This just in from the Durban climate change talks. The world's leading per-capita carbon dioxide emitter will play host to the biggest event on the world's climate change agenda next year.
Yes, teacup-sized Qatar, the filthy-rich jewel of the Persian Gulf, will be the site of the United Nations 2012 climate change conference from November 26 to December 7, 2012.
According to New Scientist, Qatar has the world's highest per-capita carbon dioxide emissions (thanks mainly to a booming offshore natural gas industry). At more than 50 tonnes a head, its emissions are seven times those of Britain and more than triple those of the United States. It also has one of the highest per-capita rates of water use, averaging 400 litres a person per day.
And it is doing little to improve that woeful record. On the contrary, it provides its citizens -- the earth's wealthiest people on a per-capita basis -- with unlimited free electricity and water, which it creates through energy-intensive desalination of seawater.
No wonder its emissions are five times greater than they were in 1990, the start date for Kyoto targets.
Fortunately for Qatar, it is exempt from the Kyoto protocols targets. Like its super-rich Gulf neighbours, it was placed on the "developing nation" list when the targets were set in 1997, and no one has bothered to update the list since.
If only Canada could get itself on the list, our climate change public relations problems would be over.
We could make all the oil sands money we wanted, and no one would say boo. Every house lit up like a Christmas tree. Lawns groaning in wet, green pleasure. Golf courses and refineries on every block.
Oh, let those energy-sucking, carbon-dioxide-emitting good times roll! And give that ridiculous fossil award to someone else for a change.
Now that's a climate change policy I could get behind.
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