As you may or may not know, these are the last days of a huge UN environmental summit taking place in Durban, South Africa. So far, discussions have yet to reveal a single interesting solution, even though researchers stress that delaying action will lead to higher costs and more damage done to the environment – possibly irreversible.
Not only are there not any good news, but bad news seem to be showing up on a daily basis. Canada has backed out of the only international climate management pact ever signed, the Kyoto pact, dismissing it as a thing of the past, even though no official action has been taken in this direction. In order to excuse themselves, Canadians asked for a new pact that is to be signed by all major countries, including China and India. Russia and Japan officially agreed with this, but guess what – the US never even ratified the Kyoto pact, let alone a new one. Kind of says a lot about the ‘leading country in green energy’, doesn’t it ?
“Kyoto is the past,” Environment Minister Peter Kent told reporters in Ottawa, describing the decision by Canada’s previous Liberal government to sign on to the protocol as “one of the biggest blunders they made.”
The Conservative government has been attacked on numerous occasions by groups who accused them of recklessly dealing with Canada’s huge oil fields and totally ignoring the environment. Just so you can get an idea – the Kyoto pact obliged Canada to cut emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012; in 2009, Canada had a 17 percent increase over 1990 levels, mostly because of an increase in oil extraction in Alberta.
