Over a period of the last million years, CO2 never exceeded 280 ppm (based on actual readings of atmospheric chemistry from Antarctic ice-core data.) The last time greenhouse gases reached 400 ppm was three million years ago. Put simply, humanity has now changed the chemistry of our atmosphere to replicate pre-historic levels—a time when no humans existed.

Related: Sign a petition for a National Cimate Strategy

Concentrations of GHG are a very different measurement than emission rates. Concentrations have a very long lag-time and will not be able to be decreased except over centuries, while emission rates can go down overnight. It is critical to start reducing emissions, because existing concentrations mean that we will see warming over the next 100 years from today’s emissions.

CO2 levels are monitored daily at Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii. When the monitoring station was set up in 1958, CO2 levels were at 317ppm. The rise to 400ppm was not expected so soon. Meanwhile, the Canadian government has joined in a global commitment to hold concentrations of greenhouse gases to levels that would avoid allowing global average temperatures to rise by 2ºC. Scientists have marked that wide red hazard line in a band between 425-450 ppm.

Avoiding 2ºC is critical because it represents a danger zone. Some refer to it as a point of no return—or a ‘tipping point to self-accelerating global warming, the so-called ‘runaway greenhouse effect.’ The actual tipping point might be 2.5º, or it could be 1.5º. Two degrees represents a consensus of scientists, but no scientist I know is sanguine about 2 degrees. It is certainly not a safe zone.

The most recent International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook includes some number crunching. If all the world’s known reserves of fossil fuels were to be used, the climate would move the world to a non-habitable state.

In fact, the IEA has said that to avoid an increase of 2ºC, at least two-thirds of known fossil-fuel reserves must stay in the ground until at least 2050.

The Over-rated Fossil Fuel Economy

This finding has led to a new and potentially powerful financial calculation. A major new report from the UK, Unburnable Carbon 2013: Wasted Capital And Stranded Assets, engaged the talents and expertise of Sir Nicholas Stern through a collaborative research project involving Carbon Tracker and the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and Environment.

The result is a new concept—the ‘carbon bubble.’ The essence of their work is this: a great deal of the stated value of stock exchanges around the world is in unburnable fossil fuels. The level of capital expenditure in developing those reserves over the next decade would amount to $6.74 trillion in wasted capital—developing reserves that simply cannot be burned.

The report calls for ratings agencies to update their approach to verifying the financial health of stock markets and individual companies. If assets being used to offset liabilities are assets that can never be used, then large parts of the economy—now seen as credit-worthy—are over-valued.

The consequence for financial markets is obvious. Meanwhile, the report notes that the carbon intensity of the New York and London stock markets is actually increasing; New York by 37% over 2 years and London by 7% over 2 years.

The creative notion that Moody’s and other credit raters might be able to do through financial valuations what governments have so far failed to do–bring Big Oil to its senses–is certainly tantalizing. What is encouraging is the extent to which the notion of a ‘carbon bubble’ as financial risk is catching on.

Perhaps that’s what we need—a clear financial consequence our brains can comprehend. Maybe we should keep the focus on the financial threat, while acknowleding the irony that it may be easier to provoke change through large multinationals and stock exchanges than through thoughts of our children’s dismal future.

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Here’s the text of the motion:

That this House:

1. agree with many Canadians and the International Energy Agency that there is grave concern with the impacts of a 2 degree rise in global average temperatures;
2. condemn the lack of effective action by successive federal governments since 1998 to address emissions and meet our Kyoto commitments; and
3. call on the government to immediately table its federal climate change adaptation plan.

There are three clauses and I have trouble with each one of them. Before parsing the motion to explain the difficulties with all three clauses, let me point out the overwhelming problem: the motion does not call on Stephen Harper’s administration to do anything about the threat of rising greenhouse gases.

The action part of the motion calls for the government to “immediately” (that sounds good!) “table its federal climate change adaptation plan.”  (whoops, where did the action go?)

