Kyoto reality

Or is that unreality? A headline that says it all:

Fuel protests herald grim times for European green policy

Why did the Globe and Mail run Doug Saunders' piece only online and not in the print version? More from Spiegel Online:

[...]

A Political Conundrum [indeed - MC]

In Berlin, too, views are changing. The same politicians who have always made fighting global warming their top priority are now outdoing themselves with suggestions that will take the pressure off consumers. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel wants relief for low-income commuters. Erwin Huber, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) -- the Bavarian sister party of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) -- advocates general tax cuts. Even environmental expert Bärbel Höhn of the Greens -- for whom energy prices up to now couldn’t rise fast enough -- is suddenly calling for limits, preferably through the introduction of “red cards for speculators.”

Last week witnessed the first victim of this new mood about the economy: the grand coalition’s climate package. The set of measures to limit CO2 emissions was supposed to be passed in the cabinet on Tuesday. But the grand coalition's partners, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the CDU, couldn’t agree on how many additional costs could still be imposed on their constituents in the face of rising energy costs. Once again, the program was put off.

This new oil and energy crisis is bringing up plenty of questions, and not just for the two main political parties. How can consumers absorb the costs? How much climate protection can be imposed on consumers if the costs of oil, natural gas, gasoline, and electricity are also rising? Should energy taxes be lowered or increased?..

Have fun, Stéphane!

Suzuki slams NDP, Tories, backs Dion's carbon tax

And I wonder what M. Dion thinks of this position of the UK's Labour prime minister:

Nuclear power expansion needed to cut reliance on oil, says Brown

Mark C.

Posted by markc at May 29, 2008 11:05 PM