More action, less gas
With the spotlight yesterday on the defeat of the Liberal government in Ottawa, another event drew far less attention in Montreal.
It was the start of the United Nations summit on climate change, a 12- day meeting to be attended by more than 10,000 people from 189 countries. The goal of the summit is to devise a long- run plan for battling global warming after the Kyoto protocol comes to an end in 2012. The Kyoto agreement to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming cannot begin to stop it. In fact, if every country that ratified the agreement were to meet its target, global warming would not even slow down.
Accordingly, Kyoto has always been seen as a first, small step in the challenging process of stabilizing the earth’s temperature. If the nations of the world fail to meet that challenge, scientists say temperatures over the next 100 years could rise by as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius. Such a swing in temperature would be larger than the one that brought on the last ice age, but with implications just as severe.
Clearly, much is at stake. But Canada’s role as host and, more important, as standard bearer to win over recalcitrant countries such as the U. S. and emerging giants like India and China to do their bit is badly compromised. Not only is our capacity to show leadership hurt by Paul Martin’s status as a caretaker PM, but by our own sad record in cutting emissions since signing on to Kyoto eight years ago.
Despite Ottawa’s lofty rhetoric and its costly but unpersuasive climate change plan, Canada has not only failed to gain any ground on reaching its Kyoto target, it has backslid more than most countries that have yet to make any real cuts. From 1990 — the Kyoto protocol’s benchmark year against which cuts were to be measured — Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by a whopping 24 per cent. Because the target Ottawa agreed to calls for a 6 per cent reduction, we now have a 30 per cent cut to make up within the next seven years. By contrast, emissions in the U. S. rose over the same period by a considerably more modest 13 per cent. As a result, Ottawa is hardly in a position to preach to the U. S., or almost any other country, on the need to commit to deep emissions cuts.
All the same, Canadians should hope something concrete comes out of the Montreal summit.
At the same time, though, Canadians deserve straight answers from Martin and his principal challenger, Conservative leader Stephen Harper, on how they intend to turn Canada around on emissions.
Canadians have had enough hot air.