It\’s Getting Hot In Here

This article is cross-posted from Edmonton’s See magazine.

CANCUN, Mexico —  Canada stood out at the UN climate meetings last week for its lack of leadership. Canada received its fourth Fossil of the Day award on Friday Dec. 3 for trying to remove itself from any legally binding emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that is the world’s only binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.  Canada’s position on Kyoto raises worries about the international community’s ability to reach an agreement in Cancun.

During a Thursday press briefing, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiania Figueres, informed journalists that Canada is trying to block an agreement on the Kyoto Protocol. I had met and spoken with our lead negotiator who explained that no one is trying to kill Kyoto. Was the executive secretary misinformed? Was our lead negotiator misleading us?

Continue reading ‘Another Fossil for Canucks’

This article is cross-posted from adoptanegotiator.org.

Canada wins first, second, and third place Fossil of the Day Award in Cancun today. The award is given daily to the country who has done the most to disrupt and undermine negotiations.

As the most salient and recent climate offense, Canada’s first place award is granted for killing the Climate Change Accountability Act. Our second place award goes for Federal efforts to gut climate change programs, including:
- The only major federal support program for renewable energy program funding energy efficiency upgrades for homeowners
- Funding for Canada’s climate science foundation
- Clean fuels policies in other countries.

And our third place award goes for a general commitment to regain title of “colossal fossil“: the country making the least constructive contribution to the negotiations.

While the Fossil Award is intended to evoke drama in what can often be a dull process, there is a more somber underlying message. In only the first day of negotiations Canada has been viewed by the international environmental community as being sufficiently obstructive to receive all three prizes.

The Fossil prize is granted the same day the Montreal Gazette published e-mail excerpts from the Canadian Embassy in 2008. In one particularly forthright exchange, Canadian Embassy staff person Jason Tolland wrote to government trade lawyers “we hope that we can find a solution to ensure that the oil keeps a-flowing.”

Continue reading ‘Canada Wins 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place Fossil Award’

US tracker Josh Riese explains the stakes of US Senate Legislation and how it shapes the post-COP15 world, from adoptanegotiator.org.

The most profound difference between my experience here in Bonn and my experience at all the other negotiations I’ve attended in the last year is the massive downward shift in people’s ambition and sense of possibility. I find it difficult to understand how we’ve gone from an unrelenting & furious global push for a fair, ambitious, binding DECEMBER deal to address climate change; only four months later, to what’s being described by most as a minimum of 2 additional years of negotiations to achieve the same outcome.

It’s so confusing. In just four months, what changed?

Continue reading ‘A Big F**cking Deal’

Cross-posted from adoptanegotiator.org.  Joanna reviews the importance of climate finance in Bonn, and the motto “get to work” as it applies back home.

Canada’s hot ticket to winning the UN climate meetings this weekend in Bonn is through ambitious climate finance.  Any decision on climate financing will follow straight from the Copenhagen fast-track climate financing decision.  Canada has not yet announced how much it will contribute to this funding, or if this money will be additional to our official development assistance.  The fast-track financing contributes a total of 30 billion dollars for mitigation and adaptation programs in developing countries.  In a report published by the Pembina Institute, Canada’s fair share of the total amount is 3 to 4% (roughly $300 to $400 million dollars per year by the year 2010).  In a February 1st speech, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said:

In his speech, Minister Prentice articulates the equity principles that underline these entire negotiations – it is the idea that wealthy countries have the capacity to finance climate solutions more than poor countries.  The equity principle is not just an ethical concern but is central to the negotiations and any tenable agreement.   The strong reference to climate change equity made by Minister Prentice gives us reason to hope that Canada has the will to do it’s fair share.

Keep Up the Pressure!

Continue reading ‘Canada’s hot ticket for Bonn, and the new spirit of Canadian leadership’

In 1992, the United Nations formally recognized civil society as valuable actors in environmental decision making. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration states that “environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens.”  It is a surprise, then, that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat announced that civil society participation will be greatly limited at the COP15.  It is especially surprising for the youth community that has lobbied for years to receive constituency status at the UN.  This status seems misleading, when young people are not even being allowed entry in the conference building. 

 The UNFCCC Secretariat reports that this decision is due to over-capacity at the Bella Conference centre.  

Video Credit of Adopt A Negotiator: A long line-up to enter the Bella Center.  

According to a memo sent out by the observer organization liaison, the 22,000 registered observers were limited to 7000 today, on Thursday this numbers will be further limited to 1000, and on Friday only 90 observers will be permitted access to the negotiations.

In response to the limit on participation, a collective of environmental organizations issued a statement charging the process as undemocratic. 

