When I wrote “Fact Check on Kyoto Distortions” on November 28, 2011 for my blog, I covered the most frequently cited, misleading/dishonest bits of spin on the subject. That blog covered the top 5, but now there are more. It’s time for “Fact Check on Kyoto Distortions—The Sequel.”

Distortion number six:  If Canada does not withdraw from Kyoto, we will owe billions in penalties.

Fact Check: Sadly, there are no effective compliance mechanisms under Kyoto.  There are no financial penalties.  I say “sadly” because effective compliance mechanisms were available to the negotiators in 1997.  The 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the Ozone Layer had a great enforcement tool –  trade sanctions.

If any party to the Montreal Protocol on ozone were to violate its commitments to reduce and ultimately eliminate use of ozone-depleters, the other nations in the protocol could punish the offender with trade sanctions.  In 1995 the World Trade Organization was created.  Although there were no rulings on the matter, its Trade and Environment Committee raised the question of whether there were any environmental treaties that compromised trade, concluding that the enforcement mechanisms under the Montreal Protocol might violate the GATT.  By 1997 in Kyoto, Canada refused to sign onto any Protocol that included trade sanctions, as did many other countries.  This is why Kyoto’s enforcement mechanism is essentially a wet noodle. The only sanction is that in negotiating a second commitment period target, whatever amount of the first target that country missed, it would have to add an additional one third of a ton as penalty.  But since the target is individual to each country and since it is a product of negotiation, it would be easy enough to negotiate the next phase target in a way that anticipated the .3 ton top up.

So how does the Minister of Environment get away with saying something that is patently untrue?  He chooses his words carefully.  This is how Peter Kent explained it in a recent opinion piece in the Financial Post:

“The math is clear: The total number of carbon credits required multiplied by the average cost of a carbon credit is $14-billion. And the facts are simple: You cannot enter the second commitment period without completing the first, and we either pay the $14-billion or we would be in violation of the protocol.”

Kent is careful to say that the $14 billion is the cost of compliance. Hypothetically, if we were suddenly to decide we wanted to meet the 2012 target Prime Minister Stephen Harper repudiated back in 2006, when he cancelled all programmes to reach the Kyoto target, it would only be possible through buying credits.  Sure, it might cost the $14 billion Kent has claimed, but no one in their right mind would do that, and there is nothing in the Kyoto Protocol to force Canada to spend a dime.

Distortion number seven: “You cannot enter the second commitment period without completing the first.” (see Kent quote above)

Fact Check:  It certainly sounds logical, but it is not true.

There are two ways in which the statement can be interpreted and neither is true.

1. The first issue is the matter of staying in the Kyoto Protocol as a party, but not agreeing to second commitment period targets.  Japan and Russia are doing just that, but neither face penalties.  Japan is still hoping to hit its target, and is already below 1990 levels of emissions (while Canada is 28% above 1990 levels).  Japan is unlikely to hit its target, but has said it will stay in Kyoto, participating as a party.  It will be both out of compliance and refusing to take on second commitment period targets.  It will not face penalties because (see above), there are no penalties under Kyoto.  Canada is not the only Kyoto Party out of compliance; but we are the only country planning to legally withdraw.
2. The second way of framing Kent’s distortion is to say that Canada could not take on a new round of legally binding targets without first meeting the 6% below 1990 target by 2012 we legally obligated ourselves to meet under Kyoto.  This is also not true.  The targets in the second commitment period are a matter of negotiation.  To get Canada committed to new legally binding emission reductions, other countries would likely be accommodating.  As an example, back in 1997, Australia refused to sign onto Kyoto unless their target was 8% above 1990 levels, when all other industrialized countries were pledging to cutting below 1990 emission levels. Australia’s increase in emissions was allowed through negotiation.  There is nothing in the protocol that requires being in compliance with the first commitment period before negotiating the second.

Distortion number eight:  Canada has withdrawn from Kyoto.

Fact check:  Canada has filed a legal notice of intent to withdraw.  It will take legal effect in December 2012.  Until then, Canada is a Kyoto party.  Let’s cancel that letter and start being responsible global citizens.

To give you a sense of the nail-biting finish, look at this photo (new tab), taken (not by me) in the wee hours of Sunday, December 11 as two weeks of negotiations, and three days of round the clock talks, hung by a thread.

Since 2005, climate talks have been moving along two tracks – decisions under the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (described as the Long-term Cooperative Action – or LCA – track) and under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  The key difference between the two tracks is that the US is part of the 1992 FCCC, but not Kyoto.  All other countries are within Kyoto, but the support for a second commitment period has been waning. Sub-issues abound, from funding adaptation, to monitoring, to how to account for changes to forest cover. It is ultimately enormously complicated.  But it would be a mistake to think it is challenging primarily due to its complexity.  It is challenging because the weight of some of the biggest corporations in the world, Big Oil and Big Coal, have been blocking progress.

