Canadians swell with pride when videos, scored with “O Canada,” show sweeping camera shots of the country’s majestic forests, lakes, farmland and parks the size of European countries.
But in the United Nations Paris Agreement, European fanatics and ecological radicals refuse to accept that Canada’s forests, and its other carbon-absorbing assets, more than offset the country’s emissions. And, since 1997, Ottawa has capitulated.
I just wrote about that, which is crazy enough, but then there’s this:
“Trees are remarkable,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a speech last fall. “They pull carbon out of the atmosphere. They are renewable and they’re sustainable and, eventually, they even recycle themselves. All we have to do is plant the first one.”
Plant the first one? Canada already has the third-largest forest coverage on the planet. What we have here is a prime minister who admires trees and promises (in that same speech) to plant two billion more within a decade.
(This is all magical thinking. To meet that promise, 200 million seedlings a year would need to be planted — that’s 547,945 a day. Four months after the election, some 65.7 million trees should have been planted, but so far, not a twig.)
This is not the first Canadian prime minister who has failed to defend our trees or the national interests at the UN. For instance, former prime minister Jean Chrétien signed onto the Kyoto Protocol (the predecessor to the Paris Agreement) in 1997 and stated that Canada would get credit for its forest sinks, reduced emissions from natural gas exports and nuclear products, but changed nothing.
Then there was a gang-up against Canada’s trees and other carbon sinks, according to a report back then about those Kyoto negotiations by David Suzuki: “On the one hand, Canada, the United States, Japan and Australia wanted to count the carbon dioxide (CO2) removed from the atmosphere by their forests and agricultural soils towards their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, the European Union wanted to limit credits for carbon removed by forests and soils. Both camps claimed that science and environmental integrity were on their side. By the end of two weeks of talks, the parties remained far apart.”
Canada caved to pressure, but in 2001, the United States quit Kyoto because of the tree issue, and because China and others were let off the hook when it came to emissions. Finally, in 2011, Canada pulled out, too.
But in 2016, both countries signed on to Kyoto’s replacement, the Paris Agreement. A year later, the Trump administration pulled out, again largely over trees and China, while Canada’s prime minister decided to become the poster boy of climate change.
Ironically, U.S. emissions have decreased since that time, thanks to its dramatic replacement of coal plants with natural gas, as it becomes the world leader in liquefied natural gas exports. Meanwhile, Liberal policies have destroyed all 20 Canadian projects that would have allowed us to export natural gas to Asia, thus helping the continent replace its coal usage.
The Paris Agreement is a Trojan Horse threatening the Canadian economy and national unity. Since 1997, only 37 developed countries have reduced CO2 emissions by seven per cent and the rest — led by climate culprit China — have increased emissions by 130 per cent.
And Canada’s government is its accomplice.
Financial Post
