On Monday, April 15^th, the committee heard witness testimony from two academics from Carleton and the University of Ottawa, a senior researcher from the Governance of Natural Resources Program at the North-South Institute, as well as the managing director of the Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export (CAMESE). The session aimed to flesh out the true impact of harmonizing Canada’s trade policies amongst the four member nations. Questions and comments sought to support or debunk a perceived negative impact in allowing for “freedom of movement” between member nations. There was also much time devoted to analyzing Canada’s potential marginalization from other trade partners like Brazil. The committee discussed whether they should heed this warning and risk isolating themselves by seeking trade alliances too quickly, or whether the Pacific Alliance can coexist with other simultaneous trade deals.

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On 18 October, the committee resumed its study on the Intellectual Property Regime in Canada.  Two witnesses were present: Diane Lank, General Counsel, Desire, Learn Incorporated, and Jason Kee, Director, Entertainment Software Association of Canada. The major issues discussed were the costs of filing patents in Canada and the piracy of electronic games. Diane Lank recounted the lawsuit which affected her organization in 2006 and subsequently reduced the annual growth for her organization. She also discussed how much more expensive filing patents in Canada is compared to the U.S. She emphasized the urgent need to have efficient communications (e.g via education) with trading partners such as the U.S and Europe so that the Canadian e-learning markets can be as competitive and better equip to penetrate into emerging remote markets such as Brazil, China and Colombia. Jason Kee stressed the importance of having a more formal law enforcement system within the Canadian market to combat the rising threats from piracy & counterfeiting within the electronic games industry. He mentioned a form of IP coordinator (as in the U.S) who would assist in prioritizing problems such as piracy. Among other issues discussed between the committee members and witnesses included lawsuit fees, improving innovation in the industry, government incentives (e.g grants & tax credits), piracy & trademarks challenges, systems of patent processing and patent filing disclosure.

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At the invitation of Nobel-Prize-recipient President Mikhail S. Gorbachev Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands, is also a signator.  The Task Force report summarises in frightening detail the scientifically verifiable realities of climate change and the benefits of action to secure a stable climate and a viable global environment. 

“I am proud to endorse this forceful and timely statement, which was prepared by so many credible and knowledgeable Task Force members who clearly recognize the climate dangers we face,” said May.  “After witnessing the brute passage of the anti-nature, climate-change-denial Bill C-38, I am relieved to know that reason still prevails in many minds and nations around the globe.”

 The statement makes several points of which all Canadians, especially Stephen Harper, should be aware:

• The impacts of climate change are intensifying around the world.  Unprecedented temperatures, glacier melts, changing rainfall patterns, droughts, floods, storms, fires, and widening desertification are degrading the fragile ecosystems of the planet and devastating the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.
• The alarming effects being observed today around the world are the result of the rise of only 0.8°C in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels.  Humanity is currently generating CO₂ emissions at a rate which could cause an average rise of over 6°C by 2100 (IPCC 2007).
• Climate change is undermining the prospects for progress, stability, and peace in the future and affecting the security and lives of all – rich and poor.

The current global situation can be summarized by three facts: 

1. Far from declining, global emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate – by 5.9% in 2010 and cumulatively by 49% since 1990 (IEA);
2. The risks of destabilizing the climate are increasing.  We may be approaching a point of no return – an irreversible destabilization of the climate;
3. Multi-lateral efforts to preserve a stable climate and a safe future are proving to be slow and inadequate in relation to the scale and urgency of the challenges.

“I cannot understand why the Harper Conservatives refuse to admit that they and their families face a world-wide emergency which demands serious action on a national and global scale with clear and predictable government policies,” said May.  “Contrary to the agenda advanced by Bill C-38, we must build a sustainable, green, low-carbon economy, not an unhealthy, dirty one based on 20^th century energy sources.”

To quote President Gorbachev:

“Climate change is only the tip of the systemic crisis we face. It poses existential threats to global stability and security that can shake the foundations of modern civilisation. The biggest challenge of the next decade will therefore be to counter this systemic crisis with comprehensive solutions based on scientific knowledge focused directly on the causes and impacts of climate change while overcoming the pressures of various vested interests and of business-as usual politics.  The onus is now on government and business leaders to act.”

