[BRIEF NOTE] Three notes on Canada's reactionary position at Copenhagen

[rfmcdonald]

It has been noted that George Monbiot is unhappy with Canada.

[H]ere I am [in Toronto], watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

In 2006 the new Canadian government announced it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%.

It is now clear that Canada will refuse to be sanctioned for abandoning its legal obligations. The Kyoto protocol can be enforced only through goodwill: countries must agree to accept punitive future obligations if they miss their current targets. But the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation. Never mind special measures; it won't accept even an equal share. The Canadian government is testing the international process to destruction and finding that it breaks all too easily. By demonstrating that climate sanctions aren't worth the paper they're written on, it threatens to render any treaty struck at Copenhagen void.

After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007, it singlehandedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations. After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country that had done most to disrupt the talks. The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world's 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th.

In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed the government was scheming to divide the Europeans. During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying. Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada's obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth.

He's being harsh. The Harper government's policies don't reflect Canadian public opinion.

64 per cent of respondents to a Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey said rich nations have a responsibility to commit to higher and harder targets than developing countries.

Most also want to see a binding agreement come out of Copenhagen, and 81 per cent said Canada should act independently of the United States.

The Conservatives insist Canada must tie its policy to that of the U.S. because of the countries' extensive economic relationship.

The Harper government says it's waiting for the Obama administration to come out with a suite of policies to which Canada can synchronize its own.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a big step Monday toward regulating greenhouses gases, concluding that pollution from burning fossil fuels should be regulated.

The action, which lets the U.S. government control greenhouse gases without having to push legislation through Congress, appears timed to give a boost to the Copenhagen talks.

"This is a clear message to Copenhagen of the Obama administration's commitments to address global climate change," said Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat and lead author of a climate bill before the Senate. "The message to Congress is crystal clear: get moving."

Canadians had a similar message for the Harper government. The Harris-Decima survey shows that 46 per cent of respondents would like to see Canada play a lead role in Copenhagen.

"The number of people in society who feel like this is something that requires action is high," said Doug Anderson, senior vice-president of Harris-Decima.

"But most Canadians are still not at that emotional, 'I'm willing to step out of my house and go to a protest' kind of a situation on this. Yet that's not to say that they are not interested in seeing a pragmatic solution.

"It's no longer a situation where people say for the most part that this isn't something that's a concern, or this isn't something that requires action. It's both of those for most Canadians."

The telephone poll of just over 1,000 Canadians was conducted Nov. 26-29 and is considered accurate to within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

So what's going on? It's no coincidence that the current Conservative government draws much of its support from Alberta, the province that has the oil exports, that gives Canada the reputation of being a corrupt petro-state, the province that as journalist Andrew Nikiforuk has saidhas suffered badly distorted politics (most Albertans are critical of government policies re: the oil sands) to the extent that the provincial Progressive Conservative Party has governed since 1973. I don't want to bash Alberta, certainly not Albertans, but that province has not helped.