People talk about “the U.N” as though it were a building, or a bureaucracy.  It is both, but it is in its workings, and failings, a collection of nations, and they are a collection of people.

This is what the U.N. looks like.  It is not institutional.  It is excruciatingly human.  Here you see the faces of the key movers of progress (or blockers of progress depending on where you sit) after many sleep-deprived hours.

Standing is the President of COP17, the woman who chaired all proceedings, formal and informal – South African Minister of International Relations, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.  To her left, sits India’s Minister of Environment and chief climate negotiator, Jayanthi Natarajan.  Across from her, the blond woman in profile is Denmark’s former environment minister, the woman who unsuccessfully battled her own Prime Minister to try to avoid disaster in Copenhagen at COP15. (William Marsden’s new book, Fools Rule: Inside the Failed Politics of Climate Change Knopf Canada, has nailed down critical details of how and why COP15 went so very badly).  Connie Hedegaard left Danish politics soon after the Copenhagen train-wreck to take up the challenge of negotiating climate on behalf of the EU. 

There in that snapshot is the drama of our future in negotiation.  Three women working in English, not the first language of any of them, translation headsets abandoned on the table. In the end, it was the Brazilian minister who found the language that allowed the whole package of agreements to be approved (dubbed “weasel words” by The Economist, and not unjustly).  Instead of “legally binding” agreements under the LCA track, the Durban agreement sets out that the LCA commitments will be in the form of “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force.”

Some have denounced Durban as a complete failure; others claim it was an historic break through.  In truth, it was a bit of both.  If this set of agreements were all we ever achieved to reduce emissions, human civilization would not have much hope of survival.  But if the negotiations had made no progress at all, our hope of future progress would be dashed.  As Gwynne Dyer commented in his analysis, Suicide Pact in Durban, http://gwynnedyer.com, “The outcome at Durban could have been even worse – a complete abandonment of the concept of legal obligations to restrict emissions – but it was very, very bad.”

What the EU,  low-lying island states, Africa and environmental groups all wanted was a legally binding second commitment period under Kyoto.  A second commitment period under Kyoto was also the sine qua non for China, Brazil and other growing economies to take on new commitments under the LCA track.   EU leadership gained the lifeline to Kyoto with a second commitment period, to begin January 1, 2013, avoiding any gap in legally mandated reductions. 

The weakness is obvious.  The targets for reductions on the order of 20-30% below 1990 levels by 2020, only apply to the European Union and a handful of other countries  — Norway, New Zealand and Australia.  

But what did the EU gain to win that second commitment period?  An LCA track decision for an all-inclusive set of reductions (having “legal force”) negotiated by 2015, to take effect by 2020. 

And here is where it is clear the negotiations failed. 2015 is too late to act and 2020 is certainly too late to avoid shooting way past those tipping points in the atmosphere that preclude civilization from having a chance. As one scientist put it to the BBC:

“The agreement here has not in itself taken us off the 4C path we are on, but by forcing countries for the first time to admit that their current policies are inadequate and must be strengthened by 2015, it has snatched 2C from the jaws of impossibility.

“At the same time it has re-established the principle that climate change should be tackled through international law, not national, voluntarism.” (Michael Jacobs, visiting professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London, UK).

Lessons from Durban?  Kyoto still matters. For Canadians to help the global process, we need to reverse the letter of intent to withdraw from Kyoto, which will not take effect until December 31, 2012. Somehow, we need to mobilize a global public to take on the fossil fuel industry. There is still hope, but with each year’s delay, we have less time.  The atmosphere is not negotiating with humanity.  And time is not our friend.

Originally published in Island Tides,Vol 24, Number 1, Jan 12, 2012.

Ms. May looks forward to meeting her constituents and hearing about their concerns and priorities. As well, Ms. May would like to update constituents about her actions and work in the House of Commons on their behalf. It’s a great opportunity to meet Ms. May and ask questions. 

For more information about upcoming town halls please visit http://elizabethmaymp.ca/home/public-events/events or call the constituency office in Sidney at 250.657.2000.

Upcoming Town Hall: Pender Island Town Hall – January 12
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Pender Community Hall
4418 Bedwell Harbour Road
Pender Island, BC V0N 2M1

Contact Information:
Debra Eindiguer
Office of Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament
c: 613.240.8921
email: Elizabeth.may@parl.gc.ca

“Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.

