Lets see. Harper will not ignore the law but then he won't comply with the law either. So he might as well have ignored it. Liberals are not very good horsetraders. They traded passing the Conservative budget for passing a Liberal law that means nothing it seems.
Government can't comply with Kyoto law: PM
Last Updated: Friday, June 22, 2007 | 4:15 PM ET
CBC News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he will not ignore a law passed Friday that requires the government to meet Kyoto's emission-reduction targets — but warned that he has no constitutional authority to implement it.
The bill — which gives the government 60 days to table a detailed plan outlining how Canada will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions — was introduced by Liberal backbencher MP Pablo Rodriguez and passed in the House of Commons in February, despite Conservative opposition.
The Liberal-dominated Senate passed the bill on Friday.
"I'm not saying I'm going to ignore it at all," the prime minister told reporters on Friday.
"But I don't believe that either the House of Commons or the Senate would want to force the government to do something that it doesn't have the constitutional authority to do."
Since the Conservatives came to power in January 2006, Harper has repeatedly said Canada's commitments under Kyoto — signed under a previous Liberal government — are not achievable by the 2012 deadline because it would devastate the economy.
Harper said Friday that the Speaker of the House has ruled the legislation is not a money bill — one that lays out government spending — so there are strict constitutional limitations in terms of what can be achieved.
"The bill cannot impose billions of dollars of costs on the government or on the Canadian economy," he told reporters.
Under the international Kyoto protocol, which was signed by Canada in 1998 and ratified in 2002, the country agreed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
In an interview with the Canadian Press before the vote, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan also played down the significance of the Kyoto legislation.
"It's a very odd piece of legislation," he said, noting that it commits the government to achieving emission-reduction goals without spending a dime.
He added "there's some similarity" between the bill and a toothless motion passed years ago by Parliament to eliminate child poverty by 2000.
"Abstract goals like that are a tough thing to enforce as a law."
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said Harper should respect the legislation said he won't bring down the Conservative government over the issue.
"There are many, many things that I find wrong in this government. It's not a reason for me to say because these things are wrong, I'm ready to call an election," Dion said.
"At the end of the day this law will be helpful to see how the government is not doing the right thing."
1 comment:
Unnecessarily trying to reduce or artificially sequester carbon dioxide emissions wastes energy. Unnecessarily wasting energy harms the environment.
Carbon dioxide is already sequestered naturally. Carbon dioxide released by man near ground level is heavier than air and sinks in air relatively quickly rather than rising up to the upper atmosphere to become a so-called greenhouse gas in the upper atmosphere. While sinking, it stratifies from air; after sinking and stratifying, it tends to remain close to the ground. The carbon dioxide can then dissolve in soil water or alternatively it may find its way down to low-lying water bodies or down to ocean level where it can readily mix and dissolve in water or react with water to form weak carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide is also removed immediately from the lower atmosphere by rainfall.
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