People send me stuff… UPDATE: See below for another interpretation
Remember how this was phrased? “sign it, it’s just voluntary!”
Recall Rio 1992 “Earth Summit” where the meme was “hey, it’s voluntary!…with a negotiating schedule attached”. Apparently, like a Roach Motel, “countries check in but they can’t check out”. This email is from UNFCCC’s list server and note my bolded section below. The arrogance, it burns.
—–Original Message—–
From: globalmedialist-all <globalmedialist-all@lists.unfccc.int>
To: globalmedialist-all <globalmedialist-all@lists.unfccc.int>; germanmedialist <germanmedialist@lists.unfccc.int>
Sent: Tue, Dec 13, 2011 4:46 am
Subject: [UNFCCC medialist] STATEMENT BY UNFCCC CHIEF ON CANADA’S ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL
STATEMENT BY UNFCCC CHIEF ON CANADA’S ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL
The Durban agreement to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol represents the continued leadership and commitment of developed countries to meet legally binding emission reduction commitments. It also provides the essential foundation of confidence for the new push towards a universal, legal climate agreement in the near future.
I regret that Canada has announced it will withdraw and am surprised over its timing. Whether or not Canada is a Party to the Kyoto Protocol, it has a legal obligation under the Convention to reduce its emissions, and a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort. Industrialized countries whose emissions have risen significantly since 1990, as is the case for Canada, remain in a weaker position to call on developing countries to limit their emissions.
I call on all developed countries to meet their responsibilities under the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, to raise their ambition to cut emissions and to provide the agreed adequate support to developing countries to build their own clean energy futures and adapt to climate change impacts they are already experiencing.
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UPDATE: There’s some ambiguity here in the announcement, upon further reading it could be interpreted that they are saying this:
“I see you withdraw from Kyoto but you are still legally bound to reduce emissions UNDER THE 1992 ‘VOLUNTARY’ RIO UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE (UNFCCC)”.
So maybe it isn’t Kyoto they’re saying they can’t leave, but its parent treaty, Rio’s UNFCCC, which is the model for this Spring’s upcoming UNCSD ’12.
But that’s voluntary too, so how can a “voluntary” agreement be legally binding?
On what basis does the UN rest their moral judgments?
Time to stop funding the UN as it is taking a hostile position towards Canada.
Uh-oh, now the UN will act to impose economic sanctions against Canada.
How ever will Canada survive without bailout money from the International Monetary Fund?
I think Canada should show their disapproval by withdrawing all their troops from Iraq by the end of the year. It’s the right thing to do.
This is one of the things that disturbed me from the beginning of CAGW conjecture. It breeds animosity toward the west and depression among the gullible. Exaggerating climate change is not a victimless crime.
We now know who the world’s mafia really is, it’s the U.N.
You can join, but you can’t quit. And even if you quit, you still have to pay.
It’s your moral obligation to be extorted.
What legal obligation? What right does the UNFCCC have to extend the Kyoto Protocol and tell Canada they’re legally obligated when Canada only signed up for the initial term and makes it clear they don’t agree to an extension? It seems the UNFCCC has adopted tyrannical rule.
Latitude – “How is this world did this get so upside down…..
…and who is stupid enough to go along with it?”
It should be obvious at this point that the only countries that are really keen on Kyoto are the countries at the narrow end of the funnel.
You should hear the state media and cultural elite hyperventilate up here. It would be hysterical if so much of the public didn’t get their news and their opinions from that same elite via a daily deluge of propaganda.
Now if we could only get our government to withdraw us from the UN entirely so as to help more people start questioning this body’s legitimacy, motives and right to exist.
That’s probably far too much to hope for.
Our Prime Minister is an Economist. One doesn’t need a degree in economics however to understand the logic of the Canadian position. To wit; attempting to comply with Kyoto was costing Canada’s government and industries +/-$6 billion annually. This money will stay in Canada, instead of being shipped to developing nations via the UN, and fund research and development of clean emissions technologies, water treatment technologies, land & water remediation technologies, medical sciences, etc, etc.
Exporting those new technologies and techniques will be a far, far greater thing than could ever be produced by UN funded welfare.
Canadians are the ultimate pragmatists.
Aside from that, this letter appears to be spin, put on the situation to try to save face as the UNFCCC is revealed to be powerless to prevent this, and is thus humiliated by Canada’s unilateral action.
Yes, and it’s about time something humiliated them.
How many pages is the Kyoto document? If it’s anything like Obama Care with thousands of pages, the UN could have hidden the “no exiting” clause somewhere in the document. Rather duplicitous, I’d say.
Dudley Robertson said on December 13, 2011 at 10:14 am:
The undeniable overwhelming consensus of its credentialed peer-accepted members, same as with Climate Science™.
