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Maurice Strong, Kyoto Protocol

Welcome to Canadian-inspired Kyoto

by Judi McLeo

February 17, 2005

Canadian Maurice Strong's Kyoto Protocol came into force on Wednesday.

Celebratory ceremonies took place from New York to the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto, where the treaty was negotiated in 1997.

To mark the occasion, Strong's protégé, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin took a moment out from preparations to lead parliamentary debate on his Liberal government's gay marriage bill.

Canada, he said would stage an international convention on climate change next December, in Montreal.

In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi annan urged the world to "save the planet" by adding to the limits on greenhouse gases. The UN environment chief stressed that many in the United States, the world's top polluter, support the treaty despite the U.S. government's opposition.

Under the Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), industrialized nations are to reduce their combined emissions of six major greenhouse gases during the five-year period from 2008 to 2012 to below 1990 levels.

annan sent a video message to the celebratory ceremony in Kyoto.

"I call on the world community to be bold, to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol, and to act quickly in taking the next steps."

"There is no time to lose," he added.

Ignoring the advice of leading Russian scientists who told President Vladimir Putin one year ago that the Kyoto emissions treaty discriminates against Russia and would damage its economy while not significantly reducing global warming, Russia certainly lost no time in submitting its plan to implement the treaty.

"The plan has been agreed upon with all the agencies concerned," Vsevolod Gavrilov, deputy director of the ministry's land and property relations department, said on an interfax news agency sent out to the world yesterday.

Putin's key adviser, andrei Illarionov, has repeatedly panned the treaty, saying it would amount to an "economic auschwitz" for growth in Russia, where the Kremlin has ambitiously pledged to double GDP in 10 years.

Scientists claim that Russia's extreme climate was never taken into account by the protocol.

So far 128 member states have ratified the accord.

Canada, through Maurice Strong, the UN's most senior environmental bureaucrat, has played a major role in the Kyoto Protocol.

Signed by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, it will be implemented by his successor, Paul Martin.

The words of NDP leader Jack Layton, uttered when Martin was the frontrunner for Liberal leadership ring true: "We can't have a coal baron responsible for Kyoto implementation."

Martin's former company, Canada Steamship Lines, hauls coal around the Great Lakes.

The NDP contend that Martin's ship, "The Right Honourable Paul Martin", named for Martin's father, delivers coal to two of Ontario's biggest polluters, the Lakeview and Nanticoke power plants.

although Martin divested himself of Canada Steamship Lines, by handing it over to his three sons, he's the man who will implement Kyoto in Canada.


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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