Kelly McParland: Copenhagen's clowns of climate change
It turns out Canada's position on climate change wasn't crucial to reaching an agreement of sorts at Copenhagen.
Canada, despite assurances to the contrary, is not an international pariah, an embarrassment on the global stage, a laggard holding back the forces of progress, a lonely dissenting voice raised against a world determined to march courageously into the brave new world of emissions reduction. All that talk -- so eagerly embraced by those who wished it to be true -- was just so much, how do they spell it? Oh yeah... BS.
Turns out Stephen Harper probably could have stayed home from the big climate conference, which was likely his preference, and would have been the beneficial thing to do. Because the deal struck in Denmark didn't require the presence of Canada or most of the rest of the emissions-spewing leaders and the circus of hangers-on that trailed them to the Danish capital.
In the end, the deal that was made was the necessary one. Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao got together and worked out an agreement both could live with, then brought India and South Africa on board, and that was that. Together China, the U.S. and India produce almost half the world's emissions; together they focused on what was possible, instead of the utopian dreams on offer from the array of fantasists who overwhelmed the Danish capital with their limos, silly stunts and wild predictions. Canada, producing something less than 2% of emissions, wasn't in the room and didn't need to be. The deal could have been reached by speakerphone, and probably should have been. The planet would have been better off if it had.
David Miller, the Toronto mayor who made a spectacle of himself, trailing around Copenhagen apologizing for Canada and playing kissy-face with environmental groups, should have stayed in Toronto. The mayor has only 11 months left before he steps down, and doesn't represent anyone other than the city that elected him, but insisted on aiding self-declared "activists" in belittling his country with their tired, predictable antics. Anyone in doubt about the high cost and questionable benefits of the green agenda just needs to visit Toronto after six years of David Miller to have their worries confirmed.
The environment ministers from Ontario and Quebec should have stayed home too. Other than wasting energy, the only thing they accomplished by jetting to Denmark was to ignite a new and totally unnecessary argument with Alberta. When are these people going to get it through their heads that Canada needs the jobs and economic strength we get from Alberta's energy industry, and that dumping on it is a self-defeating and wholly irresponsible exercise in pointless political posturing? Quebec thinks that because much of its power comes from hydro-electricity, it's free to pontificate on the evils of oil, ignoring the effect the demise of the oil industry would have on the annual welfare cheques Quebec gets from Ottawa. Ontario -- well, who knows what Ontario is thinking? One year into have-not status and the government of Dalton McGuinty still can't come up with a policy better than blaming other governments for its problems.
Al Gore could have, and should have, stayed home. He made himself look foolish with his false claim that the Arctic ice cap could be melted away within five years. Ditto the pack of developing countries that showed up, determined to add to their billion-dollar aid transfers from the wealthier world. The Group of 77 developing countries has legitimate concerns about global warming and its potential impact, but whoever decided it was a good idea to pick Sudan's Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping as their chief spokesman should be put on a melting iceberg and shoved out to sea. Sudan's government has spent the past five years prosecuting a genocidal war against its own people in Darfur. So what does Di-Aping do when asked about the draft accord but compare it to the Holocaust:
"It is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries," he declared. "It's a solution based on values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces."
Way to go Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping. Any sympathy Europe or the western world had for the group of 77 just went bye-bye, whooshing out the window like so much escaping gas. Sudan's government is clearly better at murdering Darfurians than it is at public relations.
The sad-sack activists who infest this issue and these conferences should have stayed home as well. With nothing of importance to share, they busied themselves with the usual stunts and antics, handing out silly awards, climbing flagpoles, yelling at police, then tearfully describing their suffering when the police pushed back. What is it with environmental activists anyway? Do you have to fail a maturity test to become a member?
Robert Mugabe should have stayed home. Hugo Chavez should have stayed home. Whoever invited those two tinpot autocrats should have stayed home. You want the world to take you seriously and you haul out Robert Mugabe, whose most noteworthy contribution to his country this year was a cholera epidemic? Good thinking.
The whole thing was an epic display of international grandstanding. The result was predictable, and was predictably denounced by the usual crew of zealots in the green camp, who could have typed out their remarks and stuck them in the mail months in advance, for all the originality they contained. Nothing short of an overthrow of the world's economy would satisfy Greenpeace or the Sierra Club or the climate action networks of the world, and thank God none of the few serious folks in Copenhagen were willing to take that gamble. The green camp would like you to believe that the world is clamouring for radical action on greenhouse emissions, but they have nothing but some carefully-worded polls to back them up. Everyone is in favour of an environmental clean-up, as long as they don't have to pay for it. Add the expected cost of the clean-up to the polling questions, and watch the clamour fade.
The best that can be said for the efforts of the past two weeks is that it takes the political pressure generated by such gatherings to force reluctant leaders into taking action they'd prefer to avoid. Perhaps to that extent something was accomplished. But Canada had already committed itself to such measures in any case. Other than acting as a voice of reason amid the cacaphony of overblown demands, we didn't need to be there.
National Post
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