Climate
Change In Canada:
Ottawa Slumbers As Premier Campbell Cancels The Olympics
By Bill Henderson
14 March,
2008
Countercurrents.org
An Announcement you may hear in the near future
There are hopeful signs of Spring in Canada, crocuses and migrating birds, but the country remains deeply asleep in climate change denial. This huge, rich, northern country which ratified Kyoto and then did nothing to reduce carbon emissions at all for the next crucial decade will soon watch the Arctic ice begin to melt once again. Soon we will again hear the sonorous sounds of media correspondents and Ottawa bignatorys commenting on the disappearing ice and the burbling methane escaping from the permafrost and we will all head off to Canadian Tire and buy a new barbeque and maybe some new patio lanterns.
Last week, probably in preparation for Spring, Canada's major ENGO's issued a new positioning document hoping maybe to take advantage of the Conservative government's environmental hibernation. Totally cowardly pragmatic and completely within BAU and the New CC Denial - CC is real and human caused, but we have a long time to do something about it (2050 targets) before the drought and sea level rise, etc. get too bad, and we can effectively mitigate within continuing political and economic business as usual with relatively small carbon taxes and more efficient green technology - Canada's leading (following) ENGOs were so bold as to announce this cutting edge CC position:
"Strong emission reduction targets will give Canada's climate efforts the focus and discipline needed to achieve success in getting this country's above-average climate impact under control. Canada should commit to an absolute 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels). The best way to send a signal about Canada's seriousness in achieving these targets is to put a proper price on carbon – at least $50 a tonne by 2015 and $75 a tonne by 2020. As a society, we need to reign in runaway resource development, particularly in the tar sands, and take a smart, innovative approach to building an economy that can compete – and a society that can thrive – in what will be the climate century."
The brave and roaring sound of Canada's foremost ENGOs demanding these ridiculous and out of date half measures seemed to wake up the slumbering neo-con Conservatives (or maybe the cowardly enviros and the hibernating Cons had been talking about Spring over tea in the Cons den) because the government then released their long awaited climate change plan on Monday:
"Tough federal regulation of industry's greenhouse gas emissions will help achieve the Government's commitment to a 20% reduction in Canada's overall emissions by 2020, and will be the most important driver of change for moving Canada to a low-emission economy.
"As announced in the Turning the Corner plan last April, the details of the plan include:
- Establishing a market price for carbon;
- Setting up a carbon emissions trading market, including a carbon offset system, to provide incentives for Canadians to reduce their greenhouse gas emission.
"In addition, today's detailed regulations include new measures like:
- Setting a target that will effectively require oil sands starting operations in 2012 to implement carbon capture and storage; and,
- Effectively banning the construction of new dirty coal plants starting in 2012."
Holy Cow!!! Spring has sprung. Boy are we going to do something now about that melting Arctic!!! Who said we were selfish, spoiled, ignorant, affluenza-addled Canucks. WE ARE GOING TO DO SOMETHING. Or at least we are again promising to do something, in the future, maybe. Something that won't hurt the economy, of course. Canadian Tire will probably have something I can buy to help keep the Arctic from melting.
But hold on - Canada is a big, diverse country, and on Canada's Pacific Coast there is a leader who is politically smart and strong enough to actually awaken from CC denial. Premier Campbell has read all of the latest CC literature, even the heretical and previously studiously ignored Climate Code Red, and he is about to make a magic speech hoping to not only awaken the citizens of BC and Canada but everyone globally from denial to needed action before it is too late.
Premier Campbell:
"Good morning ladies and gentleman; beautiful morning, but as you have guessed, yes, I have some bad news.
Sometimes in government you have to make tough decisions - we have made a decision that hurts personally and that I'm sure won't be greeted with pleasure by anybody in the province, by those who love the Olympics worldwide. But I'm confident we have made the right decision even as I expect shock and disbelief this morning. We are preparing a full disclosure document explaining the science and policy background to our decision and I would just ask that you wait until you can digest this information before you judge us, before you judge me - you know how much these winter Olympics have meant to me.
This morning I have issued a directive to suspend all work on the 2010 Olympic Games and we are notifying all concerned worldwide that the 2010 Olympics will be greatly scaled down if not cancelled. We have sent a letter to the IOC explaining our decision and asking for negotiations to plan a games for just the athletes and with a minimal media presence.
Given the escalating seriousness of climate change and the need to substantially reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible, we have come to the undeniable conclusion that the 2010 Olympics in it's present form is a luxury we can no longer afford and we are going to press for an athletes only games that we can all stay home and watch on television with a much smaller more appropriate carbon footprint.
As you know, my government has made a commitment to take climate change seriously and to take effective mitigation measures.
We have been planning emission reductions based upon a global consensus that we must stay below a 2 degree C rise in temperature to hopefully prevent dangerous climate change, with BC's portion of a global carbon emissions budget based on keeping atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million as a precautionary ceiling so as to not exceed 2 degrees C. (We are at 380ppm now vs around 280ppm for the ten thousand years preceding the industrial revolution.)
But new emerging climate change science strongly suggests that this 2 degree C and 450ppm ceiling is not nearly precautionary enough and that our BC emission reduction strategy within the Western Climate Initiative will have a negligible impact even within this now out of date target so you can see our dilemma. More importantly, BC is a small, minor emission producing constituency - we need a much more serious global action plan and effective mitigation urgently.
