Environmentalists can't save Kyoto: Without Russia, the global deal is dead and green lobbyists have to accept it

EDMONTON JOURNAL

Environmentalists can't save Kyoto: Without Russia, the global deal is dead and green lobbyists have to accept it

Friday 5 December 2003, p. A16

The Kyoto accord is dead, accept it.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most trusted economic adviser announced that Russia would not ratify the global emissions deal.

Russian ratification is essential if the deal is to become enforceable. The 1997 treaty requires at least 55 countries responsible for at least 55 per cent of the world's greenhouse emissions to adopt the scheme before it acquires the force of law.

To date, 119 countries have ratified. But, the United States with its 36 per cent withdrew in 2001. Now that Russia, with its 17 per cent, is also out, no combination of the other signatories can push Kyoto over the 55 per cent threshold. Together, the most emissions all the other participating nations can represent is 47 per cent.

It was amusing, though, watching Kyoto's Canadian defenders running around Wednesday claiming that Russia's "nyet" did not mean no.

Russia is holding parliamentary elections next week and presidential elections next April, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club insisted. After that, just watch, Russia will ratify. Besides, the radical environmentalists contended, the withdrawal statement was made by a mere aide, not by Putin.

Their pleas had the desperate tone of unreality of a jilted lover who is sure he can win back his former love if she will agree to see him just one more time.

Our Liberal government's radical environmentalist, Environment Minister David Anderson, scoffed at the news that Kyoto had expired. He sneered that Andrei Illarionov, the Putin adviser who announced Russia's pullout was "saying nothing he hasn't said before and it's nothing to be alarmed about given that there's a Russian election on." Moreover, Anderson added, Illarionov is "an economic adviser to the president -- he's not the president."

If you notice a striking similarity between Anderson's comments and those of Canada's environmental lobbyists, it's no coincidence. Anderson and the radical greens not only think alike, they feed off one another. Anderson ensures their "research" is richly funded. He permits them to run joint government-environmentalist propaganda campaigns and even allows them to write joint communiques and maintain joint websites -- all underwritten by tax dollars, of course.

Even international super-environmentalist Maurice Strong, who will be a trusted adviser to incoming prime minister Paul Martin, maintained, "It is not the death blow. It cannot be the death blow."

But it is.

Following Tuesday's bad news for greens, pro-Kyoto types clucked and preened Wednesday when Russia's deputy economy minister, Mukhamed Tsikhanov, said Russia might still ratify Kyoto next year, once its Duma and presidential votes were concluded.

This merely prompted Illarionov to clarify Thursday that he was speaking for President Putin when he rejected Kyoto. "The statement was made physically by me, but the words I was using were those of the Russian president."

Then, as if to make it crystal clear that he, not Tsikhanov, was Putin's official voice, Illarionov added, "The deputy economy minister is mistaken ... What he said was the position of the Russian Federation in August."

This news should have chastened the ninth UN Kyoto conference going on right now in Milan. But nothing deters a liberal or socialist armed with a bad idea -- and a lavish expense account.

Kyoto is dead. There is no point to the two-week-long conference in northern Italy. But the suites have been rented, the champagne uncorked, the shrimp chilled, the frequent-flyer miles collected. There's no going back.

Besides, the delegates -- there are 4,000 of them -- mostly live in the same unreal world as Canada's green lobbyists and politicians. They are still confident, despite Illarionov's latest, firm statement, that Russia will put its seal on Kyoto, someday. And that's enough to justify continuing to meet two or three times a year in the world's most beautiful cities and hotels to debate a dead deal, without end.

But Russia's objections to Kyoto are threefold, not merely economic. Russia's economy has recently begun to grow rapidly -- in the range of seven to 10 per cent a year. It could double by 2010, bringing Russian per capita income on a par with that of its eastern and central European neighbours. To bind itself to Kyoto now, Russia would have to forego such growth. That's enough justification for remaining outside Kyoto.

