It’s looking like the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN climate treaty in Durban will not produce the sorts of breakthrough in negotiations that many have hoped for. Countries have spent much of the past two years trying to work through the unravelling of the negotiations that occurred in Copenhagen two years ago, to see how they might find the basis for a deal. While there has been progress on some issues, we are still a long way from an overall deal.
For most, this is a major problem. If you think climate change is a serious issue that requires an urgent global response, the stagnation of negotiations is worrying indeed. However, Canada seems to be the one major country whose government, and large sections of its media and business, seems in fact to regard this stalemate as a good thing.
Of course it is by now well-known, or at least ought to be, that Canada’s action on climate change is the weakest of all the rich industrialised countries (perhaps except Russia) and weaker in fact than many developing countries, including countries like China. In Copenhagen, Canada was the only country to come out of the negotiations proposing weaker targets for itself than it had proposed before the conference. So the Canadian government’s reluctance to sign commitments in future agreements can be readily understood – we have done virtually nothing to stem the growth of our emissions since 1990, have more or less the highest growth rate amongst rich countries, and have perhaps the most to lose economically from action to reduce emissions.
But it is one thing to say that we find it particularly difficult to reduce emissions and thus we need some slack compared to countries that find it easier. It is another to actively undermine the process that might help other countries move forward. And that is what seems in fact to be the Canadian dominant strategy. The undenied rumours about the planned formal withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and the character of the announcements during the Durban conference are all best understood as efforts to undermine the overall process. Not only does Canada not want to act, it seems to want to prevent others from acting also. And in the media, it seems to be being rewarded for this position – see for example Margaret Wente’s column in the Globe and Mail last week.
Outside Canada, however, the strategy is seen as deliberate obstructionism. A coalition of South African figures including Archbishop Tutu took out an ad in the Globe and Mail comparing the Canadian role in the ending of apartheid to its pitiful performance on climate change. Leading Chinese officials called Canada the major obstruction to progress in the negotiations. Perhaps most tellingly (since South African or Chinese criticism is easily dismissed as self-interested posturing), the environmental NGO coalition announces “fossil of the day” awards at the negotiations each day at the climate negotiations. At Durban so far, Canada tops these awards comfortably, with two first place, two second place and one third place awards.
Canada’s international reputation is thus in tatters. There are three possible reactions to this within Canada. One is to shrug it off as rhetorical posturing and simply to re-assert Canada’s “good international citizenship”.
This seems to be the dominant approach. But this does entail serious risks. Just to take one tangible example, countries that are moving forward with action to reduce emissions are considering the possibility of “border tax adjustments” against countries with no action – tax adjustments to be imposed on imports to reflect the differences in the costs of carbon emissions between the importing and exporting country. The EU is seriously considering this, and the various pieces of U.S.-proposed legislation that have so far failed in Congress have also included them.
Initially, people thought China was the principal target, but now it is clear that Canada would be the primary candidate for applying such measures. And while there isn’t a consensus about this, the dominant view amongst trade lawyers seems to me that if you design such a measure carefully, it would get past a WTO challenge successfully. As an export-oriented country, Canada ought to be worried about this possibility.
At the other end of the spectrum, the reaction would be to re-assert that Canada historically has been a leader in environmental regulation, that Canadians still are strongly in favour of action on climate change, and that the government really ought to get to work to play its part properly in a global response. There are clearly places in Canada where this is taken as the appropriate reaction. In Québec, Ontario and BC, there are measures in place and a commitment to developing them further, for example. But at the federal level it would require a 180° about turn, in terms of developing a serious strategy for reducing GHG emissions across the country. This would have significant impacts on the way that economic growth is pursued in the country, notably moving away from our increasing reliance on oil production and exports.
But a third reaction is that even for those who are lukewarm on climate change, most care a good deal about Canada’s international reputation. Canada’s self-image as a “good international citizen” and a keen multilateralist has become a key part of its identity. References to peacekeeping, the landmines treaty, and many other international projects are routinely invoked here. The point is that while other aspects of this are already in decline (Canadian participation in global peacekeeping operations is for example now low compared to other countries), it is the lack of action on climate change, indeed the undermining of action on climate change, which has over the last decade destroyed this image abroad. Traveling Americans no longer sew Canadian flags on their backpacks to avoid criticism. Of course reputation is intangible, but a good self-image is important for most citizens: no-one likes to be a pariah, and that is what we are becoming. And it can feed through into more tangible questions, making countries less likely to care what Canada thinks in areas of importance to it, like trade for example.
