Alice in Kyotoland
Peter Foster
National Post
Psst. Did we get a deal for you! That appears to be Ottawa's spin on last week's murky agreement in Bonn to keep the Kyoto zombie lurching forward. Don't worry, whirrs Ottawa to industry and Alberta, we didn't sell you down the river. Indeed, we did such a good job at weaseling out of the ludicrously rash commitments we made in 1997 that there will hardly be any pain at all. It might only cost pocket change, say 5- or 10-bill. Indeed, we did such a good job that we just can't release the details; it's not diplomatic to gloat. Also, the oil industry would be beaming from ear to ear, while Greenpeace would have a hissy fit. So just shut up and trust us (and with a bit of luck, the whole thing will go away).
With luck, it will, but Kyoto's aftermath becomes ever-stranger. If one were to seek literary references, Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift and Kafka would all have to be in the starting lineup. How could one not invoke Alice in Wonderland when listening to Ottawa's claims that, although Canada committed to reduce greenhouse gases to a level 6% below those of 1990 by 2012, and although we are some 13% above 1990 levels, we are already halfway there!
Meanwhile, the great trick of the Bonn meetings was to mobilize Canada's forests -- like Birnam Wood creeping up on Macbeth -- so that they could be factored in as carbon "sinks." "Kitchen-sink" was a kind of British drama. "Carbon sink" has become a North American comedy. We have already glimpsed the rich satirical potential in the creation some years ago of Costa Rican Carbon Bonds. Emerging from the fertile brain of Maurice Strong -- cordial MC to the UN wonkasphere -- these pieces of paper promise not to destroy a swathe of forest. Something like: Pay-up-or-I'll-shoot-this-dog.
It is difficult to see how Canada's forests can represent a net reduction in its carbon dioxide emissions. But then, the point isn't to comply with Kyoto; it is to avoid it. And we have yet to see those devilish details.
The other key "concessions" won by Ottawa and its allies in Bonn were allegedly over emissions trading, under which major greenhouse gas emitters are allowed to trade permits. This had been pushed hard by the Americans as a "market-based, least-cost" solution. Inevitably it was not pushed so hard at Bonn because President Bush had already washed his hands of the process. But a "cap-and-trade" system is a parody of a free market. Its ultimate objectives are set by political and bureaucratic overlords. It equates to the totalitarian definition of initiative: "finding the best way to carry out an order." Moreover, resistance would ultimately be futile. This is where we get to Kafka.
Who will oversee the gigantic bureaucratic machine that Kyoto has always implied? Who will set the caps? Who will police the emissions? Who will be the trading system's "Securities Commission?" What penalties will there be? How will they be enforced?
These are not merely tedious details. They imply new global agencies of stunning -- indeed, unprecedented -- power, displaying all the competence and honesty that we have come to expect from the UN. Of course, bureaucrats, consultants and policy wonks don't see it that way; they rub their hands at a huge, well-paid, well-tenured, lifelong challenge. They, after all, are well used to attempting the impossible. They thrive on well-intended intervention, not on achieving objectives.
Russia is cited by Ottawa as a possible trading partner of enormous potential. It is one of the rip-roaring successes of the Kyoto system. It has managed to achieve stunning emissions savings by the simple expedient of economic collapse (This point deserves more than parody. Some of Kyoto's strongest supporters do not regard economic collapse as entirely undesirable. Mr. Strong, for example, has on numerous occasions suggested that an economic meltdown might be just what the world needs to bring it to his senses.)
In this regard, say Ottawa's spinners, the absence of the United States from the Kyoto agreement may be great news, since U.S. companies won't be bidding up those Russian non-emissions! We might be able to snap up permits at a mere $2 a tonne! But although he might not have signed on to Kyoto, Mr. Bush is still under enormous pressure to take action on global warming, and emissions trading remains a clear and present danger.
Among many other devils-in-the-details, emissions trading could create powerful vested interests. The vision put forward by some U.S. analysts is of a world run on the same system as Manhattan cab licensing, with incumbents violently opposed to further permits being issued. Just imagine the world run by ultra-Machiavellian socialist Manhattan cab drivers with PhDs. There would be no place to hide, unless you headed for the carbon sink. |
