Kyoto, Kyoto

There is a lot of talk about the Liberal record on climate change and how the Liberals didn’t deliver. Personally, I find it poor logic for the Conservatives to say, well you guys didn’t do anything, so weren’t not going to do anything either… but hey, that’s just me.

Now, when talking about Kyoto it seems to me that everyone ignores the actual Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. The way that Kyoto works, is that a certain percentage of Annex I countries (industrialized countries) have to sign and ratify Kyoto before it actually enters into force, i.e. becomes a legally binding international agreement.

And up until the late 2004, either Russia or the USA had to ratify Kyoto for it to come into effect. At the time everyone was talking about how Kyoto “was dead” or “dying”, etc because it looked like Kyoto was never actually going to happen - that it wouldn’t enter into its legally binding phase.

Finally on November 18th, 2004, Russia ratified and Kyoto entered into force on February 16, 2005. That means that Kyoto has only fully come into existence as a legally binding piece of international law as of last February.

Now what about Canada? We ratified Kyoto in December 2002. So yes, Liberals, as a party that believes in climate change and the importance of reducing greenhouse gases, should have “done better” – done better than what, I’m not sure, but yeah, sure, “done better”.

However, remember that Kyoto only became legally binding in February 2005. Now I don’t know about you, but when I know that a law is about enter into force, I start preparing myself, but I don’t actually go about abiding by the new law until it is actually a law. I think that that is pretty standard behavior.

For example, before wearing seatbelts in the back seat was the law, I didn’t wear my seatbelt. I knew I should have worn my seatbelt because it’s probably better for me, but it feels sort of uncomfortable and I wasn’t use to it, so I didn’t. I didn’t do it until it was the law. Now I wear it all the time, and I don’t even notice it. But I think that is pretty normal behaviour for both people and nation-states for that matter. We don’t usually tend to follow the law until it is ACTUALLY THE LAW.

Climate change and reducing greenhouse gases is sort of like wearing your seatbelt in the back seat. It’s going to be a bit uncomfortable, because it’s going to involve changing our behaviour. Now, I believe in climate change and I want to do something about it, I’m not too sure how, but I’d like my government to tell me how and suggest ways to make changes and reduce emissions.

Climate change is global – emissions don’t respect borders, it’s an international issue and needs an international legally binding framework. This legally binding framework is the only way to make nations abide by the rules and then implement their own national systems to make sure that we, collectively, play by the rules.

Sure Canada could have done better after 2002 – but the real timeframe that we should be judged against is how we performed after Kyoto became international law in February 2005. And I think if you look at the Liberal record from February 2005 onwards, I think you’ll find that we were on the right track to making huge and important changes. Hey, under the leadership of Stephane Dion, we broker a huge international agreement on how to reduce emissions after 2012 (Kyoto requires Annex I countries to reduce emissions only until then).

As a result, Canada achieved enormous international acclaim for negotiating that agreement between over 162 on something as complex as climate change. (Unfortunately, this international acclaim was drowned out by the internal domestic sounds of the last election). However, I think that, that agreement was a great example of Liberal leadership on the climate change file… Now, if only the Conservs could come close to demonstrating that kind of leadership… then, perhaps, we could compare scores.