Canadians would be well advised to take seriously the damage to its reputation that its government’s strategy on climate change has caused.
Origin
Source: iPolitico
For most, this is a major problem. If you think climate change is a serious issue that requires an urgent global response, the stagnation of negotiations is worrying indeed. However, Canada seems to be the one major country whose government, and large sections of its media and business, seems in fact to regard this stalemate as a good thing.
Of course it is by now well-known, or at least ought to be, that Canada’s action on climate change is the weakest of all the rich industrialised countries (perhaps except Russia) and weaker in fact than many developing countries, including countries like China. In Copenhagen, Canada was the only country to come out of the negotiations proposing weaker targets for itself than it had proposed before the conference. So the Canadian government’s reluctance to sign commitments in future agreements can be readily understood – we have done virtually nothing to stem the growth of our emissions since 1990, have more or less the highest growth rate amongst rich countries, and have perhaps the most to lose economically from action to reduce emissions.
But it is one thing to say that we find it particularly difficult to reduce emissions and thus we need some slack compared to countries that find it easier. It is another to actively undermine the process that might help other countries move forward. And that is what seems in fact to be the Canadian dominant strategy. The undenied rumours about the planned formal withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and the character of the announcements during the Durban conference are all best understood as efforts to undermine the overall process. Not only does Canada not want to act, it seems to want to prevent others from acting also. And in the media, it seems to be being rewarded for this position – see for example Margaret Wente’s column in the Globe and Mail last week.
Outside Canada, however, the strategy is seen as deliberate obstructionism. A coalition of South African figures including Archbishop Tutu took out an ad in the Globe and Mail comparing the Canadian role in the ending of apartheid to its pitiful performance on climate change. Leading Chinese officials called Canada the major obstruction to progress in the negotiations. Perhaps most tellingly (since South African or Chinese criticism is easily dismissed as self-interested posturing), the environmental NGO coalition announces “fossil of the day” awards at the negotiations each day at the climate negotiations. At Durban so far, Canada tops these awards comfortably, with two first place, two second place and one third place awards.
Canada’s international reputation is thus in tatters. There are three possible reactions to this within Canada. One is to shrug it off as rhetorical posturing and simply to re-assert Canada’s “good international citizenship”.
This seems to be the dominant approach. But this does entail serious risks. Just to take one tangible example, countries that are moving forward with action to reduce emissions are considering the possibility of “border tax adjustments” against countries with no action – tax adjustments to be imposed on imports to reflect the differences in the costs of carbon emissions between the importing and exporting country. The EU is seriously considering this, and the various pieces of U.S.-proposed legislation that have so far failed in Congress have also included them.
Initially, people thought China was the principal target, but now it is clear that Canada would be the primary candidate for applying such measures. And while there isn’t a consensus about this, the dominant view amongst trade lawyers seems to me that if you design such a measure carefully, it would get past a WTO challenge successfully. As an export-oriented country, Canada ought to be worried about this possibility.
At the other end of the spectrum, the reaction would be to re-assert that Canada historically has been a leader in environmental regulation, that Canadians still are strongly in favour of action on climate change, and that the government really ought to get to work to play its part properly in a global response. There are clearly places in Canada where this is taken as the appropriate reaction. In Québec, Ontario and BC, there are measures in place and a commitment to developing them further, for example. But at the federal level it would require a 180° about turn, in terms of developing a serious strategy for reducing GHG emissions across the country. This would have significant impacts on the way that economic growth is pursued in the country, notably moving away from our increasing reliance on oil production and exports.
But a third reaction is that even for those who are lukewarm on climate change, most care a good deal about Canada’s international reputation. Canada’s self-image as a “good international citizen” and a keen multilateralist has become a key part of its identity. References to peacekeeping, the landmines treaty, and many other international projects are routinely invoked here. The point is that while other aspects of this are already in decline (Canadian participation in global peacekeeping operations is for example now low compared to other countries), it is the lack of action on climate change, indeed the undermining of action on climate change, which has over the last decade destroyed this image abroad. Traveling Americans no longer sew Canadian flags on their backpacks to avoid criticism. Of course reputation is intangible, but a good self-image is important for most citizens: no-one likes to be a pariah, and that is what we are becoming. And it can feed through into more tangible questions, making countries less likely to care what Canada thinks in areas of importance to it, like trade for example.
Canadians would be well advised to take seriously the damage to its reputation that its government’s strategy on climate change has caused.
Origin
Source: iPolitico
No comments:
Post a Comment