It is true that the details of complex negotiations often pan out behind closed doors; but it is also instructive to ask how the negotiations might change with the lowered numbers of civil society.  Everything from the plenary atmosphere to the public pressure felt by negotiators will vary – and greatly so.  It seems as-if the Rio Declaration needs rewriting to reflect the negotiating realities of climate change, which seems more like a G8 Summit or WTO meeting.  Otherwise, the UNFCCC Secretariat needs to strengthen its inclusion of civil society if it truly does value our input.

The following article was written by Drew Mildon, a lawyer at the Canadian law firm Woodward and Company.  Woodward and Company is overseeing the Beaver Lake Cree Nation law suit against the Government of Canada.

The Cooperative Financial Services delegates flew into Edmonton on Canada day.  They brought along with them Emily Beament, a member of the British Press Association, a BBC film crew and Paul Myles from Ecologist Magazine.  We drove north to Lac La Biche, passing through Fort Saskatchewan – the refinery and upgrading center of Alberta, the nexus of so many pipelines – pushing the natural gas needed to drive the engines of the oil industry.  Past the Dow Chemical plant and the miles and miles of puffing smokestacks.  Across the road from all this industry a few skinny cattle graze and you begin to give serious thought to how enticed you’ll be next time you see the words “Alberta Beef.”

On Thursday morning, we meet our plane at the tiny green terminal building of the Lac La Biche airport.  We fly north over the vast green forests, bogs and fens of the boreal.  Seismic lines old and new checkering and cris-crossing and carving the wood into unnatural patterns in long desperate lines that stretch as far as the eye can see.  Everywhere little squares of SAGD’s old and new scar the landscape. Continue reading ‘The Beaver Lake Cree Nation vs the Tar Sands’

In particular, the speech delivered by Karmila Karapassi from Indonesia has struck me. Her words were delivered with such strength and compassion that there was not a competing noise in the room. When Karmila said to the plenary “youth around the world are rising to the challenge,” all of the youth stood from their chairs with their hand raised, filling the room with their presence. Young people of all ages from all over the world stood together in silence, our eyes fixed on the negotiators whose decisions we would inherent.

Seeing viscerally, for the first time, the size of our dynamic youth movement filled me with a hope and a faith.

I have hope because countries like Canada, who neglect the Kyoto Process and the international community, have also catalyzed the emergence of a strong, mobilized, and powerful international youth community.

I have faith because the scope of the issue is so enormous that it forces us to rethink the way we live, and this gives us an opportunity.

As one youth said to a room full of negotiators, the climate emergency is our best, and possibly last, opportunity to create a global consciousness.

The atmosphere in Bali is intense. Yvo de Boer, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, showed signs of distress moments ago and left the plenary upon accusations of manipulating the process by China, Ban Ki-Moon delivered an emphatic speech urging for the deadlocked countries to find consensus, and the normal degree of diplomacy that operates in this process has decreased along with the time left for reaching consensus. Plenary speeches make explicit accusations to the US for blocking consensus and American speeches are followed with jeers from the audience.

While the particulars of the mandate continue to be discussed, I hope that Canadians back home are engaged with what is happening in Bali and discussing the position of the Canadian government. I have been tremendously unimpressed not just with the political platform of the Canadian delegation but also with their manner of conduct. Minister Baird has been AWOL from high-level meetings, failed to show up at his own side event to explain the Canadian Turning the Corner Plan, refused to invite opposition ministers in his delegation (but include industry representatives), and refused to meet with any of the UN constituency groups that have requested meetings with the Minister for months in advance.

At the civil society meeting with UN Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, the extent to which the youth climate change movement can impact the UN process became truly apparent.Representing the international youth delegation, Akhmad Viko of Indonesia asked Mr. de Boer what he thought of the future role of youth in the international climate change negotiations. De Boer’s answer revealed not only an explicit interest in the further inclusion of youth (he answered that there is much more the UN can do to ensure that youth are incorporated in the process) but also an implicit interest in our message and current work.De Boer went on to discuss the speech delivered by Catherine Gauthier at the UN High-Level event on climate change in September as evidence of the kind of work that youth are doing well and need to continue doing. Others can look to YENGOs (the formal umbrella term for the youth international delegation) because of our ability to organize, strategize, and because of our fresh perspective in the negotiations that are lacking from the COP veterans.For me, this is one of many signs of the real and measurable impact of the youth movement on this process. That a speech delivered in September still resonates with the Executive Secretary of this conference, that youth groups are almost at the stage of achieving formal constituency status at the COP, and that our home delegations are finally starting to realize that they (at the very least) required to meet with us at the conference, show that we are being taken serious as a real, credible, and powerul stakeholder in the negotiations!