“No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

“These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”

- From your open letter of today’s date, January 9, 2012.

Dear Joe,

Your letter caught my attention.  I respect you and like you a lot as a colleague in the House.  Unfortunately, I think your role as Minister of Natural Resources has been hijacked by the PMO spin machine.  The PMO is, in turn, hijacked by the foreign oil lobby. You are, as Minister of Natural Resources, in a decision-making, judge-like role.  You should not have signed such a hyperbolic rant.

I have reproduced a short section of your letter. The idea that First Nations, conservation groups, and individuals opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline are opposed to all forestry, mining, hydro-electric and gas is not supported by the facts.  I am one of those opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline.  I do not oppose all development; neither does the Green Party; neither do environmental NGOS; neither do First Nations.

I oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that the project requires over-turning the current moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the British Columbia coastline. The federal-provincial oil tanker moratorium has been in place for decades.  As former Industry Canada deputy minister Harry Swain pointed out in today’s Globe and Mail, moving oil tankers through 300 km of perilous navigation in highly energetic tidal conditions is a bad choice. In December 2010, the government’s own Commissioner for the Environment, within the Office of the Auditor General, reported that Canada lacked the tools to respond to an oil spill.  These are legitimate concerns.

Furthermore, running a pipeline through British Columbia’s northern wilderness, particularly globally significant areas such as the Great Bear Rainforest, is a bad idea.  Nearly 1,200 kilometers of pipeline through wilderness and First Nations territory is not something that can be fast-tracked.

Most fundamentally, shipping unprocessed bitumen crude out of Canada has been attacked by the biggest of Canada’s energy labour unions, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, as a bad idea. The CEP estimates it means exporting 40,000 jobs out of Canada (figure based on jobs lost through the Keystone Pipeline). They prefer refining the crude here in Canada.  (The CEP is also not a group to which your allegation that opponents of Gateway also oppose all forestry, mining, oil, gas, etc is anything but absurd.)

The repeated attacks on environmental review by your government merit mention.  The federal law for environmental review was first introduced under the Mulroney government.  Your government has dealt repeated blows to the process, both through legislative changes, shoved through in the 2010 omnibus budget bill, and through budget cuts.  In today’s letter, you essentially ridicule the process through a misleading example.  Your citation of “a temporary ice arena on a frozen pond in Banff” requiring federal review was clearly intended to create the impression that the scope of federal review had reached absurd levels.  You neglected to mention that the arena was within the National Park. That is the only reason the federal government was involved.  It was required by the National Parks Act. The fact that the arena approval took only two months shows the system works quite well.

Perhaps most disturbing in the letter is the description of opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline as coming from “environmental and other radical groups.”  Nowhere in your letter do you mention First Nations.  (I notice you mention “Aboriginal communities,” but First Nations require the appropriate respect that they represent a level of government, not merely individuals within communities.) 

The federal government has a constitutional responsibility to respect First Nations sovereignty and protect their interests.  It is a nation to nation relationship.  To denigrate their opposition to the project by lumping it in with what you describe (twice) as “radical” groups is as unhelpful to those relationships as it is inaccurate.

“Radical” is defined as “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.”  (Merriam Webster).  

By that definition, it is not First Nations, conservation groups or individual opponents that are radical.  They seek to protect the fundamental nature of the wilderness of northern British Columbia, the ecological health of British Columbia coastal eco-systems, and the integrity of impartial environmental review.  It is your government that is radical by proposing quite radical alteration of those values.

Your government has failed to present an energy strategy to Canada.  We have no energy policy.  We are still importing more than half of the oil we use.  Further, we have no plan to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, even as we sign on to global statements about the need to keep greenhouse gases from rising above 450 ppm in the atmosphere to keep global average temperatures from exceeding a growth of 2 degrees C.  The climate crisis imperils our future – including our economic future – in fundamental ways which your government ignores.

By characterizing this issue as environmental radicals versus Canada’s future prosperity you have done a grave disservice to the development of sensible public policy.  There are other ways to diversify Canada’s energy markets.  There are other routes, other projects, and most fundamentally other forms of energy.

I urge you to protect your good name and refuse to sign such unworthy and inaccurate missives in the future.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth May, O.C. 
Member of Parliament
Saanich-Gulf Islands

Leader
Green Party of Canada

As important as were these political events, I don’t think they qualify for Biggest Story of 2011. Arab spring is a closer contender since it has redrawn the political map of the Arab world. But I think, for me, the biggest story is the one that never gets told. 2011 was another year of record breaking extreme weather events, most of which are likely the result of human-induced climate change. Of course, the single most devastating event, the Japanese tsunami and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, were unrelated to climate change.