An “adaptation plan” is all about how to adapt to climate change.  I have long called, as has the Green Party, for a climate adaptation plan.  But I would never call for an adaptation plan with no parallel effort to reduce the climate change impacts to which we will have to adapt.  To do so is to announce we are throwing in the towel. We are abandoning efforts to reduce carbon pollution and will only do what we can to hold back rising seas, adjust to dropping water levels in the Great Lakes and Georgian Bay, plant drought resistant crops, brace ourselves for increased forest fires, loss of Arctic ice, permafrost melt, etc.

It is mind-boggling that the NDP motion failed to call for action.  Did they forget that part?  Were they worried a call for real action to fight global warming would create space for a public policy discussion about carbon pricing and a carbon tax?  Or did they think “adaptation plan” meant some kind of GHG reduction plan? If so, they are out of touch with the key concepts of climate policy in place since the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Back to the top.  The first clause is so sloppily worded it minimizes, rather than underscores, why 2 degrees global average temperature increase really matters.  Why start the sentence with something as weak as “agree with many Canadians and the International Energy Agency?” Why not mention “consensus of the world’s climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the commitment to avoid a global average temperature increase of 2 degrees C that Canada made in the Copenhagen Accord.”

Weak drafting is one thing, but the next part is much worse: “there is grave concern with the impacts of a 2 degrees rise in global average temperatures.”   There is grave concern? With the impacts?? That’s it?  How about an accurate statement, like this:

“Scientists have concluded that for human civilization to have reasonable odds of avoiding collapse due to the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming, concentrations of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere must be held below those levels associated with a 2 degrees rise in global average temperature increase, as compared to pre-Industrialized levels.  In fact, in order to preserve Arctic ice, we should strive to keep global average temperature increases below a 1.5 degree rise.”

The way the NDP motion is worded it seems to assume we are going to have a 2 degree rise, and that there are grave concerns with impacts.  It fails to connect 2 degrees with the triggering of runaway global warming, which is a much bigger problem than the immediate impacts of 2 degrees on its own.

Then there’s the second clause.  This is a transparent attempt to wedge the Liberals on the issue.  That’s politics and I guess I should be used to it by now.  But when an issue is as important as whether our children have a liveable world, I am sick and tired of this petty garbage.  The Liberals have a lousy record on climate.  Chretien ratified Kyoto, full marks for that, but he did not put forward a plan. As Executive Director of Sierra Club of Canada, I spent years demanding action and criticizing the failure of the Liberals to act.  Then Paul Martin did act and his environment minister, Stephane Dion, put forward a credible plan in 2005.  And in 2006, Harper killed that plan.  That one phrase would not have caused me to vote against the motion, if there had been a call for real action to reduce GHG.  But predictably and tragically it reveals the real goal of the NDP opposition day motion: to make the Liberals look bad by writing a motion in a way the NDP knew the Liberals would vote against.

Why does that matter?  Well, it’s like this.  If you care about climate, you draft a motion in order to create the maximum possible opportunity for it to pass.  You don’t play stupid games.

The NDP did the same thing last week with the Canada-China Investment Treaty motion.  It rejected Liberal attempts to amend the motion such that the Liberals could vote with the NDP.  At least then, the motion was clear and I had no problem voting with the NDP, but I was furious that an issue as important as blocking ratification of the FIPA with China was sabotaged for the shortest term possible partisan gain. (And I was furious that the Liberals voted with the Conservatives… I was in a very “plague on both your Houses” mood.)

The climate crisis is a threat to our very survival.  It sickens me to see petty partisanship trump climate. For God’s sake, put forward motions that have a chance of passing and then twist arms in the Conservative caucus to get a motion that matters.

So that about covers why I couldn’t vote with the NDP.  I would have loved to have seen a unified group of MPs from all the Opposition Parties rise on principle and (hoping against hope) some of the Conservatives who understand the need for climate action might have voted with us to give the Parliamentary call for reductions in GHG a chance of passing.  But since tonight’s motion forgot to call for climate action, maybe we could take a run at a properly worded motion another day.

