30 Fairmont Park Lane S
Lethbridge, AB
T1K 7H7
Phone: (403) 328-1804
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Editor
The Lethbridge Herald
P.O. Box 670
Lethbridge, AB, T1J 3Z7
Dear Editor,
The Herald published a Canadian Press article titled “Tories cancel Kyoto pledge” on September 11. It indicates that the government is canceling funding of $1.5 million promised by the previous Liberal government to support the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the United Nations Kyoto program.
No source for the information was cited by the story. Since it raised much ado about very little, I became intrigued enough to undertake some investigation with WWW search engines. I did find a record that Canada pledged to financially support the Executive Board of the CDM. That record is posted on the United Nations climate change site at http://cdm.unfccc.int/EB/#EB2005 under Annex 49. It indicates that as of July 20, 2006, Canada had pledged $2.1 million and that $1.5 million had not yet been paid. I could find nothing to verify the stories contention that the pledge had been cancelled there, or on Canadian government and other websites.
Subsequently Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, according to several stories dated September 14 and 15, denied that she or the government has cancelled the pledge.
I’m left wondering who is trying to “make the news”. Elizabeth May, the new leader of the Green Party of Canada, is referred to extensively in the stories. Dennis Bueckert of the Canadian Press is the named author of many of them.
Certainly someone is severely distorting the truth. Will we ever learn whom, and why?
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast