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THE CANADIAN DEBATE
KYOTO
1997
In December 1997 thousands of delegates from 160 countries
came together to hammer out a plan to stop global
warming. Their goal was to cut back the greenhouse
gases that human beings were pumping into the atmosphere
- dramatically. It was a historic moment - the culmination
of almost half a century of studying the impact of
manmade emission on the environment. And Kyoto's mandate
was to find a solution to global warming once and
for all - and come up with a plan that would have
obligations and consequences for everyone. Many people
there believed that they were saving the world. (Read
more CBC News Online coverage about the Kyoto protocol)
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The
1997 Kyoto conference.
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On
December 5th a secret message (read
the note online) was sent from Canada's chief
negotiator to the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa.
It warned against committing Canada to a too-ambitious
target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A proposal
to cut emissions by 3% had already been greeted with
hostility by Western provinces and industry.
But when word came back from Ottawa, negotiators learned
that Canada's target would be twice that - 6% below
1990 levels.
BAD WEATHER
Most scientists agree that the world's climate is
changing dramatically. According to a United Nations
study the 1990's were one of the most lethal decades
on record for weather. Five thousand natural disasters
claimed almost a million lives. (download
the study on the IPCC site)
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The
last two decades have been the hottest on record.
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The
20th century was the warmest in the past thousand
years. Worst case predictions are that average temperatures
could increase by as much as 5 degrees over the next
100 years.
Canada's minister of the Environment David Anderson
says the stakes are enormous, "Think back over
the last few decades and our concern over things like
nuclear war...if climate change has the impact that
scientists are predicting, that is exactly the type
of absolutely destructive force that we may be facing."
GREENHOUSE
GASES
It's clear that the world is getting warmer. The question
is why? Although it's a matter for debate, the vast
majority of the world's leading scientists believe
that global warming has been accelerated by the emission
of greenhouse gases. Specifically, the carbon dioxide
that is released by fossil fuels as we drive our cars,
heat our homes and run plants to generate electricity.
One of Canada's most respected climate experts, Gordon
McBean says the amount is enormous, "As humans
we are now putting about seven billion tonnes of carbon
per year into the atmosphere. That number has increased
dramatically in the last one hundred years and is
still increasing." (CBC News Online Backgrounder:
Turning
Up the Heat on Global Warming)
HOKEY SCIENCE
It's a widely accepted theory that
the trapped carbon dioxide warms the earth and destabilizes
the climate. But there are some who say that these
weather diasasters are perfectly natural. Alberta's
Environment Minister, Lorne Taylor, "I think
that's a bunch of what I would call hokey science.
The South Saskatchewan River was dry in 1862. Are
you going to tell me that that was caused by global
warming?" (read an alternative view by the Cato
Institute)
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Canada
uses more energy
per capita than any other country in the world.
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HOOKED
ON FOSSILS
There's no doubt that Canada is hooked oo fossil fuels.
No other country in the world consumes more energy
per capita - from coal-fired plants to gas-guzzling
SUVs. It's a habit that other developed countries
have managed to break. In Europe the landscape has
partly given way to clean energy windmills instead
of coal belching power plants. Today,
the average European burns off far less fossil fuel
then the average North American.
That point was hammered home at the 1997 Economic
Summit by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl who openly
admonished the US President Bill Clinton and Canada's
Jean Chretien to clean up their acts. After that,
it seemed, Jean Chretien was determined to do as well
- or better - than the Americans.
more...the
fallout from Kyoto
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