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I think part of the problem is that even when experts understand the peril in which all human society is placed, those who are alarmed are afraid to sound “alarmist.” Translating the impact of two degrees, 3.5 degrees, and even higher levels of warming into language that is clear and unequivocal is not a project for the faint of heart. Let me try to explain two key factors in the IEA, World Bank, IPCC, and other projections.

The first is that these agencies do not yet say there is no chance of avoiding the two degree of warming threat which all countries, including Canada, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally in Copenhagen in 2009, have pledged to avoid. What is said is that if the collectivity of nations maintain current plans for climate action, the total impact is to allow greenhouse gases to continue to rise. On current policy trajectories, we fail miserably in our stated objectives. Only with the kind of urgent and comprehensive economic transitions undergone by nations at war can we avoid over-shooting two degrees. And even then, we are not guaranteed success.

Two degrees global average temperature warming is not a goal. It is to be avoided. It represents a level of human-caused climate impact which ensures dangerous levels of climatic destabilization. Many low-lying island states point out that at two degrees, they will be permanently inundated.

Yet, in a country like Canada that experiences minus 40 Celsius in winter and plus 40 Celsius in summer, it does not sound like a lot. Our failure to stress context allows the number to become meaningless. Only when it is explained that the difference between global average temperature today and in the last Ice Age was only five degrees Celsius does it become clear that two degrees global average temperature change is huge.

The second is to translate two degrees, three degrees and so on global average temperature into a language that actually says what it means. Given that two degrees is dangerous, what do words like “dire,” “devastating,” and “catastrophic” mean?

To understand a worst case-scenario for humanity due to the climate crisis, you need to understand the concept of positive feedback loops. Burning forests release carbon, warming the Earth faster to cause more forest fires. Melting Arctic ice reduces the albedo effect that bounced the sun’s heat back to the atmosphere. Without ice, the sun’s heat is absorbed in dark ocean water, warming the ocean faster, melting ice faster, further reducing the ice cover.

As the warming climate melts the permafrost, methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is released from what was once locked away. The methane further warms the earth, melting more permafrost and releasing more methane. These are examples of positive feedback loops, of which there are many more.

At some point in the human-caused surge in atmospheric greenhouse gases, we could unleash an unstoppable release of warming forces. This is called “runaway global warming.” The worst case scenario is that the planet becomes more like Venus—uninhabitable for all, but some microbes or bacteria able to cope in high temperatures. I don’t think it will come to complete extinction of humankind and most of our fellow travellers on Planet Earth.

However, it is hard to imagine how human societies, civilization itself, could survive the loss of the Western Antarctic ice sheet, leading to the flooding of all coastal cities; or permanent states of drought in food producing regions; or tens of millions of refugees fleeing famine and floods. These are not far-fetched events. They could occur in the lifetimes of our own children.

In Ronald Wright’s best-seller, A Short History of Progress, he reviewed a litany of once magnificent civilizations that snuffed themselves out. One line, a piece of graffiti Wright repeated, sums it up: “every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.”

Wright was interviewed recently for a brilliant piece by Chris Hedges (“The Myth of Human Progress,” truthdig.com, Jan. 13, 2013). Wright pondered our inability to address an impending disaster that could eliminate us from the face of the Earth. “We’re Ice Age hunters with a shave and a suit,” said Wright. “We are not good long-term thinkers.”

So next time you read that the International Energy Agency thinks we could face “dire” consequences and the World Bank warns impacts could be “devastating,” don’t yawn and turn the page. Find a way to join the movement demanding a planned, aggressive transition away from our dependency on fossil fuels.

We have a profound moral obligation to protect our children and their children from what many increasingly see as unavoidable. Not unavoidable because we lack the ingenuity, technology and creativity to avoid two degrees; we could do so and experience an increasingly healthy economy. Those who believe it is unavoidable simply cannot believe we will bother to try. Let’s make 2013 the year when it all turns around, when the community of nations decides to give humankind a future as well as a short history of progress.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.
Originally printed  in the Hill Times.

