Here\u2019s a question. Who sleeps better at night?<\/p>\n
Those who deny climate change and therefore feel no need to do anything about it?<\/p>\n
Or those who mouth warnings about its awful impact, then deal with it in a half-baked way?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the poser that hovered as I read through the on-line documents that came out of last week\u2019s First Minister\u2019s meeting on climate change.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister and the provincial and territorial leaders issued a communiqu\u00e9 that got the impact part right. The document proclaimed that:<\/p>\n
\u201cClimate change is indisputable, as are the significant impacts it is having in Canada and around the world. From increased heat waves, droughts, flooding, and thawing permafrost, changes to the earth\u2019s climate can be seen and felt by all Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement went on to talk about \u201cimproving our quality of life and building a healthy environment for our children and grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good stuff, actually thinking long term about the heat waves, droughts, flooding and thawing permafrost – and not to mention melting ice caps – that could become a daily reality for our kids and grandkids.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the plan for dealing with the dreadful future they describe is, at best, a drop in the bucket.<\/p>\n
Pipelines first?<\/strong><\/p>\n The problem starts with the plan\u2019s title – \u201cThe Pan-Canadian Framework for Clean Growth and Climate Change.\u201d Note that \u201cgrowth\u201d gets top billing ahead of \u201cclimate change.\u201d Perhaps this is only because it rolls well off the tongue \u2013 like Gilbert and Sullivan or Wayne and Shuster. Or maybe the title honestly describes what one commentator \u2013 in the National Post<\/em> of all places – has aptly suggested is a climate strategy in service of pipelines.<\/p>\n In other words, look like you\u2019re making progress on climate change as a prerequisite to getting some pipelines going.<\/p>\n Ostensibly, the \u201cPan-Canadian Framework\u201d is designed to enable Canada to meet a non-binding commitment the Harper government gave the United Nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.<\/p>\n While in opposition the Liberals panned that target as weak, then turned around and embraced it a year ago following the hoopla and non-stop photo ops of the Paris climate change conference.<\/p>\n The post-Paris commitment supplanted Canada\u2019s 2009 promise, made by the Harper government at another big international conference in Copenhagen. The Copenhagen undertaking \u2013also deemed insufficiently ambitious at the time \u2013 was to cut emissions 17% below 2005 by 2022. Forget that one, it’s not going to happen.<\/p>\n And, of course the Copenhagen broken promise superseded our long forgotten 1997 Kyoto undertaking – 6% below 1990 levels by 2012. Kyoto was Jean Chretien\u2019s big environmental moment. But instead of the 576 megatonnes (mt) envisaged by Kyoto, Canada\u2019s emissions were 718mt in 2012, rising to 732mt in 2014, the most recent year reported. If we reach the targets agreed to last week by the first ministers we will be come in slightly below Kyoto in 2030, eighteen years late. Talk about a lost generation.<\/p>\n But hitting even those watered down, compromised, many-days-late and-many-dollars- short targets is one big \u201cif.\u201d<\/p>\n Carbon Price too low<\/strong><\/p>\n Reaching the 2030 targets will mean cutting emissions by 209mt from the 2014 total and by 292mt from the 2030 projected emissions published by Environment Canada a year ago. Those projected emissions have come down a bit recently, thanks mainly to the blockbuster of a plan from Alberta\u2019s NDP government, highlighted by a cap on tar sands emissions and a $20 a ton carbon levy. That levy goes into effect in a few weeks (unless Ezra Levant, Jason Kenny, Chris Alexander and company stage a coup in the meantime).<\/p>\n But even with Rachel Notley\u2019s gutsy plan in the mix, we still need to figure out a way to cut over 200mt of carbon pollution over the next 13 years. Over the last 13 \u2013 more or less \u2013 emissions have dropped by 15mt. We obviously need to pick up our game. But absent major changes, the plan signed onto last week by the Prime Minister and 11 of the provinces and territories is shaping up as another promise that won\u2019t be kept.<\/p>\n The most prominent feature of the plan is a carbon price, scheduled to begin at $10 a tonne in 2018 and rise to $50 a tonne in 2022. That would add something like a dime to a litre of gas in 2022, hardly the price signal to spur change. Most experts maintain that a carbon price of as much as $200 a tonne will be required to accomplish the GHG reductions necessary to alleviate the future of droughts, floods, thawing permafrost etc. envisaged in the communiqu\u00e9.<\/p>\n But rather than showing momentum towards the $200 price, the first ministers put on the brakes. Instead of mapping out a path towards $200 a tonne, our leaders and their officials are going to spend their time arguing about who will be paying what at $30 a tonne.<\/p>\n B.C. obstructs<\/strong><\/p>\n That detour was in response to a roadblock put up by B.C. Premier Christy Clark who has spent her time in office chipping away at her province\u2019s reputation as a leader in fighting climate change. Clark has frozen B.C.\u2019s carbon tax at $30 for the last five years. Now she wants to keep it there until satisfied that provinces embracing cap and trade \u2013 in particular Ontario and Quebec \u2013 are putting an equivalent price on carbon through that mechanism.<\/p>\n To get Clark on board, last week\u2019s agreement included a commitment to meet again in 2020 to ensure that B.C. isn\u2019t getting bamboozled by the cap and trade provinces. In the meantime B.C.\u2019s ineffectual $30 carbon price will stay in place while the province pushes LNG plants that will, if built, add significantly to its GHG emissions \u2013 part of a 20 megaton increase, based on 2015 estimates from Environment Canada.<\/p>\n In Alberta, a carbon tax at any level is unlikely to survive unless the NDP pulls off another miracle and is re-elected. Saskatchewan is as big a carbon polluter on a per-capita basis as Alberta but unwilling to do anything much about it. Brad Wall noisily refused to sign the agreement leaving his province and its 75mt of emissions (over 10% of the country\u2019s total in 2013) free to use the environment as a garbage dump for an indefinite period. Manitoba, a relatively minor polluter (3% of the total in 2013) also refused to sign, but that move was in an attempt to leverage a better deal on health care – something Atlantic premiers might have tried if they were not so in thrall to the Trudeau Liberals. But that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n The sad thing about last week\u2019s climate cop-out is that except for Rachel Notley, it carries no political risk to the participants. The rise of Trump gives new life to the old argument that to stay competitive we can\u2019t move faster than the U.S. That rationalization, along with the chestnut about how tiny our emissions are on a global scale, will continue to be used to excuse the flaccid response, and to silence dissenters.<\/p>\n