Putin puts last spike in Kyoto

From:
http://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.