Canada's Harper and White House Soon All Alone in anti-Kyoto Land

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With Australian PM John Howard set to be dethroned in the Nov. 24th Australian election, Canada’s Conservative Government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and President George W Bush will lose their last key ally in their anti-Kyoto Protocolย battle.

The United States and Australia never ratified the Kyoto agreement in the first place and picked up a key ally in Canada when the right-wing Conservative government took power 2 years ago. The Conservative party quickly joined ranks with the US and Australia stating that Kyoto targets could never be met and they preferred a โ€œMade in Canadaโ€ approach to climateย change.

Such sentiments were not surprising considering that it was only five years ago that Prime Minister Harper claimed Kyoto was a โ€œjob-killing,โ€ โ€œeconomy destroyingโ€ โ€œsocialistย scheme.โ€

Finding themselves all alone on the world stage is bad news, but its the timing of the loss that should have the two heads of stateย sweating.

In December world leaders will meet in Bali at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change where they will begin negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. And while Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Bush are calling for voluntary targets (โ€œaspirationalโ€ in their words), the world’s community is looking for much more aggressive targets. Even the OPEC oil cartel is talking tougher than Canada and the United States at thisย point.

Harper and Bush also appear to be more concerned about what China and India are doing, while emissions per capita in their own countries remain among the world’s highest. They don’t seem to understand that it was, in large part, North America’s unmitigated burning of fossil fuels that got us into this mess in the firstย place.

In the words of rapper cum blues singer, Everlast, โ€œthe time has come to clean up our ownย backyard.โ€

Harper and Bush also don’t seem to understand that the public (especially in Canada) is waking up to the issue of climate change and getting trashed on the world stage is not an image either politician needs right now. With Republican support flailing in the United States and the Conservative party stalled in the polls, both leaders have an opportunity to shine on the issue of climate change, take the initiative to do what’s right and reap the politicalย rewards.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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