May first worked with Gorbachev on the Earth Charter Commission, an independent, international body which, after a decade-long, cross-cultural, global dialogue, launched the Earth Charter in 1997 – a declaration of ethical principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful planet in the 21^st century.

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“This should be a day to celebrate the fact that seven years ago humanity began to act together to prevent the grave dangers caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions,” said May.  “But the prime minister’s plan to pull out of Kyoto, in spite of the accord`s support by most Canadians, makes it a day of mourning instead.

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“Our international reputation is tragically diminished.  This week, Brazil, South Africa, China, and India condemned Canada for its decision to withdraw, saying it ‘seriously’ brings into question our credibility in dealing with the very real threat of climate change.

In regard to the withdrawal from Kyoto, Environment Minister Peter Kent has stated that, if it remains, Canada risks having to pay $14 billion in compliance costs for not achieving its Kyoto targets.

“This is spin, designed to confuse Canadians,” said May.  “Hypothetically, if we were to decide we wanted to meet the 2012 target Harper repudiated back in 2006, when he cancelled all programmes to reach the Kyoto target, it would only be possible through buying credits.  These credits might cost the $14 billion Kent has claimed, but no one in their right mind would demand such a thing, and there is nothing in the Kyoto Protocol to force Canada to spend a dime.”

“Prime Minister Harper and his cabinet are playing fast and loose with the facts in order to convince Canadians that developing the oil sands, one of the world’s largest polluters, and allowing state enterprises of China to own and export bitumen crude production is good for our country.

“They claim that this won`t really hurt Canada’s national security and the already-overheated atmosphere, but let’s look at reality.”

Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver stated in the House on February 14 that:  “We should be proud of the fact that greenhouse gas emissions (in the oil sands) have been reduced by 30 percent over the last 10 years.” In fact, in 2005, the Pembina Institute reported that the oil sands released 37 megatonnes of GHGs, compared with 23 megatonnes in 2000.

Also, since the level of production is set to significantly increase, Environment Canada has predicted that GHG emissions will triple from 30 million tonnes in 2005 to 92 million tonnes in 2020. 

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If the Minister meant to say per barrel emissions have gone down, he was correct until recently. In 2010, even the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers admitted that per barrel GHG emissions rose by two percent over 2009 levels due to the increase of in situ production. That same year, total emissions increased by 14 percent. 

Last year, the Harper Conservatives had to admit that they deliberately left out data from their annual UN inventory indicating that oil sands emissions had gone up. 

At the same time, Minister Oliver told the House of Commons that the oil sands industry will create “$3 trillion in economic activity”, generating “hundreds of billions of dollars for government services to Canadians … and over 700,000 jobs a year over the next 25 years.”

“Are we to believe that China is investing in Canada for altruistic reasons?” asked May.  “We know that Sinopec purchased almost 10 percent of Syncrude, giving it a veto on that company’s right to keep jobs in Canada.  The Enbridge-China pipeline-and-tanker scheme will provide some temporary construction jobs, but it`s designed to take refining jobs from Canada.  Keystone XL, if it goes through, will do the same.

 “Experts have testified in committee that this approach has already been harmful to Canadian refineries, which have lost 10,000 jobs since 1989. So it sounds like the jobs and the profits will be leaving the country.

“Canadians need to know the truth about Kyoto and the Axis of Oil, and pressure the prime minister to stop the fiction.  One final distortion is that we are already out of Kyoto. Not true. We have only filed a legal notice of intent to withdraw.  It won’t take legal effect until December 2012.  Let’s cancel that notice and start being responsible global citizens.”

Greens are urging Canadians to go http://keepkyoto.ca/ to sign up and keep Canada in Kyoto.

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The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, not merely a document signed by a former prime minister. It was ratified by a vote in the House of Commons.

If Canada legally withdraws, it will be the first time in our history we have ever withdrawn from a global treaty.

Contrary to often repeated claims, China, India and Brazil are in the Kyoto Protocol. Of all countries on Earth, only the United States has not ratified Kyoto. The element of truth in the distortion is that the first Kyoto commitment period, 2008-2012, by design, required industrialized countries to hit specific targets and deadlines.

