Whether Kyoto will do more good than damage depends on whether you believe that rich nations have a responsibility to pay off "poor" nations - nations such as Russia, China and India - for their pollution.
Quite honestly, believing Kyoto will help the environment is akin to jumping off a building and believing God will catch you and you will land unharmed.
Certantly in the best case, Canada would be reducing greenhouse gasses, however rapidly industrializing nations such as China and India will be pumping far, far more CO2 into the atmosphere than Canada is reducing. How does that help?
For the most part, the anti-Kyoto crowd is fine with the government spending money on reducing our emissions. While a little contrived, the one-tonne challenge is a good idea. Go for it. Offer tax credits to companies that reduce their pollutants? Great! Offer credits to individuals who make their homes more efficient? Wonderful!
Hell, I have a suggestion for the Feds: If you are going to spend billions of dollars on reducing emissions, give that money to Canada's major cities for the express purpose of expanding their LRT and rapid transit systems. Get people on the busses and trains, and get cars off the road.
Where Kyoto fails is where it demands that rich nations artificially prop up the economies of poor nations. That has nothing to do with the environment, that is wealth redistribution.
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