But speaking to another UN world conference on climate change -- this one in Moscow in October -- Putin let it be known that he doubted the entire global warming theory. Then one Russian scientist after another, including the head of the Russian academy of science, explained his doubts about whether man-made emissions were causing the Earth to warm unnaturally or not. One Russian even accused his western colleagues of having become "scientifically correct," an apparent allusion to the political correctness that demands politicians, researchers and reporters ignore social facts which might undermine the prevailing liberal bias.

Then, Putin added that even if Kyoto could be amended to preserve Russia's economy and if it could be proven that human actions were behind global warming, Kyoto would do nothing to solve it. "Even 100 per cent compliance won't reverse climate change," Putin stated.

If only Canada's politicians -- even the opposition Canadian Alliance and Alberta's provincial government -- could be as honest and brave about the Kyoto sham, both economic and scientific.

_______________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Editorial Board Member, National Post

Index to some of Lorne Gunter's articles

On global warming
On other issues

NEW YORK — Before the United Nations can save the planet, it needs to clean up its own house. And as scandal after scandal has unfolded over the past decade, from Oil for Food to procurement fraud to peacekeeper rape, the size of that job has become stunningly clear.

But any understanding of the real efforts that job entails should begin with a look at the long and murky career of Maurice Strong, the man who may have had the most to do with what the U.N. has become today, and still sparks controversy even after he claims to have cut his ties to the world organization. (Full Story — Off-site)

Fight Kyoto

by Ezra Levant

Book information

Interview with Ezra Levant, author of the new book Fight Kyoto, transcript by J. L. Jackson, broadcast December 9, 2002 on the Cat Country Radio show Agritalk with Jim Fisher.

Make sure you do not miss the excerpt that deals with Maurice Strong, the real power behind Kyoto: "Maurice Strong: A Dr. Evil-style strategist. Owner of a 200,000-acre New Age Zen colony [in Colorado]. Designer of a proposal to "consider" requiring licences to have babies. The architect of the Kyoto Protocol." It is an eye-opener, especially the strong ties to the powers in Canadian politics. For example: Maurice Strong gave Paul Martin his first job during university break "and made him and his family unimaginably rich."

At Ezra Levant's website there are more links to articles that are based on excerpts from his book.

International Man of Mystery: Who Is Maurice Strong?
The adventures of Maurice Strong & Co. illustrate the fact that nowadays you don't have to be a household name to wield global power. ...

Meet Maurice Strong
Maurice Strong: The new guy in your future! By Henry Lamb January, 1997....
Maurice Strong, "Stockholm to Rio: A Journey Down a Generation."

Maurice Strong, Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Earth Council
Earth Council Alliance

Strong, Maurice F., 1929- . Papers, 1948-2000: Guide
Harvard University Library

Dossier - Maurice Strong
... Policy Research. Maurice Strong. Maurice Strong is a senior advisor to United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Anan.

The Earth Charter's Unholy Ark

With today's emphasis on "honoring the past and imagining the future," many see nothing wrong with redesigning the "memories" of the past to reflect their vision of the future. Many environmental visionaries have called for "new stories" that replace the old truths and redirect our values. The message in this new ark serves the purpose well. It puts new meaning into old memories and usurps the honor inherent in the original. But that's part of the UN plan. There is little appreciation for God's law and His treasured covenant (the binding agreement He made with His people long ago) in our pluralistic, postmodern age.

To fill the vacuum, even staunch Communists such as Mikhail Gorbachev call for spiritual revival. They envision a union of religions, all molded and conformed to a global, earth-centered spirituality. The gods, spirits and pantheistic forces of indigenous religions fit right in. Long a promoter of the Earth Charter and its socialist regulations, the former Soviet ruler knows well that strategic visual images inspire the masses and speed transformation. [See The State of the World according to Gorbachev]

So does Maurice Strong, the powerful founder and leader of the Earth Council. Though usually hidden behind the scenes, Strong is no minor player in this global contest for the minds of the masses. He led the UN Environmental Programme, directed the 1972 and 1992 UN Conferences on the Environment and Development, founded Planetary Citizens, directed the World Future Society and founded and co-chaired the World Economic Forum. He is a member of the Club of Rome, trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and Aspen Institute, a member of the UN Commission on Global Governance, and Senior Advisor to the World Bank as well as to UN Secretary General Kofi Anan [See Towards A Rapid Reaction Capability for the UN].