Nevertheless, the famine in North Africa, brought about by record-breaking drought; the astonishing, long-lasting flooding of Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam; and the evacuation of parts of Manhattan due to storm surges worsened by sea level rise, are some of the global events that fit the models of climate crisis impact.

For Canada, extreme weather events made 2011 the second most expensive year for the insurance industry. The prairie floods put more land underwater than ever in our history. And the flooding lasted from October 2010 until late July 2011. More devastating floods hit Quebec.

The wild fires brought on by extremely dry conditions destroyed one third of Slave Lake. Much of Canada was blanketed in record-breaking heat for much of the summer. Arctic sea ice hit a near record summer low.

There is more, but my biggest story of the year is the on-going refusal to connect the dots and describe climate change events for what they are. Not “Mother Nature” on a rampage; not some “wacky and wild curve ball.”

Climate change events, fitting the pattern of increased extreme events one would expect due to, what is in human experience, the all-time high greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

So for political story — Canada filing legal notice of withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. For biggest story of 2011, the ongoing, accelerating losses due to the climate crisis and the fact of, unlike a suicide bomber in a troubled region where media are keen to find who “claims responsibility,” the amazing level of denial. These disasters are no longer “natural”–their causes are known and our government is charting a course to make them worse, year by year.

(As originally appearing in the Huffington Post.)

On November 26, I was home in the riding and on Salt Spring Island. The primary purpose for my being on Salt Spring on that rainy Saturday was to be at an event sponsored by the Institute for Child Honouring, created by my dear friend and notable eco-troubadour, Raffi.  Another friend, Pummy Kaur, heard I would be in the area and asked if I could manage to fit in her book launch.  Easy as pie.

So on November 26th at the lovely venue of Jill Louise Campbell’s fine art gallery in Ganges, a supportive crowd gathered for the launch of Pummy’s newest book, A Season of Non-Violence: 64 Ways for 64 Days.  Pummy was born in India to a Sikh family in a Hindu state, influenced by Muslims and then sent to Catholic school. Quite the range of influences!  Her first book, What Would Gandhi Do? Simple Solutions to Global Problems gave voice to the relationship between all the major global issues and our daily choices, with solutions based on Gandhian principals.  In her new book, she chose the anniversary dates of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (January 30) to the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s (April 4) as book ends for what she describes as a “season of non-violence.”  The book’s premise is that a world of non-violence is a great deal more than a world without wars, and offers 64 concrete spiritual and not quite spiritual practices to move toward a culture of non-violence.  The book has inspirational quotes from everyone from Mother Theresa to Benjamin Franklin to the Sermon on the Mount.  For “ways” she suggests everything from “recycling” to “NOT recycling” (a plea for reducing consumption), to “hug four people a day.”

During the launch, I described how I tried to embrace non-violent communication in the House of Commons.  I shared an example of how I dealt with what I had found to be extremely offensive remarks from government MPs in the (abbreviated) debate on the Omnibus Crime Bill.  Every time an Opposition MP criticized the idea of mandatory minimum sentences (and the billions required to build new prisons to house the increasing numbers of our fellow citizens to face mandatory incarceration), the government MPs would accuse us of caring more about criminals than about victims of crime.  To keep my pledge to myself, to always speak respectfully toward other MPs, I criticized what “government MPs have been forced by their talking points to say.” I did not sense that any of the government MPs took it personally when I described why I found such an accusation offensive.

As we talked about the importance of taking the personally nasty out of politics, someone in the room said, “Wouldn’t it be great if every MP had a copy of A Season of Non-Violence?”  I said I would love to give it to very MP for Christmas, and suddenly every one was chipping in and making pledges.  Pummy’s publisher gave us a deep discount and the boxes of books began to pile up in my Parliament Hill office.

So before the House rose for the holidays, every MP got a card wishing them “Peace in Parliament” and explaining that the enclosed book was a gift from my constituents in Saanich-Gulf Islands, as well as a third generation Conservative from Surrey who donated 60 books.  Quite a few MPs (of all parties) came over to thank me, and I could genuinely say my own role in the gift had been pretty minimal.

May 2012 bring greater peace and harmony.  Let us all be the change we want to see in the world.

By some lights it was a breakthrough to have China and India and Brazil talking about targets — even though they have only agreed to start getting there.  It is an enormous relief to have a second commitment period under Kyoto, starting immediately at the end of the first. But Canada is, of course, refusing to take part, plus Japan and Russia.  The USA remains perpetually hobbled by domestic politics and somehow year after year and COP after COP, the US ducks its responsibilities.

