Why is Al Gore criticizing Canada and not China??

Question

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/13/bali-climate-change.html
There are only 30 million people in Canada while there are 1.3 billion in China, so why doesn't he tell China to change?? Why is China considered to be a developing nation when they have a space program?

I have been to a few parts of China and believe me, they are not starving. Take a look at the skyline of Beijing, Shanghai or Guanzhou and you will laugh at the notion of China as a developing nation.

Answer 1

To be a viable politician, one must stand out. If Al criticized China, he would be a voice in the crowd and not noticed. Also China couldn't care less what Al thinks, while Canada will be upset and respond, making news and getting Als name mentioned in the media.

Answer 2

As far as I remember, Al Gore put the US on the top of the list, china 2nd and India 3rd.
But very likely Canada, with a small population, is doing more damage per head than China and India.

Answer 3

To quote the article, "he was pointing a finger at Canada for blocking a climate-change framework that includes hard targets" at the Bali climate change conference. I'm not sure, but I don't believe that China tried to block this legislation.

China is considered a developing nation because a lot of their people are still in poverty, and many don't have access to the everyday things that a first world country has, like clean water, education, cars, stuff like that.

Answer 4

because china's economy is not fully developed. there are industries, but few operate at "modern" standards. there are roads, but not a highway system comparable to the U.S. or western european countries. safe drinking water is hard to come by except in bottles, etc. as for Al gore, he was critisizing canada for blocking international legislation, not for CO2 emissions. maybe China agreed to the laws being talked about?

Answer 5

Interesting article.

"U.S. negotiators won't accept language that commits industrialized nations to specific reductions by 2020. The EU wants targets of a 25 to 40 per cent reduction to be specifically outlined in the document.

Baird has said Canada won't accept a climate deal unless it includes major polluters like the U.S., China and India."

China is granted special privileges as a "developing nation," although they seem to use their development for heavy industry growth, rather than having their actions follow the humanitarian justifications given for granting them that status (providing clean water, etc.).

It's interesting to see the Chinese view:

"China.org.cn: The Earth belongs to all human beings. As we all know, China has set the target of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent between 2005 and 2010. Xie Zhenhua, the head of the Chinese delegation to the conference and senior official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said this directly. What do you think about China's efforts toward saving energy and reducing emissions?

Yang: The target was proposed in China's 11th Five-Year Plan (for the 2006-2010 period); I think that it has been well accomplished. China has learned that energy conservation and emission reduction do make sense, that they are meaningful for the environmental protection of China and the world. It is also beneficial for improving China's energy security and economic competitiveness. So China has more confidence talking about how developing countries should participate in dealing with climate change at this conference."

"On the first day, the developing countries struck an active and open pose at this meeting in an effort to make some sense. They demonstrated that they were willing to do more for climate change but only with the aid from a global protocol. Such a proactive demonstration came as a surprise for the developed countries. For China, technological help from developed countries is significant in fighting climate change. The developed countries are obligated to offer their environmental cleaning technology."

"Yang: The US joining in the Bali roadmap constituted the final achievement of the Bali conference. People have lost faith in the Bush government and tend to place their hopes on the next president. They do hope that the next president will incorporate climate change into his big vision. The US always has an illusion that it leads the whole world. But today it found out that with regard to climate change, the UN has been doing a good job and the EU has assumed a leading position with the active participation of developing countries. It seems that the U.S has been left out and this must hurt. So starting from October 2006, the US started planning to organize 15 major economies to discuss how to deal with climate change. At the crucial moment of the Bali negotiation, the U.S invited the countries present to meet in Hawaii to discuss how the US dealt with climate change. Many African countries and island countries in the Pacific Ocean all expressed their aversion to this proposition. These countries may be destroyed due to climate change. Without participating in the UN negotiations their voices could not be heard. The EU also stood out and threatened not to attend the climate change talks hosted by the U.S next January. Under this pressure, the US delegates finally gave in and said they would join in the consensus."

"The biggest achievement of the Bali roadmap is that developing countries have promised to take on great responsibility regarding climate protection, far beyond anyone's expectations. Given that, none of the developed counties can honorably shrink from their duty. Considering that developing countries, with less contribution to the rising emission around the world, can make such promise, world opinion will not allow developed countries to move backward in this regard."

Everyone's pointing at everyone else as the laggard. If China continues to grow at 8-10% per year for five years and reduces emissions 20% per unit of gross domestic product, their GDP growth will far outstrip their reductions and net emissions will continue to grow.

China is building coal-fired power plants at a rate of about two per week. I'd sure like to see the math that people are using to say that these global initiatives can accomplish anything while allowing the largest emitter to significantly grow their emissions.

Answer 6

Gore knows China is lost. He will never be able to influence them. Canada is very liberal politically and Gore hopes to have influence there.

A great deal of peer-reviewed science was published in 2007 that is skeptical of global warming. Some Canadian scientists are among the leading skeptics. As a result, the Canadian public is better educated about the science produced by Canadian skeptics than the public in most European countries. The Canadian Prime Minister has taken notice of the changing mood in Canada.

Unfortunately Bush has decided to support global warming initiatives even though the science now supports the skeptics.

Answer 7

Because Gore probably has more money to make in China and India. They love him because he blames everything on the developed nations. Same old dogma, Blame the successful, and gain support from the masses. Stalin, Hitler, Etc. Just more communist BS.

Answer 8

Remember all those illegal donations he took from the Chinese in the Bhuddist temple. Well Gore is just loyal to his donors. In addition, they are socialists already so there isn't much point in pointing the finger at them as someone already pointed out.

Answer 9

Your premise is faulty. He does. Of course, the right wing blogs claim he doesn't, which is an easily exposed lie. Examples:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=16142
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/12/10/gore.nobel.ap/index.html
http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/gore_nobel.htm

"Gore Calls On the U.S. and China to Make Progress, Not Excuses
From the Nobel podium, Gore turned a global spotlight on the United States and China, in particular, calling on the world’s two worst carbon dioxide emitters to provide strong leadership on the issue of global warming instead of pointing fingers and ducking their responsibilities."

But he does it more in a targeted way for China. Using broad based public opinion is not a very effective tool to change China's policy. It is in Canada.

China is starting to come around. It's starting to dawn on them that ruining the world's economy with global warming is not going to be good business.

Expect some hard bargaining for a competitive advantage for China. But they want an agreement on global warming, and know that they'll have to be a part of it.

By the way, per person, Canada's global warming emissions are something like 5 times China's.

Answer 10

Big Al is criticizing Canada because they are just over the fence, know what I'm saying yo? When you've got a neighbour who plays loud music, versus someone 5 miles down the road playing loud music, who you gonna criticize? That's what I'm talking about yo. You're gonna criticize your next door neighbour. That's what happens man.