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But I had to wonder.  Was he going for political satire,? Some sort of self-referential pop cultural joke in kicking off the budget implementation bill debate?  I mean, he must have read Andrew Coyne’s piece in the National Post. Noting that a huge number of non-budgetary matters are stuffed in the over 420 pages of C-38, much of it dramatically changing environmental laws, Coyne wrote, “This is not remotely a budget bill, despite its name,” further noting that while throwing non-budgetary matters into a budget bill is not unknown, in C-38, “The scale and scope are on a level not previously seen, or tolerated.”  (Or if the PM didn’t read it, he must have people who read it for him and left post-it notes somewhere he would see saying, “Coyne and others seem to have noticed the budget bill is crammed full of new laws to remove environmental protection. Offence to democracy alleged…must deflect.”)

No sign of recognizing anger is stirring across the land. They went for the Full Monty as it were.  No shame.

The kick-off speaker to the Budget Implementation Bill?  Not the Minister of Finance. No sir. What would Flaherty have to say about a budget bill anyway?  The lead Conservative Speaker was Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.  Say it ain’t so, Joe.

He gave the standard Harper “energy super power” message. It goes like this:

Canada is an energy super-power — in the same way a business in bankruptcy is a super-power. Everything must go.  We are running out of time to sell everything fast.  Oil-hungry markets won’t wait.

Really?  “We need to act quickly,” said Joe Oliver in the House today.  But the existing pipeline infrastructure is, according to Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projections, sufficient to meet demand until oil sands production expands by 150%. (Testimony of former government petroleum geologist, J. David Hughes, to the NEB Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project).

Minister Oliver cited many statistics from the International Energy Agency (IEA), establishing that the world is energy-hungry and oil-thirsty…without once mentioning the IEA urgent warnings about the climate crisis.  The IEA is screaming from the rooftops (figuratively speaking, but the reports are increasingly frantic) that time is running out to reduce dependency on fossil fuels to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change at its worst. No reference either to Mr. Harper’s promise to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies (now there’s a budget measure), promised in 2009 at the G-20, underscored in every IEA report as an urgent step, which the PM has steadfastly ignored.  No reference to the International Energy Agency advice that Canada needs to put a price on carbon.

And then for more laughs, in answer to a question from one of his colleagues, Mr. Oliver said, “Mr. Speaker, the whole point of this exercise is to ensure that we have a robust environmental review of major projects…  under the aegis of the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency.”

Now, in fairness to Mr. Oliver, there is no particular reason he should know much about the environmental laws C-38 is destroying. He is not the author of this strategy; the Prime Minister is.  And the fact that Canada doesn’t have an agency called the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency is not something he has to know…Peter Kent should know it, and, of course, he spoke next. No sign of the finance minister…but what would he have to contribute to a debate about freeing the oilsands and mining from the tyranny of environmental laws.  I expected to hear, “Free at last, free at last…” from some conservative script, recycling the end of the long-gun registry invocation of the Rev. Martin Luther King in more triumphalist Libertarian oratory.

With 420 pages plus of detailed, complex and sweeping changes to laws originally passed decades ago, any thought that there was even a hint of shame in the Conservative strategy was dashed. Within the first hours of debate, Peter Van Loan made a motion to invoke time allocation on Bill C-38. After all, we are in a hurry.

None of this is funny.  It is an outrage.  PLEASE, if you are angry, say so. Please insist that your MP work to pull the environmental laws impacted by this bill (Canadian Environmental Assessment Act*, Fisheries Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act, Species at Risk Act, Canadian Environmental Protection Act, National Round Table on Environment and Economy Act*, Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act*), out of the so-called budget bill.

(Note: the bills marked with * are repealed in C-38. CEAA is replaced with a brand new, gutted version of environmental assessment law, which, at this rate will be passed by the end of June — without a single day of hearings before the environment committee).

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That is not to say we have no policy priorities related to energy. The de facto energy policy of the Harper government is the rapid expansion of the Athabasca tar sands (or ‘oil sands’ if you have gone through the Alberta re-education programme). From the current 1.3 million barrels of crude oil a day, the Harper government has set a goal of 6 million barrels of crude a day. This rapid expansion is destined for export.

