How the APP stole Climate Change from Cindy Lou Who
It has gotten to the point where the Prime Minister just likes to join organizations that end with "P P" - of course, PP is our first emission when we are babies.
Far be it from me to say that the Prime Minister is doing something right, but the new coalition of the willing on climate change is, at least in part, a step in the right direction. I am not thrilled at the prospect of not having actual targets or a recourse mechanism for China and India - but having these particular countries at the table is an important first step.
Also- and let's get his over and done with - Kyoto, as the primary international lever for the reduction of anthropogenic gases, is dead. My views on the accord notwithstanding, as a matter of fact - the accord was a nothing more than a framework convention that would create a mechanism for monitoring and encouraging GHG abatement. In many ways, it has accomplished that goal, or at least gone a long way to pushing the conversation to the most important elements of the next ten years in battling climatic change: Energy Efficiency, Energy Sustainability and (you guessed it) World Economic and Population Growth. It isn't about cutting emissions - it should be about changing them.
Bluntly- it was a fools errand to suggest that a country whose economy grew by 25% since 1990 and whose population grew by 15% since 1990 would be in any position to reduce its emissions at all. People need power, the generation of which remains the number one source of emissions (at least in Canada.) Stop using your air conditioner, and we would go a long way to meeting our goals- but I digress.
In a post Kyoto debate, it would seem that many of our leaders have learned the virtues of conservation and intensity. But that isn't the end of it - there is a win/win for the first world that would create economic growth - and it was in Kyoto - and unfortunately is absent from the discourse on the APP.
The Clean Development Mechanism - CDM - wasn't perfect. It provided credit to countries that provided "clean technology" to developing countries. Instead of "credit" why don't we just provide MONEY. In a world shaped by Roddenberry, we can learn from past mistakes and provide technology to those who have not yet developed it themselves. The Prime Directive for Climate Change has to be solving a global problem - notwithstanding the technological ramifications for providing technology to those who can't develop it on their own.
Far be it from me to say that the Prime Minister is doing something right, but the new coalition of the willing on climate change is, at least in part, a step in the right direction. I am not thrilled at the prospect of not having actual targets or a recourse mechanism for China and India - but having these particular countries at the table is an important first step.
Also- and let's get his over and done with - Kyoto, as the primary international lever for the reduction of anthropogenic gases, is dead. My views on the accord notwithstanding, as a matter of fact - the accord was a nothing more than a framework convention that would create a mechanism for monitoring and encouraging GHG abatement. In many ways, it has accomplished that goal, or at least gone a long way to pushing the conversation to the most important elements of the next ten years in battling climatic change: Energy Efficiency, Energy Sustainability and (you guessed it) World Economic and Population Growth. It isn't about cutting emissions - it should be about changing them.
Bluntly- it was a fools errand to suggest that a country whose economy grew by 25% since 1990 and whose population grew by 15% since 1990 would be in any position to reduce its emissions at all. People need power, the generation of which remains the number one source of emissions (at least in Canada.) Stop using your air conditioner, and we would go a long way to meeting our goals- but I digress.
In a post Kyoto debate, it would seem that many of our leaders have learned the virtues of conservation and intensity. But that isn't the end of it - there is a win/win for the first world that would create economic growth - and it was in Kyoto - and unfortunately is absent from the discourse on the APP.
The Clean Development Mechanism - CDM - wasn't perfect. It provided credit to countries that provided "clean technology" to developing countries. Instead of "credit" why don't we just provide MONEY. In a world shaped by Roddenberry, we can learn from past mistakes and provide technology to those who have not yet developed it themselves. The Prime Directive for Climate Change has to be solving a global problem - notwithstanding the technological ramifications for providing technology to those who can't develop it on their own.
And that is where the money comes in. It is somewhat ironic that Nuclear comes up now - given that India all but stole AECL's technology and the Chinese converted it into their mechanism for the development of its military Nuclear technology. Notwithstanding those facts, AECL's primary business model remains - sell, build, repair, repeat. In the 1993-2007 when they sold exactly zero reactors, they made a shit load of money servicing (known as refurbishing) the ones they had previously sold, and the ones in India.
The position isn't limited to Nuclear. The Norwegians are MILES ahead of Canada on Tidal, Wind, Biomass (to give three examples) but haven't had the access to export it. Kyoto was supposed to provide that through the CDM.
The APP is a collaborative effort to say the least - lets export technology to the partners who want it, and get going. China is opening a new coal fired plant every third day, and that is not helping anyone. They want to catch up - let's catch them up clean.
posted by Atlas Hugged at
6:00 a.m.
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