Kyoto: Where do you stand on it?

In favour of Kyoto, not in favour of a pointless election.

I am very much against the Kyoto Accord.

Standing behind Kyoto 100%.

I'm behind it, and I am doing my best to join in on the "One Tonne" challenge. I have a fluorescent lightbulb in my computer room (the only light that really is on a lot during the evening) and whenever I am out of the room, I turn the lights off. There are normally only 2 lights on at a time in my house. If my car will be sitting for more than 10seconds, I don't idle, I simply turn my car off. How can anyone be against this? Honestly, I think you'd have to be high to be against Kyoto. I also recycle. All people have to do is make smarter individual choices without threatening our economy.

I am also 100% behind Kyoto. I think it is in the interest of all (except maybe the greedy fat cats making crazy money off of oil) to take measures to protect our environnement. This is a small step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done, especially in this era of the over population of our planet.

I am behind Kyoto but am not entirely confident in the governments plan to meet the objectives.

Homer J. Simpson said:

I am behind Kyoto but am not entirely confident in the governments plan to meet the objectives.

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Don't wait for a government plan, make your own choices. Recycle all that you can, don't idle your car as much, turn off lights in your house, and buy fluorescent lightbulbs.

Do you know that if every Canadian household replaced one normal lightbulb with a fluorescent lightbulb, it would be the same as taking 80 000 vehicles off of our roads? My 13W Fluorescent lightbulb gives off as much light as a 60W conventional lightbulb. That's almost 5x less energy being used. I also just touched the fluorescent lightbulb after it has been on for the last hour, and it's barely even warm! A typical fluorescent lightbulb should last roughly 7 years. Some more, some less- depending on which type you buy.

^I have, in another thread of which I can't remember the name I told everybody how we reduced our electricity consumption by 35% just by replacing lightbulbs, reducing leakage of electric devices like phone chargers, lowering the thermostat, buying low power usage appliences, installing motors in fans that are part of the furnace and water heater.

We also decreased our usage of natural gas by getting rid of the old furnace and getting a new one as well as replacing the old school hot water heater with an "on demand" system that heats water up as you need it.

Of all the people in my household, none commute to work by car. Two including myself take the TTC, one walks and the other Tele-Commutes.

It is not the average person that needs to be reined in by the Gov't, its big companies and coal fire generating stations like Nanicoke.

I am strongly opposed to the Kyoto accord. Kyoto is a feel good political tool to enhance canadians feelings of "moral superiority". Canada right now contributes 2% of the worlds airborn polutants right now if I can remember and reducing our own emmisions will not even dent the global polution levels. Look at it this way, Kyoto is trying to cut a sliver out of an ever expanding pie. This is all not to mention that Kyoto is based off of highly disputed early 1990's climatology research that supported the hockey stick phenominon. I believe that 17000 US scientists signed on in not supporting the basis of kyoto. Another major problem with Kyoto is its implimentation, a majority of canada's contibution to kyoto will be by purchasing polution credits from 2nd world countries like Russia. I don't see why canada should funnel billions of dollars out of this country to "fight polution" when that money would be best spent in canada on research on climatology. I have no problem with cutting polution, the health benifits are enough to sell me. But Canada needs a "made in canada" approach that doesn't penalize our industry; industries that every canadian benifits from. This deal with the conservatives voting against a budget implimentation bill that involved kyoto is true, however if you look at the bill more closely you may understand why the conservatives would strongly opose it, even more than kyoto itself. Basically the liberals want to lump C02 emissions into the enviromental laws. C02 is what plants use, it is what humans produce, to lump this into environmental law would be therefore causing every human being, dog, cat, bird, in canada to be breaking the law.

So I don't have a huge problem with the intents of kyoto, but this treaty is not good for canada, it is not good for business and is definately not good for most of our parents. Lets do a made in canada solution based on sound science and not an international agreement that is heavy in words but light in content and practicality.

Well Canada is, what, the 8th largest oil consumer in the world? Canada has the highest consumption of energy per capita. The whole of Canada uses more energy than the entire continent of Africa. It's a start.

I agree, though, a made in Canada approach would be better. But excuses like the one Bush made is unacceptable- along the lines of "It will damage our economy."

Well Canada is, what, the 8th largest oil consumer in the world? Canada has the highest consumption of energy per capita. The whole of Canada uses more energy than the entire continent of Africa. It's a start.

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As far as Canada having a high consumption of energy, a lot of that is simply because of our climate/location/density. It is naturally going to take more energy to produce/disribute goods. It's far more practical for many to drive more often since walking/bus/bikes are not an option for a sizable part of the year.

90SHO said:

As far as Canada having a high consumption of energy, a lot of that is simply because of our climate/location/density. It is naturally going to take more energy to produce/disribute goods. It's far more practical for many to drive more often since walking/bus/bikes are not an option for a sizable part of the year.

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I wouldn't necessariliy call that a great analogy. Russia has almost 5x Canada's population, but barely consumes twice as much oil per day. Yes I know it's not as developed but we're talking about 140million+ people versus 32million people. China has 40x the population of Canada, but doesn't even consume 3x as much oil per day. Yes I know China is still not developed but there is still a good chunk of it that is. Regardless, they still have 1.3billion people. Germany has almost 3x the population of Canada, but doesn't even consume 20% more oil per day.

