Subtract these (and other) countries from the world effort, and Kyoto's impact on reducing emissions will be marginal.
Canada's own efforts, like Kyoto itself, promise more than the country will deliver.
Canada is committed to reducing emissions by 240 megatonnes (a megatonne is a million tonnes) before 2012, a huge drop that will mean a reduction of about 20 per cent compared to 1990 levels. Such a large fall must mean sacrifices, lifestyle changes, and a certain amount of economic dislocation for a modern industrial economy.
And yet, listening to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien yesterday, and reading the government's latest climate change plan, all headaches seemingly disappear. Instead, the plan is full of words and phrases such as "opportunities," "strong economic and employment growth," "enrich our lives," "tremendous potential," with nary a suggestion of anything disruptive or negative.
The whole thing was, and is, vintage Chrétien, a bold policy initiative that will entail sacrifice, but presented in the golden glow of optimism mixed with wing-and-a-prayer hope, topped off with repeated references to "Canadian values."
The 240 megatonne-target is itself a myth. The Chrétien government unilaterally gave Canada credit for clean energy emissions to the United States. These emissions amount to a credit of about 70-million megatonnes -- except that no other signatory to the Kyoto Protocol recognizes as legitimate this Canadian exception.
A 70-megatonne hole therefore exists smack in the middle of the Chrétien government's plan, except that the government's strategy paper buries it in one innocuous paragraph. What Canada will do remains unclear if the other Kyoto signatories continue to say no -- as they will because a huge exception for one country would lead to demands for other dodges.
Then, there are those "carbon sinks," a fancy phrase for forests and agricultural land that soak up carbon in the air. In one of the cleverest bits of negotiating in Canadian diplomatic history, Canada, with its huge landmass, got credit for 30-million megatonnes. That means Canada does not have to reduce emissions by 30-million megatonnes.
Add the 70-million megatonnes for the mythical clean energy credits to the 30-million for the carbon sinks, and, presto, Canada's reduction target drops from 240-million megatonnes to 140.
Getting those 140-million megatonnes is going to be enormously costly -- not to taxpayers directly through higher energy costs, but through government spending.
The first $1.6-billion spent on climate change was supposed to cut emissions by 50 megatonnes. This was the target, but whether the money spent and the programs designed will reach it, remain doubtful.
The second $1-billion -- the money announced yesterday -- is supposed to clip another 20-megatonnes from the total. The money, in the best but old Liberal tradition, amounts to subsidies and incentives for all kinds of groups.
Farmers get $100-million for ethanol subsidies. Homeowners will receive money to retrofit their houses. Municipalities will be sent money for public transit.
You and I will soon be bombarded with messages and exhortations to do our bit. We're each expected to reduce our emissions by a tonne per year, thereby dropping average per capita emissions from five tonnes to four. So, turn off those computers at night. Don't let that car idle. Cycle and walk instead of driving. That sort of thing. We're supposed to contribute collectively a reduction of 30-million megatonnes. The chances of Canadians meeting this government-suggested target by 2012 are nil, another example of the fairy-tale quality of this plan.
The spending of $1-billion for a 20-megatonne reduction is obviously a lousy dollar-per-tonne equation, which is perhaps why the government was so anxious to argue that the spending would somehow induce the private sector, provincial governments and individual Canadians to do even more to combat climate change.
Canada isn't going to reach its Kyoto target, at least not with the plans thus far unveiled. And Kyoto isn't going to do much about world climate change, at least not with so many countries refusing to participate.
It will be up to Paul Martin, who has already expressed skepticism about the plans, to come up with something better and meet the country's objectives -- or to admit the obvious and retreat from them.
