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Canada will face significant challenges in Copenhagen

Canada will face significant negotiating hurdles in Copenhagen as world leaders attempt to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol this December. While the world is begrudingly acknowledging that no treaty will be concluded in Copenhagen, the negotiations will give countries the opportunity to define their positions for climate change negotiations that will continue into 2011. Previews of Canada's positions have generally not been received well, particularly by developing nations.

As it stands, Canada will face four principal negotiating challenges in Copenhagen:

1) Canada's track record under Kyoto

Canada committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol. Neither the current Conservative government nor its Liberal predecessor made any progress towards this goal. In fact, Canada's emissions are currently tracking about 26% above 1990 levels. These facts are well-known around the world. Canada therefore risks being perceived both as a climate villain (at least when emissions are measured on a per-capita basis) and as a country that has difficulty following through on its international commitments.

2) The state of Canada's domestic initiatives

Many countries are seeking to strengthen their negotiating position in Copenhagen by passing significant domestic climate change legislation before December (see e.g., India's recent announcements, which attempt to mandate emissions reductions indirectly through energy efficiency).

By contrast, the federal government's Turning the Corner plan, which was originally scheduled to take effect in 2011, continues to languish. Canada's Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice has suggested several times this year that the government intended to produce comprehensive climate change policies before Copenhagen. However, Le Devoir, a Quebec newspaper, reported two weeks ago that Mr. Prentice said the government no longer intends to do so. The continued failure of the federal government to advance the climate change file is likely related to the next two issues.

3) The US's lack of progress

Following the strategy of many countries, President Barack Obama has attempted to enact meaningful climate change legislation before Copenhagen. While the Waxman-Markey bill made its way through the House of Representatives (although by no means unscathed), it remains bogged down in the Senate. The US will not finalize its domestic strategy for managing climate change before December and will therefore not be in a position to agree to any definitive international agreement.

The only definitive position that Ottawa has adopted with regard to the file is that it will not do anything to jeopardize its trading relationship with the US - in other words, Canada will follow the lead of the US. Given the delays in Washington, Canada has been unable to finalize its own domestic lesgilation and will likely not be able to agree to anything substantive in Copenhagen.

4) The expected cost of climate change legislation

Surprisingly, the Canadian federal government has never undertaken a comprehensive study of the economic impact of proposed climate change legislation (or of failing to mitigate climate change). In a report sponsored by TD Bank Financial Group, the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation commissioned the economic modelling firm M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. to conduct an in-depth study of federal and provincial government policies to allow Canada to meet a "2 degree Celsius target" by reducing emissions to 25 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020. The report concludes that Canada's national GDP growth would slow from about 2.4 percent annually to 2.1 percent annually as a result of policies required to achieve the country's stated climate change objectives. However, growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan would have to be curtailed significantly more than in other provinces, as the oil and gas sector and coal-fired electricity plants in these provinces contribute disproportionately to Canada's overall emissions.

The report has triggered tremendous backlash both from these provinces, who invoked the spectre of a wealth transfer worse than under the much hated National Energy Plan, and from the federal Conservative government, whose power is anchored in the West. Alberta Minister of the Environment Rob Renner called the report "divisive". Minister Prentice called its conclusions "irresponsible and divisive and the economic costs unacceptable". TD Bank his since distanced itself from the report, saying that it does not endorse the conclusions.

The report nevertheless highlighted two issues. First, addressing climate change will not be cheap. Second, it will require the federal government to reconcile strongly divergent positions in the provinces (for further evidence of the heightened emotions that only Canadians can bring to questions of federalism, see this editorial in today's Toronto Star, which questions "how the oilsands is a Canadian problem when it comes to emissions, but an Albertan birthright when it comes to talk about the wealth it creates"). Having addressed neither issue domestically, Canada will be unable to deal with analogous issues under a multilateral international treaty.

Implications for Copenhagen

So what will Canada do in Copenhagen? Canada's historical role in such negotiations has been to act as a middle power that can help mediate negotiations between some of the bigger players. In Copenhagen, it appears that Canada will adopt a firm position characterized by:

• a desire to follow the US;
• a need to protect its resource driven economy; and
• an unwillingness to make emissions reduction commitments that are not also undertaken by developing economies like China, Brazil and India.

This approach has already been received poorly by many, as evidenced in part by reports earlier this fall that developing nations walked out on Canada during discussions regarding the basic form of the post-Kyoto agreement. Minister Prentice appears to be girding himself for similar reactions in the coming months. In a recent interview with the Montreal Gazette, Minister Prentice said "if the price of having strong, capable, tough negotiators at the table is being singled out and given 'fossil of the year' awards, then so be it. Bring it on."

50% reduction by 2050 Climate Change Goal - 'Emerging Nations' Not on Board

At a working session in Toyako, Japan on July 8, 2008, the G-8 leaders met with the leaders from 8 fast-growing, pollution-emitting nations to talk on the topic of global warming. Even though the "Statement on Climate Change" released July 8, and the “Declaration of Leaders Meeting of Major Economies on Energy Security and Climate Change”, released July 9, are full of ambitious and ‘cooperation is key” language, no consensus was reached on the G-8’s climate change goal of reducing emissions 50% by 2050.

China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, representing 42% of the world’s population, rejected the notion that all should share in the 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 target, on the basis that it is the wealthier countries that have created most of the environmental problem up until now. In a statement, these ‘emerging nations’ commented, "it is essential that developed countries take the lead in achieving ambitious and absolute greenhouse gas emissions reductions.” President Hu Jintao of China is quoted as adding that “developed countries should make explicit commitments to continue to take the lead in emissions reduction.”

This stance on climate change is problematic, in that some developed countries, including Canada, have been taking the opposite approach, saying that major action cannot be taken without these emerging nations on board. This ultimately creates a cycle of “we won’t act unless you are on board, yet you won’t get on board unless we act”. Meanwhile, critics of this cycle point out that this inaction is likely to lead to increased warming of the planet, increased costs in climate change mitigation, and an increase in environmental consequences.

Hopefully the spirit of cooperation will prevail, and, as the Declaration suggests, "launch a comprehensive process to enable the full, effective, and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, up to, and beyond 2012, in order to reach an agreed outcome in December 2009 (Copenhagen Climate Change Conference)."