The government has announced that their plan for Kyoto will cost in between $8-10 billion. it includes plans to cut automobile emissions dramatically, fund environmental projects provinces have, and create a west to east-east to west electrical grid system across this country to lessen the demand of those provinces that rely on polluting power plants (coal, natural gas, etc.) and instead supply them with the power from the provinces that have hydroelectricity.

I tend to say that we should use the money to build retrofit plants, better efficeny etc. THe guise of Kyoto and giving money to Russia for instance is stupid as it wont make us less environmentaly friendly

mr.x said:

The government has announced that their plan for Kyoto will cost in between $8-10 billion. it includes plans to cut automobile emissions dramatically, fund environmental projects provinces have, and create a west to east-east to west electrical grid system across this country to lessen the demand of those provinces that rely on polluting power plants (coal, natural gas, etc.) and instead supply them with the power from the provinces that have hydroelectricity.

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This plan reeks of the National Energy program of the Trudeau liberals. Transfering electical energy across the country would be very expensive and extremely wastefull. The amount of energy loss on these high voltage energy lines is quite high and therefore I feel that this is a retarded plan. If they plan on getting rid of these "evil" coal and natural gas plants with what? For one, hydroelectricity is not on demand energy, nor is wind energy for that matter. We need coal, natural gas and nuclear energy as "running power" since we cannot store large sums of energy economically or efficiently. Hydrogen is automatically out because it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than what you recieve in return in a fuel cell. Plus fuel cells to polute greenhouse gasses that some reason the Liberal government wants to tax. Canada will not be able to meet these kyoto targets without harming the economy, or funneling billions of dollars out of the country in polution credits.

Kyoto is a joke!, lets do a made in canada and create localized programs in our cities because it isn't the rural canadians jobs that should be affected by these socialist ideolistic urban residents that don't even know what is at stake.

$10-billion Kyoto plan tabled in Parliament
Wednesday, April 13, 2005 Updated at 4:37 PM EST

Canadian Press and Globe and Mail Update



The Liberal government finally revealed Wednesday its plan to meet Kyoto targets -- spending approximately $10-billion over the next seven years.

The plan requires annual reductions of 270 million tonnes a year within the next seven years, as reported by The Globe and Mail last month.

However, it does not specify how much of that will be obtained by cutting actual pollution and how much by purchasing emissions credits from poor countries.

The plan calls on large emitters to cut emissions by 36 megatonnes, substantially less than the 55 megatonnes called for in the original Kyoto plan.

Morag Carter, the Director of the Climate Change Program at the David Suzuki Foundation pointed out that the plan means the average Canadian will bear the brunt of cutting emissions.

"With our calculations, 74 per cent of targets will be achieved through individual contributions to cut emissions but Canadians are only responsible for 23 per cent of emissions," Ms. Carter told globeandmail.com.

The plan's centrepiece is a $1-billion Climate Fund, which could be increased to up to $5-billion in coming years. It would be used to fund emissions-cutting projects.

The plan is intended to "mobilize Canadians in a national effort" to create a low-carbon economy, and will require frequent revision as times goes on, officials said.

Some environmentalists were highly critical.

"There are significant problems with the plan," Ms. Carter said. "There are no details of how the milestones will be met and there is an absence of instruments in measuring success."

Dale Marshall, of the David Suzuki Foundation, told the Canadian Press that there is "a really disturbing lack of detail" in much of the plan.

"One of the major flaws of the plan is the weak targets for industry which puts an incredible burden on the rest of the Canadian economy," he said.

The details on cost estimates and implementation were revealed Wednesday afternoon by Environment Minister Stéphane Dion, Natural Resources Minister John Efford and Industry Minister David Emerson.

The opposition parties have criticized the Liberals for delaying the announcement, considering that the Kyoto accord took effect nearly two months ago.

Canada signed the agreement, which commits 55 nations, in 2002.

A main component of the plan is to replace coal-fired generating plants with cleaner electricity sources.

It also includes cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions by using new technologies that capture carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape during petroleum production.

Matthew Branley, the director of climate change for the Pembina Institute, spoke to CBC Newsworld on Wednesday about the plan.

"Essentially what the government is expected to announce is it's going to be spending money to essentially purchase emission reductions ... and also through purchasing international credits," said Mr. Branley, a critic of the Kyoto plan.

"Because Canada really has wasted so much time since the Kyoto conference — more than seven years now, our emissions are still rising. We're going to have to make substantial use of purchases of international credits to meet our targets as well."

For. We can drag our feet by drafting other plans and thus doing nothing, or we can start doing something about a very immidiate problem. My only concern is that it doesn't go far enough. The Greens, I think, have some great ideas in this field (as they should); taxing inefficiency and providing subsidies to energy efficiency is a good way to start doing more.

mr.x said:

The government has announced that their plan for Kyoto will cost in between $8-10 billion. ...

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I'm sure there will be government kickbacks to Liberal freindly companies who take part in this!!!

I am for Kyoto, but against our goverments plan.