Jan. 19, 2005. 01:00 AM

We're faking and fibbing on Kyoto

RICHARD GWYN

A case can be made, not a certain one but a strongly persuasive one,

Canada would have done a lot more good for the cause of global

control by not signing the Kyoto treaty, which comes into effect in

four weeks.

Having signed on (and having endlessly congratulated ourselves for

more than those selfish, rapacious Americans), our government finds

in the embarrassing position that there's quite obviously no way we

fulfill the Kyoto commitments we've taken on.
The government can't admit this, of course. So it's going to spend

the time to 2012 (when the target of a 5.2 per cent reduction in

gases is supposed to be met) by faking it, by cheating and by fibbing

us and to others.

This last is the real rub. We pride ourselves on being "model world
citizens." Quite a few countries actually sort-of believe this about

the good guy cheats, why shouldn't everyone else?

This is why our contribution to reducing global warming is more

an actual minus than just a zero. This unpleasant truth is just

break into public view.
Outsiders know it well. At a U.N. conference on climate change in

Aires last month, the Japanese representative remarked, casually, as

were self-evident, that when the Kyoto treaty comes up for renewal in

Japan, Russia and Canada will all withdraw.

Back here, our own insiders know it equally well. A document prepared

cabinet by senior officials that's just been leaked to the press

that under current policy and programs, "Canada is still going to be
significantly off the Kyoto target."

Unstated in this document is that faking and fibbing are already key

of our current policy and programs. Canada intends to claim as a

in our greenhouse gas output any increase in natural gas sales to the

on the grounds these substitute for more polluting oil sales.

This proposition is patently rubbish. Kyoto or no Kyoto, we'll be

all the natural gas we can to make more money, not to make less

dioxide.
But, comes the rebuttal, by signing on we're taking part in a great
multilateral exercise that, for all its faults, does represent a

This is a fair, and an important, point. Kyoto critics keep

developing nations are exempt from the treaty. (China and India are

second- and third-largest global polluters). The U.N., though, has

role of developing countries in global warming on the agenda of its

Kyoto conference in May.
And a rebuttal to the rebuttal exists south of the border. President

W. Bush is indifferent to global warming. But a lot of Americans

number of states, led by California and New York (both, incidentally,

Republican governors), have enacted far stricter limits on emissions

power stations than Canada envisages, and are planning similar limits

automobiles, an action we haven't even started to think of.

And capitalists can occasionally be caring. Dow Chemical has reduced

greenhouse gas output by an astonishing 65 per cent (and saved

Canadian corporation has been as visionary. Similarly, none of our

companies has begun to match the pollution reductions already

Shell.
Our signing of Kyoto has been an exercise in political opportunism.

it enables us to do precious little while reassuring Canadians we're

than those awful Americans.

There are signs of improvement. Environment Minister Stéphane Dion

this week to learn what to do. Where's he going? California.

I 'perceive that there will be a replacement of the Kyoto Accord that
most Major countries will finally agree on within the next 12 months.

This is not a prediction, just common sense. Recent weather anomalies
Worldwide has been enough to concern even the most Die-Hard skeptics in
the United States.

Hopefully these concessions will not be too late to save the planet.