Canada’s role, Fossil of the Year for the 5th consecutive year is no surprise. Canada’s interventions and actions have the effect of weakening texts and hardening positions. As I head home I am so worried about the reports that the Prime Minister wants to legally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. For all the damage we have done thus far, such an action would hurt the new agreements from Durban before the ink is dry.  We need to stay on top of this threat, reportedly to be executed on December 23.

The frustrating, maddening, even terrifying aspect of climate talks is that GHG levels keep rising while multilateral negotiations try to determine the time table by which they will be reduced. – eventually. It reminds me of the unacceptable negotiations with forest companies. We used to call it “talk and log.” The climate equivalent, climate negotiators talk while profligate use of fossil fuels ramps up year on year.

We need the equivalent of a cease fire.  No new GHG added, no new tar sands projects approved.  We cannot afford to keep adding an ever increasing volume of warming gases into the atmosphere, while negotiating when we plan to begin to slow it down.

And that is why we have to find a way to pick up the pace. We are risking putting the atmosphere on an irreversible trajectory to runaway global warming. We need to stop the rise in GHG — everywhere on Earth by 2015.  On current levels of political will, we are not yet close to the actions we need. Still, thank goodness Durban gave us something in the right direction. Now we need to get back to public mobilizations to improve the agreements and really reduce GHG.

Meanwhile, all attention on negotiations is on China’s offer to be part of Kyoto but only if the industrialized countries sign on for a second commitment period. There are rumours that China is working behind the scenes to bring India on board.  The number of countries wanting a second commitment period under Kyoto seems to be around 150-160.

As the talks continue, I find more negotiators have written off Canada. Some even think if Canada is only going to be in the way, it is just as well to see our government legally withdraw.  The shock of the idea of a nation legally withdrawing is beginning to wear off.  The Canadian media, and even I hate to say, the Official Opposition critic, didn’t seem to fully appreciate how very shocking it was to the world to realize Canada plans to fully withdraw from the treaty.  But as other government representatives look at the issue, seeing that the Protocol requires any party planning to withdraw must do so at least one full year before the end of the first commitment period (December 31, 2012), shock turns to a shrug.

In other words, the CTV leak that PM Harper plans to announce our legal withdrawal from Kyoto on December 23rd has not only the logic of his desire to keep this shameful course of action out of public view by moving under the happy chaos of the holiday season, but also fits the legal timelines of Kyoto itself.  And now in Durban where Canada is playing a very unhelpful role in negotiations, some negotiators — off the record — would just as soon see Canada depart.

The issues in the last few days remain complex. The most important is the matter of finding a second commitment period under Kyoto, but there are also key questions on financing, creation of the Green Climate Fund, progress on adaptation, the possibility of levies to be applied on bunker fuel or airline tickets, land use and forestry — and within each of these topics further technical debates are unresolved.

The next three days are critical.

Durban is a lovely place. I have never been here before and I will probably see nothing but the beach in front of my hotel as I walk to the bus stop for the shuttle to the convention centre. This, COP17, is stop 17 on a marathon of inaction called global climate talks. Last year Cancun, now Durban and next year Qatar. And for the last 5 Conferences of the Parties (COPs) it is hard to find any evidence of progress.

Over the last 14 years since Kyoto was negotiated, there has been some action and many successes. Most industrialized countries that committed to emission reductions under the first phase of Kyoto have achieved their targets. A long list of countries have done a spectacular job. Sweden reduced emissions while improving GDP by 40%.

The UK far exceeded their 8% below 1990 target and hit 20% reductions. So too did Germany, Denmark, and other countries take Kyoto seriously. Even Japan that has not yet hit its target is struggling to do so.

It’s the law, after all. Legally binding. Canada has distinguished itself as the law breaker. I always find it ironic that this self-declared “law and order” government considers itself above the law. And now in Durban the news from Canada that the Harper government has already decided to legally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, but not announce that fact until December 23rd has further damaged our reputation. If the Harper Conservative government does legally withdraw, we will also be violating domestic legislation in the Kyoto Implementation Act.

Here in Durban, the fact that our delegation is still here, negotiating to weaken the various steps for the next phase, has led to anger in many quarters. Delegations wonder why a country planning to legally withdraw continues to weaken plans for a phase in which it has no intention of participating.

As I listen to countries in the negotiations, it is clear the majority want a second commitment period under Kyoto. But the UN doesn’t make decisions by majority vote. The decision making process requires consensus. So Canada’s obstructionist tactics work. And without the US, agreement is elusive.

But still, for those who want to see a meaningful agreement, there is no let up in negotiations. With four days to go, we are hanging on to hope.

Originally published in iPolitics