"The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments."

— Maurice Strong

Earth Charter displayed at United Nations

In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development issued a call for creation of a new charter that would set forth fundamental principles for sustainable development. The drafting of an Earth Charter was part of the unfinished business of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
In 1994 Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the Earth Summit and chair of the Earth Council, and Mikhail Gorbachev, president of Green Cross International, launched a new Earth Charter initiative with support from the Dutch government. An Earth Charter Commission was formed in 1997 to oversee the project and an Earth Charter Secretariat was established at the Earth Council in Costa Rica.

Update 2005 06 17:

2. Is the right to water a new concept within human rights’ legislature?
The right to water is explicitly enshrined in two UN human rights treaties - the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well in one regional treaty – the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The Geneva Conventions guarantee the protection of this right during armed conflict.
In addition, the right to water is an implicit part of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, both of which are protected by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
However, some states continue to deny the legitimacy of this right. In light of this fact and because of the widespread non-compliance of States with their obligations regarding the right to water, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights confirmed and further defined the right to water in its General Comment No. 15.

Adopted on 26 November 2002, this document provides guidelines for States Parties on the interpretation of this right under two articles of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Article 11 (the right to an adequate standard of living) and Article 12 (the right to health). [Source]

It makes one wonder. Do only women and children have a right to water and to clean water? But then CEDAW is not about women's rights, it is about disfranchising men, and the Conventions on the Rights of the Child are not about the rights of children, they are about disfranchising parents, with both of those objectives serving to implement the international agenda for the planned destruction of the family, so that out of the resulting rubble of civilization a global socialist totalitarian state can be constructed.

Canada's Commitment to Earth Worship at the Roots of Rapid Change to Canadian Law

An exploration of the history of the relationship between Maurice Strong and Paul Martin. Maurice Strong gave Paul Martin his his first job during summer vacation in university, hired him for Power Corporation Canada Ltd. after Martin finished university, and offered Martin a sweetheart deal, the purchase of Canada Steamship Lines, that made the Martin family unbelievably rich.
   Importantly, the article identifies Paul Martin's commitment to support the plan by Maurice Strong, Michael Gorbachev, Kofi Anan and Stephen Rockefeller to impose a universal religion of Earth worship on the world population. The new-age religion is to replace all others.
   The Canadian government provided millions of dollars in funding for the development and goals of Maurice Strong's new-age religion. The Canadian federal government also provided a $161 million in contracts to Canadian Steamship Lines, a corporation that has most of its fleet of about 50 ships registered in Barbados and Liberia and that uses shoddy labour practices.
   Maurice Strong was recently appointed as senior advisor to the Prime Minister's Office. Will he remain in that position during Stephen Harper's reign?

_________________
*"Last year [2003], the federal government insisted it had done only $137,000 in business with Martin's Canada Steamship Lines in the previous 10 years. This week [end of Jan. 2004], of course, it was revealed that that $137,000 had actually been $161 million, including $46 million during Martin's tenure as finance minister."
(Source: "There's rot in the ship of state", Edmonton Journal, Sunday 1 February 2004, p. A14)

It did work. The Liberal Party of Canada won that federal election. Canada will be red for a while longer.

Posted 2002 01 05

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Thoughts are Free

Environmentalists can't save Kyoto

Without Russia, the global deal is dead and green lobbyists have to accept it

Environmentalists can't save Kyoto: Without Russia, the global deal is dead and green lobbyists have to accept it

Index to some of Lorne Gunter's articles

See also:

"The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments."