“The protection of wetlands is much more difficult in Canada now that the Conservatives have gutted the Fisheries Act to protect certain fish, rather than fish habitat,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands.  “It must have been difficult for government representatives at the UN conference to hold their heads up in front of the rest of the world.”

The little-known Ramsar Convention is the only global environmental treaty that deals with a particular ecosystem.   Adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971, it provides the framework for national and international action and cooperation to conserve or wisely use wetlands and their resources. 

Wetlands include lakes and rivers, swamps, wet grasslands, peatlands, oases, deltas, mangroves, coral reefs, as well as human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, and reservoirs.

The theme of the conference was “Wetlands: home and destination,” reflecting the focus on sustainable wetland tourism and recreation.  Historically, Canada, with about 25 percent of the world’s wetlands, has provided international leadership in supporting Ramsar. 

However, with the aggressive expansion of the Alberta oil sands, for example, Canada’s wetlands, in this case peatlands, are rapidly being destroyed.  A recent study by top scientists revealed that, contrary to Conservative and oil industry promises, the peatlands, which took thousands of years to form, cannot be restored.

These unique landscapes play a key role in filtering water, feeding caribou (an increasingly endangered species in northern Alberta), storing carbon, recharging groundwater, protecting biological diversity, and providing flood protection.

May acknowledged the efforts of Canadians who support the sustainability goals of the Ramsar Convention.

“I want to recognize the hard work of Canadians who are trying to protect wetlands in Canada and around the world,” said the Green Party Leader.  “We all know that, given the political climate in Canada, it isn’t easy to stand up for the conservation and sustainability of any natural resource.”

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I won’t likely be blogging for a bit until I get to Durban.  Leaving soon from Toronto to Heathrow, all day wait at Heathrow and another overnight flight to Johannesburg and then a few hours to get through customs and on to the last flight to Durban.

Why I don’t want to go —  I hate flying, cannot sleep on planes, had a hip replacement two months ago and sitting for a long time is a precursor to pain and not being able to walk for awhile, hate wasting the carbon in flying, and expect, when I get there, it will be a horrible experience until I get on the plane again to come home.

Why I think I have to go —  there is a chance I might be able to do some good. And given the enormity of the threat, I dare not take a chance of not being somewhere where I might do some good.

When I get there, no matter how brain dead or physically tired, the first task is to get to the accreditation office for the UN and get my badge to be able to participate in the conference.  I am going as an Observer, which will allow me into most of the negotiations, but not all. I will seek out the chief negotiator for Tuvalu who said by email that he would see if I can be helpful to their efforts.

I will connect with the Global Greens, other elected Green Party members of governments from Sweden, Australia, Germany, Kenya, Finland and so on. And I will find the Canadian Youth Delegation – a source of real hope and inspiration. It is always nice to see old friends.  At COP14 in Poznan, I told a reporter it was like “a family reunion on the Titanic. It is nice to see everyone again, but there’s a bad feeling in the air.”

The negotiating dynamic is not promising.  By this point in the process laid out at COP11 in Montreal, we should be confidently at the stage for the second commitment period under Kyoto to enter into force so that there would be a seamless transition from the first phase of Kyoto to the second.  But the train wreck in Copenhagen made that impossible.  Some in the media take me to task for accusing the Canadian government (under the temporary control of the Harper Conservatives) of sabotage.  But I have been watching the sabotage from day 1 of the Stephen Harper era.  He hates Kyoto.  It is almost an allergic reaction.  So he started as PM by repudiating our legally binding targets.  Act one is sabotage.  At every COP since 2006, the Harper-instructed delegation has thwarted progress.  Sometimes the Canadian delegation just sits quietly through the process to build consensus and then when the chair (of whatever sub working group has been beavering away) thinks it has consensus, Canada pipes up with objections.  This is bad faith bargaining, but count it for another five acts of sabotage at COP 12, 13, 14 , 15 and 16.

Further historical acts of sabotage are found in twisting arms of other countries to refuse to negotiate a second commitment period as well.

To that, add the plan to legally withdraw from Kyoto, but not to announce it until after COP17 is over (where presumably Canada’s real agenda is to try to find other governments willing to join us in refusing to take action – thus legitimizing the plan to kill Kyoto). Then to come back to Canada and announce the duplicitous legal withdrawal on December 23rd,  when the House is no longer in session.

To understand what Stephen Harper has been doing, just imagine that our Prime Minister were George W. Bush.  Our PM has taken up the mantle of Bush in opposing global action, but he is much more skilful in obfuscating the fact that that is what he is doing.

I suppose killing Kyoto would be laudable if the Harper government were actually doing what they say they are doing —  trying to get other countries into a globally binding and inclusive agreement replacing Kyoto. But they are not.  No other such agreement exists and on the countdown for action required to avoid global disaster, there is no time to develop such an agreement.  The only other show in town is the laughable two page non-binding Copenhagen Accord.

If the Harper goal were really a binding agreement to reduce emissions that includes China and India and Brazil, we would stay in Kyoto, as it is a process already supported by China and India and Brazil, nations among the 191 that have already ratified Kyoto.

