WHAT? WHY DIDN’T WE THINK OF THIS BEFORE?

This morning on the Belgian radio news: Fientje Moerman, minister of economic affairs, lamenting about the woes the Kyoto protocol is causing. Either it means very heavy investments in even further (minimal) polution reduction (which causes companies to run away and jobs to be lost) or it means sending large amounts of cash abroad for no good reason (‘buying clean air elsewhere’). And some people in the government even want to put a cap on the amount of ‘clean air’ that can be bought elsewhere, thus forcing the loss of jobs.

Oh, and since there is policy to ‘get out of nuclear energy’ in Belgium, the pollution reduction forced on the industry has to be more severe than it already was when the protocol was signed: Nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gasses, but their future replacements surely will.

Freya Van Den Bossche, the minister for the environment, refused to comment.

International diplomacy has consequences? Go figure.