Climate Hoax Continues

Huge stakes for Canada in climate change deal

The wrong move in Copenhagen could cost our country billions down the road. But here's how we can get it right

Are we really a country of rotten, fossil-fuel people?

Canadians may not think so. But most of the folks gathered here, from protesters to world leaders trying to hammer out a planetary treaty to stop climate change, think, as Shakespeare once noted in Hamlet, something is rotten in Denmark.

Alas, these days they now think it's us.

On Day One of the UN Climate Change Conference, the biggest international environmental meeting ever, Canada was handed the "Fossil of The Day" award by a network of some 400 environmental organizations. We've been getting one of those "Fossils" almost every day since.

In fact, even the mayor of Toronto, David Miller, accepted one. By the end of this conference, Canada will have collected more Fossil Awards, emblazoned with a dinosaur, than any other country.

We've been effectively cast in the European press as a global warming villain. Our Jurassic image sticks because Canada is an unfashionably carbon-intense nation.

Our economy is defined by Alberta's oilsands exports, coal mines and other energy-sucking resource industries. Those venerable sectors that made us one of the world's G8 nations now lend us one of the planet's biggest carbon footprints.

So it's no wonder Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- a heretic in "Hopenhagen" for not signing onto the Kyoto climate treaty that seeks to deeply cut Canada's carbon emissions -- has become a punching bag. He's facing a PR -- and soon to be a trade -- nightmare.

Personally, I don't blame Canada's prime minister for being a slowpoke on this issue. The Kyoto treaty might be good for the planet. Not so much, though, for Canada's immediate bottom line and national interest.

Here's a little background, supplied by Aldyen Donnelly, one of Canada's best analysts on climate change, on the enormous stakes facing Canada.

Under the original Kyoto treaty, which much of Europe wants to extend after this UN conference, countries that don't meet their promises to cut carbon footprints must offset their sins by buying "carbon credits" created by others. Under Kyoto, which Harper rejects, Donnelly estimates Canada might need to buy 1.9 billion carbon credits for its projected carbon emissions from 2008 to 2012.

Supposing a carbon credit goes for $40 apiece, that's a whopping $76-billion bill. Since 90 per cent of carbon credits for sale are generated by Europe, you can see why Europeans descending on Copenhagen like the deal.

It's also easy to see why a Canadian prime minister might hesitate. If Canada gets this wrong, it could mean billions of dollars in wealth moving out of the country every year for generations.

The trouble, however, is Canada can't stay on the sidelines of climate change much longer. The world is going to shift this week. In fact, it already has. Carbon is about to become a major factor in Canada's global trade.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Huge+stakes+Canada+climate+change+deal/2337221/story.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/environment-canada-hit-by-damn-clever-climate-stunt/article1399474/

http://www.canada.com/technology/Fake+website+says+Canada+will+reduce+greenhouse+gases/2338477/story.html