This is the main reason why we have made this difficult Olympics decision - not only do we think that by 2010 the science will almost certainly be worse and the games therefor will be seen as this carbon expensive luxury we can no longer afford, but we can send a signal to the world now with this decision - WE NEED TO GET SERIOUS RIGHT NOW ABOUT DOING WHAT WE HAVE TO DO ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. CLIMATE CHANGE IS AN EMERGENCY.
Most of the science papers, policy documents and other climate change reading that has crossed my desk in these past months indicate that climate change is worsening, that our climate change predicament is getting far more serious by the minute.
I told you that our mitigation strategy has been based on a carbon budget requiring emission reductions of 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 in order to not cause dangerous climate change with a rising probability of human extinction - yes dangerous, runaway, uncontrollable climate change must be understood as potentially fatal for humanity and most of the species with which we now share our life on this Earth. I know many of you, most of the public and most of my friends, don't see climate change this way and would think this is just your typical environmental fear mongering. But it isn't - this is reality in our opinion. And it gets worse:
Emerging science based upon the unprecedented melting of the Arctic ice cap - a melting that even a couple of years ago was only predicted to happen a hundred years hence - has led to questioning of this 450ppm/2degree precautionary ceiling and now some scientists, including NASA's James Hansen, have postulated that we are already over a tipping point to dangerous, runaway warming and that we must reduce, go back fast, from the 380ppm where we are at now that is raising temperatures enough to melt the Arctic ice cap, to 320-350ppm where the ice sheet would return.
This compelling new non-linear science perspective on climate change is that we have to get from a hotter getting hotter world to a cooling getting cooler world as fast as possible because positive feedback from a melting Arctic such as more heating from a changing albedo, more heat from possible methane escaping from melting permafrost, more heat from forest fires especially in the boreal forests, etc. is the direction we cannot go. We need to reduce our emissions much more substantially than we even imagined a few years ago when we were thinking about targets in 2050. Instead we need immediate, urgent reductions this year so that we can get to cooler - getting cooler before the ice cap is gone, before the latent positive feedbacks we know about start kicking in and we lose control. A 100% reduction in emissions globally by at least 2020 if not sooner.
The climate science is complex and disturbing. Climate change is a heavy weight; nothing in my years of government even comes close. But we can't ignore the danger. Climate change is an emergency that requires action now.
We will be posting extensive information about climate change and what we are going to do about it on the climate change secretariat website and we will try to be as open and transparent as we can be in this emergency.
When you understand this bigger picture the cancellation of the 2010 Olympics is the right thing to do. Nobody was looking forward to the Olympics more than me and my government, but the cancellation is trivial compared to the changes this emergency will require us to make.
We have also notified those companies that mine coal in BC that Roberts Bank and the terminal in Prince Rupert will be closed to coal exports at the end of this month and that we expect their cooperation. Carbon sequestering technology needs to be developed fast and then hopefully we can begin exporting coal again.
We will be undertaking negotiations with the oil and gas sectors - oil and gas can only become increasingly valuable - and we hope the companies involved will cooperate in keeping these fossil fuels in the ground until the technology to allow carbon free burning is developed. Gateway will also be reviewed as will virtually every government program.
I have approached Carol James, leader of the opposition, with this new climate change information and I have invited her and her party into a coalition government to begin planning a mobilization effort where we can make emission reduction of a scale necessary by reconfiguring our economy and with stabilization safeguards for those citizens negatively effected. There is much we can do; there is much we have to do, will do.
Of course, realistically BC can't move in this direction alone. There must be a global deal and action plan and we feel it must be led by the US or else it will be difficult for anybody to take action unilaterally. We have been working to get WCI agreement, quietly, about climate change as an emergency, but unfortunately the politics of a big election year has made agreement difficult. We will continue working because US leadership is so important. Ms. James and I have discussed how we will try and help move needed global action forward immediately.
Is there anything else? Of course this is bad news - could I be delivering any worse news? But I've had this uh,.. this problem, this our serious climate change predicament, on my mind for some months now, and it is a heavy burden as you will begin to realize when the shock wears off and as you read the science.. but I know that we have to move forward, we have to take action and yes, that we can survive this emergency if we act quickly now. In my own mind I've compared it with receiving the diagnosis of a possibly fatal disease - the doctor promises full recovery if, IF, we change our lifestyle immediately. This is what we have to do. There is no other course. So we're going to change our lifestyle immediately and maybe even find that there is a better lifestyle, a better life when we make it through this emergency, to a cooling planet.
Thank you for your time. I won't be taking any questions today - too much shocking news, too little time for you to digest the full implications of our decisions today. But I, we will answer any and all questions in the coming months. Again, thanks for your time and think of your government in your prayers."
Wake Up!! Wake up!! The premier's having a nervous breakdown!! He doesn't mean it!. Quick, everybody, get down, back into denial, back into safe BAU, back into your construction, tourism or retail job - it didn't happen - you we're just having a bad dream. THE OLYMPICS AREN"T CANCELLED. It's alright, it's alright. Just listen to your nice business leaders and our responsible environmental leaders. There is nothing to worry about. Spring's coming and we are going to do something about climate change, just you don't worry. The premier will be back soon and he'll be fine. Probably just something that he read. Go back to sleep and just dream about frolicking polar bears and our national leaders having tea in our nice warm parliament in Ottawa. Spring's coming and March Madness and the NHL playoffs and the Big Spring Sale at Canadian Tire....
bill
(at) pacificfringe.net
