Posted: Thursday, 1 December 2011

In December 2011, international climate negotiators will converge on Durban, South Africa, for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). With the Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012, these international negotiations are crucial to ensuring the future framework for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Internationally, the Canadian government has refused to negotiate in good conscience, and instead has continually acted as an obstructionist force for the last five years, leaving Canada with little, if any, international credibility at these talks. Now it appears that Canada, in an all new destructive low, will formally withdraw from the Kyoto protocol shortly after this meeting ends. We are heading in the opposite direction of where we need to go.

Canada should head to COP 17 in Durban with:

• an ambitious commitment for Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas pollution as part of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, paired with a credible plan to meet that commitment; and
• Canada should also ensure we do our fair share to support poorer countries to adopt clean energy technologies and adapt to climate change, and provide clear support for ramping up financing to support climate action in developing countries.

At home, Canada has done nothing to halt the rapid growth in emissions from the oil and gas sector. By 2020, under current policies, Alberta’s oil sands projects alone are projected to account for more emissions than our entire passenger transportation sector and domestic aviation combined.i

Without a clear plan to tackle these growing emissions, it will be extremely difficult for Canada to meet its reduction commitment. By delaying serious action, it also puts future job creation at risk by failing to invest in green job creation and skills development while locking in carbon-intensive infrastructure that will have to shutter as climate action steps up.

The Canadian government is failing to listen to our scientists. Neither is the government listening to Canadian labour, faith, social justice, human rights, nor environmental organizations about the serious impacts of runaway climate change. It is clear that big oil is driving Canadian climate change policy, and it has got to stop.ii

It is time that Canada stands up and does its fair share in taking action on climate change. We need a separation of oil and state.

I. The Urgent Need to Act

This year and the next few years ahead are critical. Global emissions must peak and begin declining in the next decade in order to have a chance of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius and preventing the worst impacts of climate change.

Many scientists and over 100 governments believe that the safe limit is below one or 1.5°C. Unfortunately, anything below 1.5 degrees Celsius is extremely improbable right now, as time is rapidly running out.
According to the U.S. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, carbon dioxide levels increased at a faster rate in 2010 than the average rate over the previous thirty years. Air temperatures in 2010 were the second warmest on record. Greenland’s glaciers deteriorated more in 2010 than any other year on record.iii

Climate change is causing some 300,000 people to die each and every year.iv In 2010, floods and other climate-related disasters displaced 38 million people — twice as many as the year before.v

These impacts are only forecast to become much more severe. If we do not collectively re-establish the link between climate science and the pace and scale of action, we risk sliding rapidly from climate crisis to climate catastrophe.

II. Global Solidarity

Most countries in the world do not have the privilege of being able to debate whether man-made climate change is happening, because they are experiencing the real and devastating effects of climate change now. In fact, those who contributed least to the global problem of climate change are being hit first and hardest.

To limit global warming to two degrees Celsius and prevent the worst impacts of climate change, global emissions must peak by 2020. But we require more than a global temperature goal — we need an international climate change agreement that supports the needs and circumstances of the entire world. A fair agreement must keep people and vulnerable communities safe, protect ecosystems and food production, and promote sustainable development.

This requires adequate transfers of finance, technology, and capacity to developing countries to adopt clean energy technology and adapt to climate change.

III. Moving Forward

The foundation and essential elements of a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate system already exist within the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC). Rather than implementing and strengthening this system through a second phase of commitments, a few disingenuous countries, Canada being one of them, are seeking to impose a voluntary “pledge and review” system. This voluntary system will permit countries to pledge what they determine to be consistent with their own national circumstances, instead of what is required by science.

If implemented, a pledge-and-review-based system will have devastating consequences. A recent UN report concludes that under current pledges, the world risks global warming of between 3.2 and 3.5°Cvi before the end of this century, which would lead to irreversible and likely catastrophic change.vii

We cannot let that happen. Workers all over the world are united in their call for action on climate change, green jobs, and justice. Canadian workers are standing up and working together to take action on climate change. In fact, despite a Conservative majority government, in the last federal election, sixty per cent of Canadians who voted, gave their vote to political parties with a much more progressive climate change policy.

The Government of Canada’s complete neglect of the climate change file is unfair, unjust, and irresponsible. In Durban, it can take back the constructive leadership role that Canadians expect our government to play internationally by committing to a second phase of Kyoto, stepping up its level of ambition, and showing that it truly stands behind its commitments by publishing a credible plan to achieve its targets and providing clarity on its financing commitments, both for the remainder of the fast-start period and, crucially, beyond.

Unfortunately, their plan is to do nothing.  We should be outraged!