February 9, 2005
PRETTY FUNNY FOR A RUSSIAN:
Blair told to listen to climate change sceptics (Douglas Busvine, 2/08/05, Reuters)
Prime Minister Tony Blair must listen to sceptics in the climate change debate to stop the Kyoto Protocol harming the world economy, a top Russian official has said."Have there been any international agreements to limit economic growth and development before Kyoto? There were two: Communism and Nazism," Andrei Illarionov, an aide to President Vladimir Putin, told a Moscow news conference on Tuesday.
Mustn't forget Protectionism. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2005 10:00 AM
Wasn't the MSM just telling us that Russia was finally on board with Kyoto, and the US would now have no choice but to go along?
Oh, never mind...
Posted by: M. Murcek at February 9, 2005 12:11 PMWow! The views of a heretic, as opposed to the usual Kyoto tongue bath -- in Reuters???
Posted by: curt at February 9, 2005 12:13 PMCurt,
After the Ukraine episode, the Russians are now persona non grata at the cocktail parties held by European bien-pensants. If the anti-Kyoto view is held by the Russians, it must therefore be evil. Or in the alternative, if the Russians are anti-Kyoto, they must be evil.
Posted by: Bart at February 9, 2005 12:48 PMbart --
Without the Russians, Kyoto remained a wet dream. Thanks to the Russians, we will be subject to endless carping about how this country or that country is not meeting its obligations under the treaty. The carping will end only after a critical mass of the public comes to understand that CO2 is just another manufactured enviro crisis.
Posted by: curt at February 9, 2005 3:10 PMThe Russians signed on to Kyoto out of pure cynicism. They have never belived it. As far as they are concerned, Global waarming is an opportunity not a problem.
Because the baseline measuring year for the treaty is 1990 their baseline includes emmissions for, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, etc. simply by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the shut down of its inneficient and polluting industries it has enormous amounts of CO2 emmisions that it no longer produces. Under the treaty terms. It can sell these non-existent emmissions to other countries as credits.
You can't blame them. It makes Europe happy and they send you money. Where is the problem? Sooner or later the EU will collapse and the treaty will fall apart and then the party will be over.
There was never anything in it for the US, which was supposed to bear the lash patiently.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at February 9, 2005 11:12 PM