28 April 2006Inter Press Service News Agency
Canada's new Conservative government recently cut 40 percent of the budget for state-run programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "We're already suffering badly from the effects of climate change in the Canadian Arctic," said Gordon McBean of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario, and a spokesperson for the scientists. "Climate change and the environment are not on the government's list of priorities and that needs to change," McBean told IPS. Some 90 scientists, including those working for government agencies, signed an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper calling for a national climate change strategy and stressing the urgency of the problem. "There is increasingly unambiguous evidence of changing climate in Canada and around the world," the Apr. 18 letter states. Many more scientists have since offered their support and are willing to help the Harper government develop an effective strategy, McBean said. "This isn't about Kyoto," he added. "It's about the need for global emissions cuts of 80 percent by 2050 in order to stabilise our climate. I don't know if this government understands that yet." Canada's new environment minister, Rona Ambrose, recently said it is "impossible for Canada to reach its Kyoto targets". Under Kyoto, 34 industrialised nations, including Canada, are obligated to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Instead, Canada's emissions have risen 30 percent since 1990, mainly due to a booming oil and gas sector. By comparison, U.S. emissions rose 16 percent. Environmental groups argue that it will be difficult, but far from impossible, to meet the Kyoto targets by 2012. All that is lacking is the political will, they say. And will power remains in very short supply. Government officials and some Canadian business leaders like Husky Energy's president and CEO John Lau have been reported as saying the task is "impossible" and the targets are "completely out of whack". "The Harper government just cut climate change funding by 40 percent to pay for tax cuts for individuals and corporations in the coming budget," said John Bennett of the Sierra Club of Canada, an NGO. Equally worrying, he said, are the recent talks Ambrose has had with officials in the George W. Bush administration, which has refused to ratify Kyoto, and her statements supporting the alternative U.S.-sponsored Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The Asia-Pacific Partnership is little more than a repackaging of existing bilateral and multilateral technology transfer efforts Washington has been pushing for the last several years, according to the U.S.-based Pew Centre on Global Climate Change. The Harper government is a strong supporter of the Bush White House and emulated many of its policies in its first days of government, including tight, centralised control over information, especially in relation to the news media. Ambrose's office, for instance, did not respond to IPS requests for interviews. However, Prime Minister Harper has said that Canada will not pull out of the Kyoto agreement. And Ambrose has accepted the responsibility as this year's president of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Framework Convention is the key international body for negotiating climate treaties like Kyoto and meets in early May in Bonn, Germany. But civil society activists remain sceptical. "What kind of role can Ambrose play at the COP in enforcing Kyoto or in the negotiations for deeper cuts beyond 2012?" asks Matthew Bramley of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental group. "She has publicly said Canada will not engage in post-2012 commitments until after Canada has developed a new plan," Bramley said in an interview. Government officials say such a plan is at least a year away, which is unacceptable given the urgent need to take action, Bramley believes. "There are no mysteries about how to reduce emissions," he said. "It's been studied to death all around the world. There's no excuse to waste time dreaming up a new plan." Earlier this month, a coalition of environmental groups sent the government a list of programmes that could be put into place immediately. These include incentives for energy efficiency, wind power and other renewable energy technologies and regulating industrial greenhouse gas emissions. There is some public pressure on the issue, since a large majority of Canadians and their elected representatives support Kyoto and the need for emissions cuts. "It's like being back in the early 1990s when we were begging politicians to do something about climate change," said Bennett. And doing something is important in a global context, McBean stressed. Although Canada accounts for just two percent of global GHG emissions, it needs to make serious reductions to have any credibility in urging India and China to reduce their emissions. "The risks of large changes in our climate system are increasing," he warned. "That's why government scientists stood up and spoke out on this despite the potential risk to their careers." (END/2006)