This approach was modelled on the successful 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer. In that protocol, industrialized countries took on emission targets in the first phase, while developing countries could actually increase emissions.

Subsequent agreements within the Montreal Protocol brought all countries to phase out ozone depleting substances.

Under Kyoto, the developing countries took on the commitment to reduce emissions in a more general way. Brazil has done far more than Canada without specific targets. So too have India and China.

Another misunderstanding is the idea that Canada would owe anything in penalties. There are no penalties under Kyoto. (If you want to read the text for yourself, you can find it on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change website). The claims by Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent that we would be exposed to huge costs was carefully worded to avoid a lie, but clearly was designed to mislead.

Kent speaks of the “costs of compliance.” Canada is clearly not in compliance. We are 34 per cent above the 2012 target we pledged to achieve back in 1997.

So, 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 programs 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.

Another common myth is that renewable energy gets loads of subsidies while fossil fuel pays its own way. According to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuels receive over $300 billion per year globally, while renewables receive one tenth that amount.

Having participated in climate negotiations since 1990, as well as in the ozone negotiations in 1987, I am very familiar with the ins and outs of the agreements.

In Durban, South Africa, last month, the nations within Kyoto decided to undertake a second commitment period. These commitments will begin when the first phase of Kyoto ends on December 31, 2012.

As of January 1, 2013, most of the industrialized world, but no longer representing most of the pollution, is committed to further reduce emissions to 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by either 2017 or 2020 (completion date still under negotiation.) China insisted in Durban that in order for it to take on specific targets and deadlines, a second phase of Kyoto was required.

In order to get China, India and Brazil to take on targets, the most significant way Canada could help would be to rescind our letter of intention to withdraw from Kyoto and negotiate a new target that we could reach by 2017 or 2020.

As a proud Canadian, I look forward to our nation accepting our responsibilities once again and playing a constructive role in the crucial effort to control greenhouse gas emissions.

Elizabeth May (Green Party) is the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

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1992—The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

The story starts 20 years ago with the over-arching climate treaty. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was negotiated between 1990 and 1992, and was signed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (the ‘Earth Summit’).

Canada was the first industrialized country to both sign and ratify the UNFCCC, doing so in 1992. Signing is the easy part, usually done at a conference. Ratification is necessary for an international instrument to have legal force. It is typically conducted by a vote in a nation’s legislature.

In Canada, ratification can take place by a decision of the Privy Council (Cabinet). The UNFCCC ratification in 1992 was by Cabinet.

In the United States, ratification of treaties requires not only a vote in the Senate, but that it pass by a two-thirds vote. This additional Constitutional hurdle is why even when the US Senate has a Democratic majority, the Administration has not submitted Kyoto for ratification. However, the US did sign on to the UNFCCC under the Bush Administration, and the US Senate ratified it.

The Climate Change Threat—Assessment and Action

The UNFCCC confirms that climate change is a real threat. Its objective is ‘the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’

The difficulty, of course, is the word ‘dangerous.’ When does the additional loading of greenhouse gases from human activity (an amount far smaller than the beneficial natural levels) cease to be beneficial and become dangerous?

The answer to that comes through the guidance of another UN agency, one established for this purpose back in 1988. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is comprised of scientists appointed by governments. Their summary reports, Advice to Policy Makers, tackle this question. Whereas the danger level was once thought to be twice the pre-Industrial Revolution concentration of carbon dioxide (going from 275 parts per million to 550 ppm), the IPCC has constantly revised downward as evidence of danger comes into sharper relief.

The head of the IPCC has confirmed we should work to halt the global rise in GHG emissions such that by 2015, global emissions stop growing and begin to fall. The growing consensus is that emissions need to stabilize at 350 ppm, even though we are now at 390 ppm.
As well, the UNFCCC established the ‘precautionary principle’ which sets out:

‘Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost.’

There are many other provisions within the UNFCCC, including calling on governments to both reduce emissions (‘mitigation’ in convention-speak) and adapt to those levels of climate change which are no longer avoidable (‘adaptation’).

What’s Missing

What the UNFCCC did not do was assign timelines and deadlines to the general promise to reduce emissions. Prior to the Rio Earth Summit,
former US President George HW Bush said that if the UNFCCC included deadlines and timetables he would refuse to attend the event, declaring, ‘The American lifestyle is not on trial.’

