Bali

Tuesday December 4, 2007

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 4, 2007

Aus eager to ratify Kyoto protocol

About 180 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009 and they’re facing all the same old problems.

An ovation for Australia at the UN conference on Climate Change after the country’s new government agreed to immediately ratify the Kyoto Protocol ending Australia’s long-held opposition to the global climate agreement.

Now, the United States is isolated as the only developed nation, which has not agreed to the pact.

However, some say even Australia been too late in agreeing and whatever it will do now will be too little.

Under the Kyoto treaty developing nations have no fixed targets, but the US has been asking India and China to cut their emissions down to binding targets.

Something the two countries, along with other emerging economies like Brazil and South Africa say is unfair and unrealistic.

So, as the two week conference progresses in Bali much of what happens behind closed doors will revolve around nuances, with debates over words like ”commitment” and ”mandatory.” (Source: Toronto Sun) 

 

Wednesday November 6, 2007

Wednesday November 6, 2002By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 6, 2007

Canada criticized at UN climate change summit

Canada continued to be on the receiving end of criticism Monday at the UN climate change summit in Bali, Indonesia, because of its position on the issue.

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, who met with Environment Minister John Baird Monday, questioned Canada’s call for developing nations like China and India to accept binding emissions.

“I personally find it interesting to hear Canada just a little while ago indicating it would not meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol,” said de Boer.

Environment minister of Quebec’s Line Beauchamp and Ontario’s John Gerretsen made it clear that Ottawa does not speak for their provinces – which represent almost two-thirds of the Canadian population while speaking to the press from the Bali conference on climate change.

“Now (it’s) calling on developing countries to take binding reduction targets.”

The focus of the conference is to begin negotiations on an international agreement to fight climate change after 2012 — when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Canada wants the international community to reach a deal by 2009 so that it can be implemented by the time Kyoto expires.

However, Canada is refusing to apply its own binding targets until the big emitters such as the U.S., China, and India do so first.

“We think we need to get all the major emitters on board to ensure that we deliver the goods — that we get absolute reductions around the world on these harmful greenhouse gases,” Baird told CTV’s Canada AM on Monday.

So far, the U.S. and China have made it clear that they won’t accept binding emission targets.

Baird told The Canadian Press on Sunday that it didn’t make sense, for example, to close a coal plant in Ontario and then import more coal power from Michigan.

The end result would be a loss of Canadian jobs and no benefit to the atmosphere, he said. (Source: CTV News)