NDP-Conservative alliance on Kyoto

Ahh, the good old National Post. Combining the bias of Fox News with the smarmy upper-class smugness of the likes of Conrad Black. Wednesday's coverage of Clean Air Act negotiations by John Ivison discusses a potential liaison between the NDP and the Conservatives to push an improved version of the Act through by March. The article itself covers signs of a rapprochement between the two parties, including the possibility that the NDP might even go along with the Conservative's abandonment of Kyoto targets. Ivison also asserts that the Liberals look to be stalling progress on the bill in hopes that it won't make it to an eventual election.

The bias I'm mentioning here - the NDP is "clinging to the comfort blanket of Kyoto, arguing with blind optimism that we can close the 'Kyoto gap' in the next five years." Meanwhile, "a five minute talk with anyone who really knows what it would take to meet Canada's Kyoto commitment...gives some sense of how deep in the hole we are. Three hundred of the largest polluters in Canada would have to reduce emissions by more than half, something that is not technically feasible without beggaring the economy."

I guess Mr. Ivison doesn't talk much with the staff of the Pembina Institute, the David Suzuki Foundation and the other climate change experts who have been modelling and planning for Kyoto from the beginning. Their most recent contribution to the debate, under the CANet umbrella, is a backgrounder on the Clean Air Act aimed at MPs. It asks for a commitment to Kyoto targets and to a long term target of 80% below 1990 levels to be set for 2050.

Link to CANet backgrounder
Personally, I wouldn't care about meeting Kyoto targets if I actually thought that we were setting ourselves the long term targets proposed by CANet, and acting immediately on them. I agree with Ivison that we are in a deep hole and that the Kyoto targets will be difficult to meet. The problem is, backing down on Kyoto in favour of long term targets only is an easy political cop-out and will lead to more 'study' and excuses about the need to wait until magical, painless technologies appear. The only way I could accept any kind of NDP-backed dropping of the Kyoto targets would be if they were replaced by a binding set of targets for reductions in 2010, 2012, and 2015 that led to below-Kyoto targets by 2015, targets low enough to compensate for any lost reductions now. Somehow, it doesn't seem likely the Conservatives will do this.