All countries have signed and ratified the UNFCCC, making them ‘parties’ to the agreement. Once enough countries had ratified to make the treaty enter into force, annual meetings called the Conference of the Parties (COP) began.

1997—The Kyoto Protocol

The third Conference of the Parties, COP3, under the UNFCCC was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. Its goal was to bring forward the timeline and deadlines that had not been possible in Rio. There was optimism it would be possible to come to agreement. Optimism came from two events: the replacement of Bush with Clinton, and the success of a protocol to protect the ozone layer.

The Montreal Protocol on the Ozone Layer had been concluded in 1987, dealing with the Reagan Administration. (I was part of the Canadian team in Montreal. That’s another story, but I recall US Interior Secretary Don Hodell trying to block progress by saying we didn’t need to get rid of ozone-depleters. We only needed sunscreen and broad-brimmed hats!)

As early as 1995, at the first COP in Bonn, Germany, the model of the Montreal Protocol was mandated for the climate protocol. The Montreal Protocol had gotten all countries on Earth, rich and poor, to sign on.

The core principle was called ‘common but differentiated responsibilities.’

All countries agreed that as the problem had been caused by the wealthy industrialized countries, those countries would face specific time-limited commitments while the developing countries could actually increase their use of ozone depleters in the short term.

Once the industrialized world has demonstrated it’s bona fide (and developed the alternatives), the developing world takes on firm cuts as the agreement moves forward. The protocol also committed that parties would be influenced by the scientific advice as it changed.

The only significant difference between the Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol was that the ozone agreement had effective enforcement mechanisms. If any party violated the protocol, other parties could bring trade sanctions against them. With the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995, and the mere questioning of whether environmental treaties might impede trade, Canada announced we would not sign any agreement in Kyoto that included trade sanctions. And we were not alone.

That failure is why there are no financial penalties should Canada stay in Kyoto and fail to meet targets.

Kyoto set out a combined set of firm emissions reductions that should have taken the industrialized world to 5.2% below 1990 levels by the end of this year. In fact, of those countries that made serious efforts, they collectively did reach the 5% goal. The EU, having committed to 8% reductions, actually hit a goal closer to 20% below.

But the United States under George W Bush reneged and never ratified. And, as we all know, the economies of China, India and Brazil grew enormously. Today, China is the world’s biggest polluter, but it is still a relatively small contributor to our existing problem. It only overtook the US as largest polluter recently.

Looking at the atmosphere as though it were a garbage dump (which is how we treat it), the overflowing mess from the last 100 years is still there. The mess from the last few years is certainly serious, but the industrialized world’s ‘historic’ pollution is not history. It operates every day to disrupt the climate we used to know.

As you know from the Durban updates in the past two editions of Island Tides, there is now a second commitment period under Kyoto. Without that commitment, China, India and Brazil made it clear they would not take on any hard and fast cuts down the road.

We need Kyoto. And we need to keep Canada in Kyoto. Under Article 27 (2) of the Kyoto Protocol, a party can file a legal intention to withdraw. It takes effect one year from the date it was received.

Canada is in Kyoto until December 2012. And we need public pressure to keep us there.

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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.

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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.

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There is always a certain amount of last minute media coverage about such events, but very little context setting. The fact is that Canada and virtually every other nation on earth signed and ratified the Framework Convention in 1992. It committed the world to reductions in greenhouse gases such that their build up in the atmosphere would be halted before they could become ‘dangerous.’ After seventeen years of further meetings and negotiations (including the 1997 meeting in Kyoto and the protocol produced there) we are rapidly approaching the danger zone. We are already experiencing the loss of millions of square kilometres of Arctic ice, the retreat of glaciers around the world, persistent drought in much of the world, unprecedented shifts in rainfall patterns and sea level rise.

There are many excuses and reasons for the failure to act over the last two decades. Some nations, mostly within the European Union, have achieved serious reductions. They have done so with improvements in their economy.

Germany is rapidly taking over the world market as provider of solar, wind and other green economy technologies, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. China is catching up, this year investing $600 billion in green technologies. Sweden has de-coupled carbon reductions from economic growth, growing its economy while cutting greenhouse gases. Yet, globally we have only taken baby steps toward the goal of avoiding dangerous levels of greenhouse gases.

