. And too often, because of financial incentives provided by the government, it doesn't matter to the purchaser that the 1kt reduction in GHG he just bought didn't actually reduce GHG gases by 1kt, because he's got his carbon credits and thats all he needs to appear to be the greenest guy on the block.
When Gary Doer talks about the opportunities created by being green, he's really talking about getting rich selling worthless carbon credits. It makes one very wary about Gary's sincerity on environmental issues.
The problem is that Manitoba's emissions are growing, not shrinking. From 1990 to 2003 Manitoba's Greenhouse Gas emissions rose by 11.5%.
Probably most importantly, Gary Doer and the NDP don't have a plan to reduce emissions in Manitoba. The only plan the NDP has in place too meet Kyoto targets is to generate more hydro-electricity for export to Ontario, which does nothing to reduce emissions at home, but will hopefully provide enough carbon credits to meet our Kyoto targets.
The problem with reducing emissions in Manitoba is that most of our emissions come from transportation and farming, ie. the bulk of our economy. So to meet Kyoto targets, Doer had to come up with a way to reduce emissions without reducing emissions... and believe it or not, the carbon credit trading scheme in the Kyoto accord allows for just that!
The problems with carbon credit trading are detailed by the Financial Times here and here. Basically the problem in Britain is that government incentives to reduce emissions have artificially raised demand for carbon credits beyond what technology can be supplied. This artificially high demand for carbon credits raises the price of a carbon credit through the roof. And too often, because of financial incentives provided by the government, it doesn't matter to the purchaser that the 1kt reduction in GHG he just bought didn't actually reduce GHG gases by 1kt, because he's got his carbon credits and thats all he needs to appear to be the greenest guy on the block.
When Gary Doer talks about the opportunities created by being green, he's really talking about getting rich selling worthless carbon credits. It makes one very wary about Gary's sincerity on environmental issues.
Labels: Britain, Environment, Gary Doer, NDP, Y2Kyoto
