Canada should not ‘cut and run’ on Kyoto

By Désirée M. McGraw

 Désirée McGraw chairs the Environment and Sustainable Development Task Force of the Liberal Party’s Renewal Commission and lectures on sustainable development at McGill University.  She served as a senior policy adviser on international cooperation in the Martin Government. She is a member of WFM–Canada Council.

The Government of Canada’s de facto decision to “cut and run” on the Kyoto Protocol is not because the agreement is fatally flawed. The fact that NATO and NAFTA are imperfect institutions is not necessarily a reason to scrap them.

What the current government really objects to are the carbon-cutting targets the agreement imposes. And yet, when one considers the urgency of curbing climate change – described as second only to nuclear war in terms of its catastrophic effects globally and increasingly a matter of collective security – national resolve is precisely what Canada requires right now.

Canada’s abandonment of Kyoto belies not only a blatant disregard for international law but a double standard in international affairs. While Prime Minister Harper dismisses our UN commitments on climate change as “unrealistic,” he argues that tough action in Afghanistan, regardless of costs, is required as part of NATO responsibilities in the war on terror.

Kyoto represents a small but critical first step in reversing otherwise inevitable climate change. The consensus of 1,500 of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists is that emissions must fall by 50 to 75 per cent in this century if we are to arrest dangerous human-made disruption of our climate. Canada must expedite implementation as a matter of utmost priority.

Implementing Kyoto does not preclude us from developing a so-called “made-in-Canada” action plan on climate change; it compels us to do so. Kyoto provides an internationally-agreed framework of targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; it does not dictate how countries are to meet these objectives. In fact, through a series of market-based and other mechanisms, the accord augments – not diminishes – the number of tools countries have to meet their commitments.

By creating a false debate between an international agreement and a national plan, Kyoto opponents are running out the clock on implementation. The longer Canada postpones the next steps, the more costly and difficult – if not impossible – it will become to achieve Kyoto. Failure to meet our global climate change commitments is fast becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Liberals are not blameless on this front: Under Prime Minister Chrétien, Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and then ratified it in 2002. The intervening five years of “consultations” were largely a period of procrastination, equivocation and outright obstruction by those who opposed Kyoto. It was not until 2005 that a sufficient volume of actions was proposed to approach meeting Canada’s target under Kyoto: to reduce its GHG emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels. Instead, Canada’s own emissions have grown by almost 25 per cent.

The Martin Government’s 2005 plan, Project Green, built on earlier efforts with a market mechanism, the Climate Fund, to purchase GHG emissions reductions from within Canada, and a Partnership Fund to support major initiatives in concert with provinces. Would the 2005 plan have gotten us to the Kyoto target?  We will never know, since it has been discarded by the current government.

 Now, much of the momentum has been lost. The Clean Air Act postpones any significant action on climate change until 2050. The government is also trying to pit one environmental objective against another by favouring clean air over climate change when in fact the vast majority of actions to reduce GHGs – auto efficiencies, closing coal plants, decreasing fuel burned by industries and in-home furnaces – also reduce air pollution.

Following through on Kyoto is not only environmentally responsible; it is sound economic and foreign policy.

Like any internationally-negotiated agreement, Kyoto has its flaws. But it remains the only global game in town. Canada supports multilateralism not as an end in itself, but as a means for addressing global problems. Those most severely hurt will be people whose governments can least afford to help them. Canadians will not be proud if sea levels rise, submerging poor countries like Bangladesh (not to mention Canadian coastlines), and if more droughts in sub-Saharan Africa cause starvation while we did not act. History has shown that developing countries and emerging economies such as those of Brazil, China and India will only respect global environmental agreements if industrialized countries like Canada demonstrate real progress first. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney recognized this reality when Canada successfully led the way on the much-lauded Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances.

On the economic front, Kyoto opponents continue to claim the accord will damage our competitiveness. However, it is the policy uncertainty about effectively addressing climate change that is most costly for corporate decision making. Implementing Kyoto would create clarity in both the regulatory environment and a carbon market.

Ultimately, Kyoto represents a litmus test for Canadians: Will we gaze at our navels while fearing change; or accept the challenge of confronting a global problem while preparing our country and our economy for the carbon-constrained reality of the 21st century?                            

Call To Action

WFM–Canada wisely joined Canada’s leading environmental organizations in a letter to Prime Minister Harper calling on the Government of Canada to make the environment a priority through a series of specific measures, including on climate change. WFMC should support national and international efforts to counter Canada’s failure to meet its international climate change obligations.

While Kyoto commits our country to reducing by 2012 our greenhouse gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels, a report by Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, issued in October 2006, found that Canada is off target by 34.6 per cent.

On the international front, South Africa, on behalf of the Group of 77 countries and China, asked the Kyoto Protocol Compliance Committee to investigate the failure of 15 countries, including Canada, to report on their demonstrable progress to reduce GHG emissions. As of October 30, this number is down to six, still including Canada. If Canada is found to be out of compliance, its emissions reduction targets will include an additional 30 per cent reduction penalty and its ability to engage in Kyoto Protocol emissions trading will be suspended.

For more information

The G-77 submission is at http://unfccc.int/files/kyoto_mechanisms/compliance/application/pdf/cc-2006-1-1-fb.pdf

More information on the Kyoto Protocol Compliance Committee’s deliberations is at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2006/cmp2/eng/06.pdf

The Commissioner’s report is at: www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/reports.nsf/html/c2006menu_e.html

CEPA’s s.166 on international air pollution is at: http://lois.justice.gc.ca/en/C-15.31/225933.html