Published in Globe and Mail (Dec. 10, 2008)
POZNAN, POLAND As Canada and other countries focus on the current economic crisis, the world continues to face another threat that's just as urgent, only even bigger and more long-lasting. The bad news is that the scientific laws governing global warming don't fluctuate with the value of the TSX. The good news is that action to spur economic recovery can help get us going in saving the climate.
Climate change is an urgent threat in the same way that an iceberg far ahead is an urgent threat to a ship that takes a long time to adjust its course. To keep average temperatures within 2ºC of the pre-industrial level, we have to reverse the global growth in greenhouse gas pollution before 2020. We can do that only by making an immediate start on shifting trillions of dollars of energy investments to clean alternatives.
Why 2ºC? That's the threshold that many of the world's leading climate scientists say we mustn't cross. The last time the world did cross that threshold for a sustained period (3 million years ago), melting ice raised the sea level at least 15 metres higher than where it is now. Scientists are projecting a metre or more of sea-level rise this century alone - enough to make 30 million Bangladeshis homeless.
Governments will have to face these facts as they enter the final two days of negotiations tomorrow at the UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland. Poznan is the half-way point in the negotiation of a new global deal to cut greenhouse gases, a deal that countries have agreed they will reach at next December's UN conference in Copenhagen. A failure of ambition in the Copenhagen agreement could lock the world into a failure to curb global warming.
Canada's international reputation on climate change is very poor. We ratified the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions and then chose to ignore that commitment. Canada headed in to last year's UN climate conference with a uniquely aggressive tone towards developing countries, and ended it virtually isolated when we opposed science-based targets for rich countries. Economic analysis published last week by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, however, indicates that Canada is fully capable of meeting such targets.
To play a more positive role in the countdown to Copenhagen, Canada needs to move urgently to put a price on greenhouse gas pollution - the centrepiece of any serious climate plan, according to virtually every expert in this area. The Harper government now says it wants to do this by helping develop a North America-wide cap-and-trade system. But that's not likely to take effect until 2012. Is the government really going to wait six years after taking office before taking serious action?
Simply grabbing the coat-tails of Barack Obama on cap-and-trade might not seem so bad given his clear commitment to get serious about the climate threat. But waiting for U.S. decisions would likely erase any Canadian influence over the design of the system, and the delay involved would create uncertainty that's bad for Canadian business. Don Drummond, chief economist at TD Bank, says that uncertainty over climate policy "poses a serious cost as businesses have little idea how to factor future environmental policies into their planning."
Last but not least, Canada risks falling behind the U.S. in the area where action on the economic crisis can help solve the climate crisis: public investments. Barack Obama says he will invest $15 billion annually in clean energy to "steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating five million new, green jobs." But in Ottawa, last month's Throne Speech was silent about the opportunity to put a green slant on financial help for companies, workers and municipalities.
This contrasts sharply with the advice of Nicholas Stern, the world's most prominent expert on the economics of climate change. Lord Stern, a former head of the UK government's Economic Service, says there are "very powerful arguments" for combining government spending to help the economy recover with investments to cut greenhouse gas pollution.
Failing to follow that advice will help neither Canada's effectiveness nor its credibility in fighting global warming.
Matthew Bramley is director of the Climate Change Program. He is currently among the Canadians attending the UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland.
Matthew Bramley was with the Pembina Institute from 2000 to 2011, serving as director of the climate change program and director of research.
