On trade-offs

The Cons' long list of commitments broken grows by one, as PMS' inexplicable hostility toward any greenhouse gas emission trading has led them to cancel promised funding for the clean development mechanism under Kyoto:

The federal Conservatives are cancelling a $1.5-million pledge by the previous Liberal government to help developing countries cut greenhouse emissions under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol.

Abandoning the pledge made at a United Nations conference in Montreal last December is another blow to the teetering climate treaty which the Conservative government still claims to support.

The money would have gone to the treaty's clean development mechanism (CDM), which allows industrialized countries to earn credits by investing in emissions-cutting projects in the Third World.

“Taxpayers' dollars will not be spent on international credits,” said Ryan Sparrow, spokesman for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, in an interview.

“That's what our government's position has been since taking office.”

Needless to say, there's a significant difference between declaring an intention not to use a particular mechanism as Canada's means of reducing its emissions (i.e. purchasing credits as the Cons have indeed planned not to do), and reneging on a commitment to actually create such a mechanism in the first place. And indeed the more sound approach would be to make a genuine commitment to meeting the Kyoto targets based on domestic emission reductions, while also helping to build the institutions which can help other countries to reduce their emissions through the market mechanism.

But once again, the Cons aren't the least bit interested in seeing anything associated with Kyoto succeed. And if that means taking an action which may ensure that developing countries have far less reason to reduce their emissions than they would under a functioning CDM, then so be it - no matter how much that flies in the face of the Cons' constant criticism of Kyoto in failing to reduce emissions from those same developing countries.

Thanks to their hostility toward Kyoto in particular and any global perspective on environmental management in general, the Cons have gone out of their way to avoid even a relatively minimal amount of funding which could pay off many times over in its effect on greenhouse gas emissions. Now, Canada instead stands to pay an awfully high price in the future due to the costs of dealing with global warming. And it'll take a quick change to a government which actually recognizes the risks and rewards involved to reverse that current path.