Our esteemed Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, doesn't want Canada to sign any environmental accord that has concrete emission goals unless China, India, and the U.S. agree to them. We know they won't. I have heard some arguments for why we shouldn't sign, if those other countries don't. But, I suspect that most of us believe it's just a way to avoid the emission goals without saying so.
I saw an excellent interview with the author of
China Inc., Ted Fishman, on
CBC One on One with Peter Mansbridge. He discusses the fact that China's environmental problems have a lot to do with our desire for cheap goods. "We are willing to pay just about any price for our goods, except money. We are willing to pay the price of low cost labour. We are willing to pay the price of environmental degradation..."
The labour in China is so much cheaper than in the West, that we could still get some real bargains with higher safety standards and environmentally friendly manufacturing and power production. We have to be willing to pay a bit more, so it is still profitable for China. China, and many other countries, are eager to join the 21st century and we can't, and shouldn't, stop them. We just have to be willing to figure out the ways that they can do this without destroying the planet, like paying enough for trade goods, that they can afford to be "green". We need to insist that we won't buy goods that aren't "green". We simply cannot expect countries like India and China to meet environmental standards when we use economic incentives for them not to be "green".
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