If I were Canada, my message to the UNFCCC would be:
“______________* you! Nasty note to follow.”
* Fill in the blank with whatever expression of contempt might get through to the UNFCCC bozos.
Brilliant. If only a few more governments in the west had the guts to send the Greenpeace ecoterrorists and their hanger’s on packing. Kyoto had no science underpinning it and UN “agreements” are not binding on anyone, though Amnesty International and one or two others have dragged these into UK courts and argued that since the government signed them they are “legally binding” as “International Law.” This appears to be the same delusion on the part of the UNFCCC Chief …
This could be more than serious. Should Canada proceed with its intentions to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be forced to impose drastic sanctions.
This can only lead to Canada being excluded from participation in the Global Carbon Exchange markets.
Er, . . if Kyoto 1.0 expires, and a new agreement is needed, then all Canada has to do is not sign the new agreement. If Kyoto 1.0 has power after it expires, all of these countiries are being had, big time.
Anthony,
It may be in the common interest of the USA and Canada to cease funding the UN. The solution to this whole debacle of UN promoted climate science fraud is a child of the UN itself.
With a threat of it very existence the UN may be willing to be more reasonable. But I don’t care… walk away from the UN… walk away walk away.
Anthony, imagine that there is no UN. Would you have a reason for this blog? The science liars would still be lying but they would not have the amplification of the UN.
UN spetsnaz – Ban Ki Moon’s praetorian guard, made up of crack special forces from the Maldives and Tuvalu, are at this moment preparing for a daring invasion of Canada, using ‘blitzkrieg’ tactics and pansy diversions. Canada, those perfidious Canucks have attempted to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, general Raj’ Pachauri, was quoted as saying; ” there can be no reneging, the die is cast, the science is settled and the new UN world order will assert itself militarily if that is a requisite counteraction!” blah…… whatever…………………….. .
Latitude says:
December 13, 2011 at 9:27 am
Industrialized countries whose emissions have risen significantly since 1990, as is the case for Canada, remain in a weaker position to call on developing countries to limit their emissions.
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“How is this world did this get so upside down…..
…and who is stupid enough to go along with it?”
The UN and the Left in the US employ moral reasoning which holds that each person is responsible for all persons, that each state is responsible for all states, and similar matters. The entire discussion of AGW by AGW proponents has taken for granted this moral theory. However, this theory is repugnant to anyone who believes that morality addresses moral interaction among rational actors. It is also repugnant to anyone who accepts the Constitution of the USA. In fact, it is repugnant to anyone who believes in the sovereignty of nations.
This moral thinking seems to have had its start in the radical utilitarianism of Peter Singer who teaches at Princeton. Back in the seventies he published an article in an ethics journal which argued, for example, that when my teenage son asks for new track shoes I should consider his needs against those of teenagers in Somalia or anywhere. Apparently, if he has sons they are not track stars because he sent their track shoes to Somalia or somewhere.
At some point, this moral thinking will have to be met head on. I know that such discussions will bore to tears readers of this blog. However, that is part of the fight that we are in.
Anthony Scalzi says:
December 13, 2011 at 9:26 am
Hotel Kyoto-
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Carbon emission ceilings
Melting polar ice
And the IPCC said…”You are all just prisoners here…of your own device.”
[apologies to the Eagles]
I spent 8 years in the forces and can think of a number of suitable retorts to those interfering bureaucratic sponging bastards in the UN who feel they can ‘tell’ Canada how to run their country.
A selection to ponder (suitably asterisked for the faint hearted)
“Get f*****d!”
“Stick you f****** agreement up your A***!”
“Go f*** yourself!”
There are plenty more but I think you get my drift
Here we have a classic case of impotence and a toothless bite. So it seems appropriate that Monty Python has addressed this nicely:
Pass the shrubbery, please.
Come on guys, this is not so hard. The UN is simply strenuously reminding Canada of its non-binding obligations.
At this level of international cooperation, the shame tactic is the last tool left in the box. No one in the UN expects it to have the slightest effect, and the Canadian government will send them a nice communiqué that is a little regretful yet hopeful that talks can continue and so on and so forth, just so everybody can still be friends.
I for my part am not too hard on the enviros. They have a right to their opinions, and to try to build action around them. And I don’t think you can argue that the West shouldn’t try to be a little helpful in the old colonies. We left a bit of a mess in many places. (Never mind the climate nonsense, I’m thinking about things like getting the kids vaccinated and educated and so on.)
But what happened with Canada is what happens when a Western country looks at the climate invoice, and sees the nine or ten zeros.
“Industrialized countries whose emissions have risen significantly since 1990, as is the case for Canada, remain in a weaker position to call on developing countries to limit their emissions.”
I agree. On behalf of all Americans, I would like to notify all developing countries that we have no expectations that you limit your emissions. Please reciprocate. Or not. We don’t care.