Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Rona's Empty Admission

Rona Ambrose was a national humiliation in her performance before the world in Nairobi. Here's an interesting take on Rona from the online publication, "Embassy, Canada's Foreign Policy Newsweekly":

"When it comes to climate change, Canada is a big player because, as the PM likes to say, "Canada is an emerging energy superpower." This country's wealth of oil, gas and hydropower makes its Kyoto voice morally and practically influential.

"Lambasted by her critics, Minister Ambrose is still praised by her friends for telling it like it is in Nairobi. Canada, she said, in an unusually partisan note for an international conference, had failed to live up its Kyoto commitments. "Truth and honesty in government" said her supporters. "Just what we all wanted."

"Well, yes...and no. Truth in admitting a failing in international relations has to be like truth in the confessional. It's only of value if the admission of the sin includes a plan for its correction–or at least a vow to stop doing the harmful thing over and over again.

"The minister's mea culpa has merit only if she is prepared to put forward a plan to meet Kyoto. As most everyone back in Calgary knows, climate change and Canada's energy superpower status are intrinsically bound up with each other.

"Canada will go on to meet and even exceed Kyoto standards for greenhouse gas emissions only when it publicly makes an accounting of the present and future activities of its energy and transportation industries.

"If there is an epicentre for this process, it is probably in the heart of the Alberta tar sands.

"A great place for mea culpas, sure. But a better place to first publicly catalog how it fits into meeting Kyoto requirements. And then to take federally enforced steps to limit the global harm."

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