Kyoto Protocol: Its Implications for Canada

On April 29, 1998, Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change at the United Nations in New York. Canada's Federal Environment Minister Christine Stewart signed the document on behalf of the Government of Canada prior to attending the sixth international meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the Kyoto Protocol and its implications for Canada in terms of selected essays contained in Wesson's book, Canada and the New World Economic Order.

In 1995 a group of 2000 of the world's leading scientists concluded that the phenomenon of global warming is very real and, in fact, accelerating. Their report concluded that the mostly likely cause of global warming is burning coal, oil and gasoline that increase the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which become trapped in the earth's atmosphere. As a result of the report, representatives from 142 nations convened in Kyoto, Japan in December of 1997 to write and sign a final draft of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The result of that meeting is called the Kyoto Protocol, which requires that developed nations cut back their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2012. The Kyoto Protocol contains no enforcement provisions (Perna, 2000, p. 1). Presently 175 countries have signed the Kyoto Protocol, and only two have ratif

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rm gain of optimum gas emission control may result in a short-term loss in production sectors of the economy. According to Breane, money is absolutely integral to macroeconomics (p. 47). All the commercial activity, investments, accounts and financial assets are measured in monetary terms. There is a demand and a supply of money, ultimately controlled by the central bank, The Bank of Canada. Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol will have financial effects, some predictable and some not. Some economists have looked at macroeconomic effects of carbon reduction in relation to the growth rate of the economy, both during the period of implementation, and during the earlier part of the commitment period, from 2005 to 2010. In all cases, it seems that the economy may continue to grow, but the growth may be slower than projected (Summary, p. 5). Economists surmise that trying to predict the response of monetary authorities to large increases in energy prices is a difficult task. It is possible that efforts to reduce carbon emissions may cause internal frictions, wage-price interactions, and capital stock obsolescence, as well as losses in domestic income as funds are transferred out of the country to purchase international carbon
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3036
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)