What? John Howard, George Bush and Stephen Harper would try to undermine global climate change treaties? I don’t believe it…
Greens criticize ‘fraudulent’ APEC deal
Canadian Press
September 11, 2007 at 1:18 PM EDT
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper reached a “fraudulent” agreement on climate change with his fellow Asia-Pacific leaders, the leaders of Green parties in Canada and Australia said Tuesday.
APEC leaders agreed Saturday to a so-called “aspirational goal” of slowing, stopping and eventually reversing greenhouse gas emissions.
But the APEC meetings have always been about trade, Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said.
By trying to set the rules on climate change, the APEC leaders were attempting to circumvent United Nations talks on the environment, Ms. May argued Tuesday during a news conference.
“This is a direct effort to sabotage the upcoming meetings in Bali, Indonesia, at the 13th conference of the parties on climate change,” she said.
“(That’s) where negotiations belong, within the United Nations system.”
Ms. May and Australia’s Green party accused Mr. Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard of trying to diminish global efforts to fight climate change.
Australia’s environmental party, known as the Australian Greens, issued a statement Tuesday calling Canada and Australia spoilers on climate change, suggesting their governments are being swayed by the energy and logging industries in both countries.
“Prime Minister Harper is desperately trying to renege on Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol,” said Greens spokeswoman on climate change, Senator Christine Milne.
“So it’s no wonder he feels at home with Prime Minister Howard, who is equally keen to avoid any binding targets or real action to reduce emissions.”
Mr. Harper has said the Sydney declaration brings together a divided world on the issue of climate change.
Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Howard stressed that the real significance of the APEC statement was that the world’s biggest emitters – China, Russia and the United States – signed on after finding common ground.
Without specific targets or timelines, however, the declaration was immediately panned as a political stunt.
The declaration said APEC member countries would try to improve energy efficiency by at least 25 per cent by 2030.
It also called for forest cover to be increased by at least 20 million hectares by 2020 as a way of fighting climate change.
If that were achieved, the additional trees could store about 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to about 11 per cent of 2004’s global emissions, the statement said.
Is Canada the latest emerging petro-tyranny?
Sorry I don’t have the original link…
PUBLICATION: The Globe and Mail
DATE: 2007.06.11
BYLINE: Andrew Nikiforuk
Every day, the First Law of Petropolitics quietly insinuates its way into
the nation’s political blood like a rogue parasite. The law, first coined
by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, posits that the price of oil
and the quality of freedom invariably travel in opposite directions.
As the price of crude oil goes higher in an oil-dominated kingdom, the
average citizen will experience, over time, less free speech, fewer free
papers and a steady erosion of the rule of law. The reason, argues Mr.
Friedman, is simple: Oil and gas regimes don’t need to tax their citizens
to survive because they can simply tax another tar sands project, so they
really don’t have to listen to their people either.
According to Mr. Friedman, the First Law astutely explains the emerging
petro-tyrannies of Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria and Russia. But should Alberta
and Canada be added to the list?
By any conservative definition Alberta is already a poster child for the
First Law. The government now derives approximately 40 per cent of its
income from oil and gas revenue and has been ruled as a one-party state
for 36 years. It’s no accident that Kevin Taft, the leader of Alberta’s
fledging Liberal Party, has just written a book about Canada’s oil-soaked
kingdom called Democracy Derailed. The derailing has seemingly erased
distinctions between business and civic affairs. Within six months of
quitting his job as Alberta’s No. 1 honcho, Ralph Klein (a.k.a. King
Ralph) became a paid, senior business adviser in the oil patch for Borden
Ladner Gervais LLP. Meanwhile, his former chief of staff, Peter Elzinga,
leapt from the employ of oil-sands giant Suncor only to serve as the
executive director of Alberta’s Conservative Party months later.
Given their one-sidedness, oil regimes fear transparency. This explains
why Alberta operates one of the most secretive governments in Canada. Just
last year Alberta’s Conservative government made it legal for its
petro-tyrants to lock away internal audits for 15 years and for government
ministers to keep their briefing binders out of public view for five
years.
Making propaganda is also one of oil’s many antidemocratic
characteristics. The Alberta government currently spends $14-million a
year and employs 117 full-time staff in its Public Affairs Bureau to tell
Albertans what to think. Not even President George W. Bush employs a
propaganda arm this large in the White House.
The tone of government has also become increasingly authoritarian. Alberta
Premier Ed Stelmach, for instance, declares that he can’t even touch “the
brakes” on rapid development in the tar sands any more than his
counterparts in Venezuela or Russia can, say, touch the brakes on
aggressive nationalization. Alberta has also sacrificed the rule of law.
It seems whenever open public debate threatens to challenge another
government-sanctioned energy project, the Energy and Utilities Board
(EUB), a de facto rubber stamp for disorderly development, shuts down
public participation citing “security” reasons. You never know what a
disenfranchised 80-year-old citizen might say before regulators beholden
to hydrocarbons.
Elected bodies no longer pull much weight in Alberta either. Three times
last year the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, a democratically
elected body representing the hardworking citizens of Fort McMurray,
presented compelling arguments for a slowdown of tar sands development in
order to preserve some sense of community. The EUB, an appointed body,
overruled the democrats every time with the same authoritarian élan
championed by Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile the democratic gap between rulers and ruled grows wider every
day. Polls show that Albertans overwhelming favour absolute reductions for
carbon emissions, yet their government champions calculated inaction.
Rural Albertans have asked for tough groundwater protection but get more
oil and gas drilling in their backyards instead.
Exercising freedom of expression in Alberta can be risky too. When David
Swann, the medical officer of health for the Palliser Health Authority,
endorsed the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, for medical reasons no less, he got
fired with a Venezuelan-like promptness. When Dr. John O’Connor, asked for
a proper health study for first nations living downstream from the oil
sands, Health Canada and Alberta Health, complained to the College of
Physicians and Surgeons that he was “agitating the local population.”
Alberta’s politics mirror a global phenomenon. In a recent study of 105
oil-rich states between 1971 and 1997, political scientist Michael Ross
consistently found that reliance on oil exports made a country less
democratic regardless of its size, location or ideology. Oil corrupts and
corrupts absolutely. Given that Canada is now ruled by Albertans and
claims to be an “emerging energy superpower” as well as a “secure source
of almost limitless energy resources” for North America, can Canada defy
the axiom of our age?
Politicians serve those first who deliver the most revenue.
© COPYRIGHT 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.
