Will Canada be the world's Don Quixote? Correction, that should be the world's Don Kyoto. Either scenario features windmills and horse manure.

On Tuesday, the House of Commons voted approval for ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Within days, the Senate will do the same and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien will sign the ratification.

He'll then have the legacy he sought so insistently. But, like the knight of La Mancha's, the don of Kyoto's legacy could prove to be founded on illusion.

There's been much obfuscation on what Kyoto means. Many Canadians think they'll be paying a reasonable price for clean air and healthy skies.

During Monday's debate, Liberal MP John Maloney said: "The dollar value of the additional health and environmental benefits of fighting climate change is estimated to be between $300-million and $500-million a year. There are some estimates that are even higher. In Ontario alone, the Ontario Medical Association estimates that air pollution causes the deaths of 1,900 people every year and a cost of $10-billion per year."

Kyoto is not about fighting air pollution or acid rain. It's about global warming. It's to counter the growing concentration in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases that trap heat. They're 60 per cent to 70 per cent water and 25 per cent carbon dioxide. They're caused, in part, by natural factors, such as the varying intensity of heat from the sun, volcanoes, the shifting of continents and the rising of mountains. And, in part, the concentration of CO₂ is increased by human activity, notably the burning of fossil fuel.

If Canada implements Kyoto, will that preserve us from global warming? Hardly. According to Kyoto, only 36 countries -- the more developed -- were expected to take on legally binding obligations to cut their CO₂ emissions. That leaves 155 countries, including China and India, with no such obligation.

Of the 36 targeted countries, Canada's share of CO₂ production is 3.3 per cent. But the United States produces more than 36 per cent of the emissions of the 36 -- and prevailing winds carry these emissions northward.

Not only will Canada be the only country in the Western Hemisphere binding itself legally to 30-per-cent reductions of emissions, but most of the other 35 -- especially the former Soviet bloc countries -- are undertaking commitments more virtual than real because their decline in economic activity since 1990 and their remedying of the most intolerable environmental excesses have already brought them within the required standards.

As Liberal MP Albina Guarnieri said, in what I thought was the best speech during the entire Kyoto debate: "Russia had 35 per cent less emissions in 1998 than it did in 1990. Hence, its target of zero increase actually permits it to increase its emissions by 50 per cent from the day it signed the treaty. The other former Eastern bloc countries are in similar situations. . . . The absurd result is that, when we take Canada, the United States and Australia out of the treaty, the remaining Kyoto participants as a group actually signed on to increase their emissions by 16 per cent over 1998 levels."

The reality is, if it implements Kyoto, Canada will make no perceptible improvement to global warming while doing harm to its competitiveness and its national unity. And it will help perpetuate the illusion that the world is doing something real about greenhouse gases.
wjohnson@globeandmail.ca