So what do I hope?  I hope against hope that the EU, despite the real distractions of the financial crisis, take real leadership and work with other willing countries, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Australia (unsure?), developing nations, low lying island states, and start negotiations to ensure we arrest the rise in GHG no later than 2015.  I hope Japan, still committed to meeting its targets under the first phase of Kyoto, will come back on board.  I hope the dysfunctional US government will find a way to make some helpful noises in Durban.  And, I hope and against hope that the Canadian delegation will, based on unprecedented public pressure, do a 180 and accept a second commitment period.

In other words, I hope for a miracle.

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On December 22, in The Guardian ran free-lancer Mark Lynas’ assessment: ‘How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room’ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/marklynas. But even being ‘in the room’ in the bizarre, last minute, non-UN process to force a deal doesn’t give the full picture. There is more than enough blame to go around.

One starts with the host government. Much was at stake, but Denmark’s diplomatic efforts contributed to failure. The poisoning of the negotiating climate began on Day 2 with the leaked draft Danish text—a rich countries’ agreement to kill the Kyoto Protocol. Further problems were the bizarre logistics and security mess. It was egregious enough to accredit 40,000 participants for a space that accommodated 15,000 (and the UN Climate secretariat must answer for much of this mess), but when security barred members of country delegations from the building, the negotiating climate worsened. China’s head of delegation was reported to have been denied access for the first few days. At times, Brazil’s senior negotiator was unable to get in the room.

As soon as the High Level segment began and Prime Minister Rasmussen took over chairing duties from Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard, things went from bad to worse. The negotiators had worked all night agreeing to a new text on the Kyoto Protocol. As Minister Hedegaard left the chair, she noted a new text would be circulated soon from the Presidency. The question hanging in the room was ‘where is the text we negotiated all night?’ As she retreated, Prime Minister Rasmussen refused to allow the question to be answered, so keen was he on keeping the set speeches to take centre stage and run on time. In this brief public display the extent of the hostilities was clear. The head of the Chinese delegation spoke of the issue being a ‘matter of trust with the host country.’ Brazil and India agreed, the head of the Indian delegation still being quite flustered by the problems he encountered getting through security. South Africa and the Sudan, speaking for the group of 130 developing countries, also spoke of a lack of transparency in denying the primacy of the negotiated text in favour of some new text from the chair. Prime Minister Rasmussen ploughed ahead, ignoring the flag of Venezuela, cutting off none other than Hugo Chavez who had already joined his negotiators in the room.

The diplomatic gaffes continued the next night as leaders from around the world were invited to attend dinner with the Queen of Denmark. In an effort to get key leaders in the room for an informal chat, Prime Minister Rasmussen invited what he considered were the most important countries. Rumour has it he forgot to invite China. So, I do not doubt that what Mark Lynas saw looked like China wrecking a deal, but the wrecking started with a bizarre number of affronts to China before the world leaders arrived.

Blame also goes to Canada. In spring 2006 when Environment Minister Rona Ambrose was President of the COP, post Montreal’s hosting of COP11, Canada made itself the ‘bad boy’ of climate talks. With Canada actually chairing the negotiations, Ambrose announced Canada was not going to even attempt to reach our Kyoto target. Ever since, Canada has expanded the space for bad behaviour. Countries could be very uncooperative and counter-productive and still not be as bad as Canada. At the same time, in negotiation after negotiation, we laid down our square brackets (in international negotiations, applying square brackets to a draft text indicates disagreement with a phrase or section), blocking consensus on multiple issues. The reason Canada kept winning the Fossil of the Day award in negotiations, at COP 12, 13, 14 and 15, was that we were actively obstructing progress. And we continued being counter-productive right through the COP15 talks, winning, once again, the Colossal Fossil of the Year award.

On top of that, the US let everyone down. If there had been any hope, it was that President Obama would bring some flexibility to negotiations. Instead, he delivered a speech that had elements of Gary Cooper in ‘High Noon.’ It led to a forced, back-room effort to achieve something that could be used to appease a domestic US audience. So too was the United Nations hijacked to the US Senate and Obama’s desire to pass the Waxman-Markey bill. What now? Thanks to the round of all-night negotiations after the leaders had climbed on their jets for home, the so- called Copenhagen Accord was not the decision of COP15. Through the UN fudge of saying COP15 ‘took note’ of the five country deal, the commitments by China to allow verification of its reductions, and the financial commitments of wealthy countries, have been preserved as somehow meaningful. At the same time, the COP15 process did not allow the back-room accord to kill the Kyoto Protocol.

Copenhagen was a disaster, but it was not an unmitigated one. The negotiations continue. Civil society has found its champions, in the small low-lying island states, in African nations that argued that 2 degrees was too much in global temperature rise. We have a hellish hard task ahead to achieve the real carbon cuts that are urgently needed. Copenhagen was supposed to be the end of the road. Instead, it was a nasty pot hole.

This report was previously published in Embassy Magazine, who have kindly granted permission for its inclusion in Island Tides.

Elizabeth May, OC, is the author of Losing Confidence—Power, Politics and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy (McClelland and Stewart, 2009) and is the federal leader of the Green Party of Canada. ShelivesinSidney,BC.

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