It will be exported as crude, because oil companies find it too expensive to refine the crude near the bitumen. That is because the ‘hell bent for leather’ approach to development creates a localized hyper-inflationary bubble all around Fort McMurray and through most of Alberta. Former Premier Peter Lougheed calls it ‘the traffic jam.’ You cannot find a skilled labour force, or materials, at a reasonable price, so we allow the crude to flow through pipelines from Alberta to reach the United States where refineries are being built to convert tar sands crude to petroleum. And, we have discovered, two super tankers a week depart Vancouver, through treacherous channels to the Juan de Fuca Strait and out to other nations. Crude oil exports pass right by the Gulf Islands every week—and Kinder-Morgan plans to expand to ten tankers a week.

Funny thing to be an ‘energy super power,’ yet still import 54% of the oil used in Canada. All of Eastern Canada depends on oil from OPEC nations. We have no Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We lack any infrastructure to get tar sands crude to the rest of Canada.

Funny thing to be an ‘energy super power’ that is allowing the rampant expansion of the tar sands to undermine the economic health of Canada. I first learned of the increasing warnings of ‘Dutch Disease’ through the 2008 Report on Canada from the OECD. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is an elite club of the world’s wealthiest nations. Canada is a member. From its lavish Paris headquarters, the OECD economists analyze the performance of nations and issue annual updates. It was in the 2008 report that the OECD first warned that the intense concentration of economic and political activity on the tar sands was actually hurting the Canadian economy overall.

This is due to a well-known phenomenon first experienced in the Netherlands. When the Netherlands discovered rich off-shore natural gas, the boom in production had the effect of increasing the value of the Dutch guilder. It did this to such a degree that the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands was devastated. Exports cost too much. While one part of the economy was doing well—other portions were suffering. This became known as Dutch Disease.

Norway avoided it by taking all the oil and gas revenues out of circulation and putting them in a heritage fund. Despite the fact that Norway patterned its plan on Peter Lougheed’s vision, Ralph Klein cancelled the vision. Alberta now has $14 billion in a heritage fund and is in deficit. Canada came down with Dutch Disease. In fact, some economists estimate that for every job created in the oil sands, another was lost elsewhere in Canada. Well before the September 2008 recession, Canada had lost over 300,000 jobs in manufacturing and nearly 100,000 more in pulp and paper. In order to rebalance the Canadian economy, the OECD recommended a go-slow approach in the tar sands and the implementation of a national carbon tax. The carbon tax, plus cutting subsidies to fossil fuel production (an estimated $2.8 billion/year in Canada), would have the effect of slowing down tar sands development, getting the Canadian dollar unplugged from the price of a barrel of oil, as well as helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, the International Energy Agency made essentially the same observations about Canada’s skewed economic picture and offered the same prescription: slow down tar sands development, kill fossil fuel subsidies and put in place a price for carbon. (See ‘World Energy Outlook, 2010,’ IEA.)

The astonishing thing about this global debate on Canada’s economic health and the extent to which it is undermined by the tar sands is that Canadians do not even know the debate is taking place. We continue to swallow the outrageous whopper that the tar sands are an engine of growth for the whole country.

And when we do discuss the tar sands, we have a nonsense debate presented as a zero sum game of ‘shut them down’ or ‘keep them.’ Instead, we should be asking if we should develop the tar sands beyond the current 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, and if so, how? And should we allow expansion in the absence of a national energy strategy?So here we are—the alleged ‘energy super power’— wasting more than half of the energy we burn, exporting to beat the band while importing 54% of what we use, canceling the support for renewable energy, while protecting the taxpayer subsidies to the wealthiest companies on earth. Thanks to the demonized Trudeau National Energy Plan, decades later, we are operating ad hoc. We have gone from ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ to ‘scrapers of bitumen and wasters of water’ and our economy is getting distorted in the process.

Let’s start using those dangerous words—‘national’ ‘energy’ and ‘strategy’—in the same sentence again. Let’s push for a sensible energy plan for all Canadians.

Elizabeth May, Order of Canada, is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and nominated candidate for Saanich Gulf Islands.

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