The prospects for Copenhagen look better now than they did one month ago. We may owe Stephen Harper and his government a debt of gratitude. Harper’s pronouncement after the APEC summit that the negotiations were doomed to failure may have been the catalyst for a number of significant rescue attempts.

Significantly, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Brazilian President Lula teamed up to make a compelling appeal to industrialized and developing nations to take on meaningful targets. Brazil committed to over 30% reductions in GHG below 1990 levels by 2020 through arresting deforestation. Lula noted, however, that to make this target, Brazil needed financial assistance from the industrialized world.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon took the unusual step of attending the Commonwealth summit to plead for movement, singling out Canada as an impediment to progress. So too did low-lying island Commonwealth nations target Canada, with some suggesting we should be expelled from the Commonwealth. Even Her Majesty the Queen took aim at Canada. With the news that both President Obama and President Hu of China would attend the climate talks, our Prime Minister finally caved and agreed to join the over 100 leaders already committed to attend. The commitment of Obama and Hu increased hope that an agreement was possible.

However, these first few days have not gone well. Day 2 saw the revelation of a secret draft text from the US, UK and Denmark, proposing to sideline the concerns of the developing world, scrap the Kyoto Framework and move forward in a fashion that breaks faith with the poorest on the planet. This leaked text has led to a mood of distrust and anger within the negotiations. I am going to share a fragment of an email from a colleague already in Copenhagen. I am keeping his identity confidential, only noting that he is on a government delegation.

The issues on the table are very complicated—technically, economically, equitably and morally and politically. The Parties are far apart on the text—mitigation, adaptation, finance, tech transfer—all are part of the package and depend on each other—this is more like the Doha round and the WTO than climate! But unlike the trade talks there is a disaster clock ticking…

The mood is ugly, distrustful. The Danish police and security service are scared stiff. They raided some NGO residences today and confiscated lots of stuff they said could be used for civil disobedience.

I am normally a calm guy and not prone to anxiety but this place has me jumping. Next Thursday and Friday will be wild and unpredictable with over 100 heads of government speaking. There are 40,000 people on the attendees list. There are 5,000 journalists here. The Bela Centre capacity where the COP is being held is 15,000. The COP is chaired by the Danish Environment Minister. She and the Prime Minister cannot stand each other and do not talk (so it is widely twittered). The responsibility for bringing all this together rests with the Danes. Some optimists say that the G2 will come next week (Obama and Hu) and strike a deal that everybody can take it or leave it. But this is not a Yes or No deal; it is endlessly nuanced. Even if they embrace each other and everybody cheers all the critical details will remain to be worked out…let alone ratified and implemented. I cannot believe there is anything like this on earth—it is heroic in a way but mostly it is frightening!

So as I leave for Copenhagen, we have a clear description. The moment is perilous. We stand between heroism and disaster. You need not sit back and wait. Please continue to keep up the pressure. Post comments on news media comment websites and blogs, write to the newspapers and phone the Prime Minister’s Office (613-992-4211). To stay up to date on the negotiations, sign up for daily reports from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, www.iisd.ca/climate/cop15/. These are pithy, no-nonsense reports prepared through a non- government ENB team of graduate students working within the International Institute for Sustainable Development. For activist news check out the www.350.org site or international Friends of the Earth. To keep abreast of the science Salt Spring Island’s own Dorothy Cutting maintains a great site, www.westcoastclimateequity.org. And I will be reporting daily on the www.elizabethmay.ca site.

Realistically, what are the options for the outcome in Copenhagen? A successful agreement will mean that the world stops the growth in greenhouse gases so that they peak no later than 2015 and begin their decline from there. Overshooting 2015 could commit the world to a catastrophic runaway climate crisis.

Failure in Copenhagen could look like two things: the decision of all leaders to call it a failure and admit they fell short. This is less likely than the more dangerous form of failure: a happy photo op of world leaders smiling and calling their failure a ‘good first step.’ We are now seventeen years past ‘good first steps.’ The citizens of this world, our children and grandchildren will thank us only for embracing real success.

Elizabeth E. May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada, candidate in Saanich Gulf Islands and Officer of the Order of Canada.

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