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Putin puts last spike in kyoto { December 3 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id=D3626ABF-8B32-4024-8E4E-D7AC78C72245http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id=D3626ABF-8B32-4024-8E4E-D7AC78C72245
Putin puts last spike in Kyoto
Terence Corcoran
National Post
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Eventually somebody is going to have to stand up and formally declare the Kyoto Protocol to be dead. Now might be the time, since it's best to clean these global policy carcasses off the scene before rigor mortis sets in. Yesterday, for the umpteenth time in two months, a Russian official announced his government isn't prepared to ratify the 10-year-old United Nations plan to control the world's weather by controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking in Moscow just as another UN climate change extravaganza was starting up in Milan, Andrei Illarionov, President Vladimir Putin's economic advisor, said Kyoto is inconsistent with Russia's growth objectives. "Adhering to the provisions of the Kyoto Treaty and achieving economic growth are incompatible," he said.
Russian officials, including Mr. Putin, have said this before, but now the message appears to be sinking in that Russia means it and, as a result, Kyoto is kaput. Without Russia, the treaty cannot formally come into force. Not that it matters. The terms of Kyoto, not to mention its underlying science and economics, are so far off reality by now that even if the protocol were to survive in some form it would signify nothing.
Even Canada, the Boy Scout of Kyoto ratification under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and David Anderson, his Environment Minister, has abandoned the treaty in all practical respects. Canada cannot and will not meet its original Kyoto carbon reduction targets. And yesterday Paul Martin added to the shakiness of Canada's support with the observation that Canada still does not have a plan in place, even though the country has spent $3.6-billion working up schemes to control greenhouse emissions.
Standing on the firmest logical ground not always held by Mr. Chrétien, Mr. Martin said: "You need a plan to determine whether you can meet the targets." Canada, he said, had not yet developed that plan.
The United States, from the presidency on down, has firmly rejected the accord. Kyoto is "an unrealistic and ever-tightening regulatory straightjacket, curtailing energy consumption," said Paula Dobriansky, U.S. undersecretary for global affairs in the Financial Times yesterday.
The U.S. Senate recently handily defeated a bill sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John McCain that would have introduced Kyoto-style mechanisms to control carbon emissions.
The world's Greens, milling through the corridors and meeting rooms among 4,000 delegates -- 4,000! -- at the UN climate conference in Milan, are predictably alarmed over the ominous implications of Russia's persistent rejection of Kyoto. If Kyoto fails, there goes the biggest Green gravy train in history.
In a joint denial-mode news release, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund tried to paint Russia's Kyoto stance as nothing but pre-election posturing by Russian politicians and leaders. Once Duma elections later this week and a presidential vote next April are over, "Russia is expected to ratify," said Greenpeace and WWF operatives in Milan.
The political analysis behind this theory seems a little shaky. As Russians struggle with their daily economic and political travails, are they really fixated on Kyoto as a wedge issue? "If Putin backs Kyoto, I'm voting for the Communists." The unhappy alternative implication of the Greenpeace election theory is that Kyoto does not have popular support in Russia, and Putin would be crazy to ratify the agreement going into an election.
Whatever Russian voters think of Kyoto, they may know a thing or two about the need for economic growth and their country's long road to catch up with the West. The country needs growth rates of up to 10% a year to make real progress, and endless dickering over Kyoto emissions and credits with UN officials and global climate regimes is widely seen as a growth killer.
President Putin has made this point on numerous occasions, each of them dismissed by Kyoto proponents as politicking and grandstanding. But he has been remarkably consistent. "Our experts are concerned that the ratification will lead to problems which will restrict economic growth," he said in early November. "We cannot accept such a position."
The same theme was struck more clearly yesterday by his economic advisor in Moscow. If Russia adopts Kyoto emissions targets, Mr. Illarionov estimates growth will have to be limited to 2.5% a year. But if Russia wants to double its GDP, he said, it must have 7% growth per year for 10 years.
To grow, Russia needs ever greater volumes of energy. A recent Financial Post commentary reported Russia's greenhouse gas emissions increased 13% a year in recent years. Under current economic growth objectives, considered necessary to lift Russia out of Third World status, Russia's carbon emissions by 2008 could be 6% higher than they were in 1990. Russia's official Kyoto target envisioned emissions at 20% below 1990 by 2008.
Something's got to give here, and Mr. Putin clearly isn't going to let it come out of his country's growth. If there's an election issue here, that might be a good one for Mr. Putin. What do we want: Kyoto or growth?
The original Kyoto theory claimed that since Russia had lost massive amounts of carbon emissions with the collapse of its grotesque Soviet industrial base, it would open up a big flood of cash under a global carbon credit system. Rich Western countries and corporations would flock to Russia, sending billions of dollars to mop up the country's big emissions gap.
Now there is no emissions gap in Russia for the West to buy. Even if there were, there is growing doubt in Russia that Europe, Canada and Japan are ready to start shipping billions to Russia while their own growth and Kyoto targets are out of kilter.
None of this even begins to address the growing Kyoto scientific swamp, something Mr. Illarionov raised yesterday. He said Kyoto has no scientific foundation, adding it "dooms Russia to poverty, weakness and backwardness."
Maybe Greenpeace can take comfort in the idea that Russia's endorsement is just a matter of time and that the great Kyoto gravy train will keep on rolling and guarantee 4,000 delegates to Milan jobs for life. Looking at the wreckage from here, however, this train is going nowhere.
© Copyright 2003 National Post
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