Algore: Environmental Foreign Policy Blundering

Algore's at it again. Some country tries something and he criticizes.

In Toronto to present his global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" at an environmental show on Saturday, Gore said, "In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

Environment Minister John Baird shot back with a statement later Saturday, saying, ""It is difficult to accept criticism from someone who preaches about climate change, but who never submitted the Kyoto Protocol to a vote in the United States Senate, who never did as much as Canada is now doing to fight climate change during eight years in Office, and who has campaigned exclusively for hundreds of Democratic candidates who have weaker plans to fight greenhouse gases than Canada’s New Government."

"It is equally regrettable that the former U.S. vice president decided to speak out without ever having been briefed on the contents of our plan," said Baird.

"The fact is our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former Vice President was a member."

Good going Al!

The Conservatives' plan outlines intensity-based emissions targets that will not be implemented until 2010, and will have no hard caps on emissions. The government's announced target is by 2020 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below the 2006 level.

Based on this plan, Canada will be in violation of international law and will be the only Kyoto Protocol nation to have reneged on its commitments.

Gore said he was surprised to see that the Conservative plan uses the concept of "intensity reduction," which he said is a "poll-tested phrase" developed in Houston by the so-called think tanks financed by polluters.

I'm not certain that they would be in violation of international law. Technically, they are a part of Kyoto, but withdrawal from such treaties isn't illegal or unprecedented. I'd also like to know the truth behind the statement that the reneged on their commitments, when in fact it has been reported that essentially none but a very few of the Kyoto participants will meet their goals.

The article does quote the government as stating that they can't meet the Kyoto requirements mainly because the previous government did nothing to even start controlling green house gasses, and that it is just too late to reach those goals. Then the rest of the article is off with the liberals and greens calling for draconian measures to meet the goals. Brilliant that. When they had the power to legislate reform, they did exactly what Algore did, nothing.