Hot air on greenhouse gases
Canada must negotiate with provinces on Kyoto Protocol
In a less-than-stunning development last week, Ralph Klein and his gang unveiled their strategy to deal with climate change ,and firmly committed to economic development over the environment. In putting their spin on the latest Kyoto-based report, Klein raised the temperature of the Canadian debate on Kyoto, but failed to make any commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Alberta said from the beginning the province should be at the table as Kyoto was negotiated. It wouldn't have made much difference. Compromised by desires to act on the environment and political and economic realities, the Kyoto Protocol is as flawed as it is inevitable.
A deeply complex agreement that focuses on limiting outputs of greenhouse gas emissions rather than directly controlling harmful development, the protocol gives governments plenty of latitude to meet their commitments. The other side of this complexity is that it leaves governments scratching their heads while trying to figure out how to implement the thing without committing political suicide.
Evaluating and implementing the protocol requires complicated and fragile economic modelling with so many potential outcomes that it drives policy makers nutty. As the Alberta strategy points out repeatedly, Canada has not even determined what the reduction goals will be. It is a disingenuous argument because the greenhouse gas reduction targets are changing in large part due to the refusal of any of the parties (especially Alberta) to start reducing emissions until the protocol is ratified.
Alberta’s new strategy will leave the province stuck squarely in do-nothing mode. Behind the predictions of economic catastrophe played up by Alberta’s Environment minister Lorne Taylor, most of Alberta’s strategy is to throw its hands in the air and blame the federal government for agreeing to something so difficult. The only solid commitment to action is figuring out how to trade emission credits with our cleaner, have-not provincial brothers – hardly an effort to reduce emissions.
Alberta is not being unreasonable in asking for the federal government and provinces to hammer out a plan dealing with the Kyoto Protocol. It should have been happening as the agreement was being negotiated (at the international negotiations, as Alberta requested), but both the federal and provincial governments had their heads stuck in the sand.
The main spin the Klein gang put on Albertans & Climate Change: A Strategy for Managing Environmental & Economic Risks lands somewhere between "Kyoto is horrific" and "Kyoto is a catastrophe." They dared the federal Liberals to ratify the protocol and put the Kyoto sleeper-hold on the Ontario and Alberta economies – the only two "have" provinces also emit the most greenhouse gasses. The issue puts the whole economy-versus-environment question in stark contrast, and spotlights the big question of who is responsible for this international environmental initiative.
The themes that come out of the mostly non-political appendix to the report – the economic analysis on which Alberta is supposedly staking its position – do not quite mesh with the spin. The appendix pounds on three themes. We do not have enough information to figure out how Canada is expected to meet the Kyoto Protocol commitments. No one has stepped up to clarify how we will meet those commitments once they are determined. The U.S. opting out of the protocol will make it economically tough for Canada to commit to Kyoto and compete with U.S. companies.
It does not quite sound like the $40 billion catastrophe mentioned in the Alberta press release, but there are underlying points that both the pro- and anti- Kyoto folk need to consider. The lack of clear responsibility for environmental issues in the Canadian Constitution means that developing and implementing an action plan for Canada will require federal and provincial negotiations as difficult as the Kyoto negotiations.
The founding fathers of this confederation, bless their souls, had no idea that environmental matters would take on such stature nationaly and internationaly. Even the Charlottetown Accord tossed environment into the vague, unenforceable covenant of mutual federal and provincial responsibilities called the social and economic union.
For years, mostly due to federal government neglect, the provinces have developed environmental legislation. Now, as international agreements hit the scene, the accountability question becomes cloudy.
The Canadian government negotiates an agreement with little or no input from the provinces, but the provinces must take action to meet the Kyoto goals without much direction from the federal government (as the report takes great pains to point out). It does not sound like a workable process and it is made even worse by the complexity of environmental issues.
The Kyoto protocol really has no enforcement mechanism and, in turn, the federal government has no way to force the provinces to act on the protocol.
The Center for International Environmental Law
Alberta news release with link to report
Federal backgrounder on Kyoto mechanisms |
