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If Canada legally withdraws, it will be the first time in our history we have ever withdrawn from a global treaty.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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When I wrote “Fact Check on Kyoto Distortions” on November 28, 2011 for my blog, I covered the most frequently cited, misleading/dishonest bits of spin on the subject. That blog covered the top 5, but now there are more. It’s time for “Fact Check on Kyoto Distortions—The Sequel.”

Distortion number six:  If Canada does not withdraw from Kyoto, we will owe billions in penalties.

Fact Check: Sadly, there are no effective compliance mechanisms under Kyoto.  There are no financial penalties.  I say “sadly” because effective compliance mechanisms were available to the negotiators in 1997.  The 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the Ozone Layer had a great enforcement tool —  trade sanctions.

If any party to the Montreal Protocol on ozone were to violate its commitments to reduce and ultimately eliminate use of ozone-depleters, the other nations in the protocol could punish the offender with trade sanctions.  In 1995 the World Trade Organization was created.  Although there were no rulings on the matter, its Trade and Environment Committee raised the question of whether there were any environmental treaties that compromised trade, concluding that the enforcement mechanisms under the Montreal Protocol might violate the GATT.  By 1997 in Kyoto, Canada refused to sign onto any Protocol that included trade sanctions, as did many other countries.  This is why Kyoto’s enforcement mechanism is essentially a wet noodle. The only sanction is that in negotiating a second commitment period target, whatever amount of the first target that country missed, it would have to add an additional one third of a ton as penalty.  But since the target is individual to each country and since it is a product of negotiation, it would be easy enough to negotiate the next phase target in a way that anticipated the .3 ton top up.

So how does the Minister of Environment get away with saying something that is patently untrue?  He chooses his words carefully.  This is how Peter Kent explained it in a recent opinion piece in the Financial Post:

“The math is clear: The total number of carbon credits required multiplied by the average cost of a carbon credit is $14-billion. And the facts are simple: You cannot enter the second commitment period without completing the first, and we either pay the $14-billion or we would be in violation of the protocol.”

Kent is careful to say that the $14 billion is the cost of compliance. 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 programmes 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.

Distortion number seven: “You cannot enter the second commitment period without completing the first.” (see Kent quote above)

Fact Check:  It certainly sounds logical, but it is not true.

There are two ways in which the statement can be interpreted and neither is true.

1. The first issue is the matter of staying in the Kyoto Protocol as a party, but not agreeing to second commitment period targets.  Japan and Russia are doing just that, but neither face penalties.  Japan is still hoping to hit its target, and is already below 1990 levels of emissions (while Canada is 28% above 1990 levels).  Japan is unlikely to hit its target, but has said it will stay in Kyoto, participating as a party.  It will be both out of compliance and refusing to take on second commitment period targets.  It will not face penalties because (see above), there are no penalties under Kyoto.  Canada is not the only Kyoto Party out of compliance; but we are the only country planning to legally withdraw.
2. The second way of framing Kent’s distortion is to say that Canada could not take on a new round of legally binding targets without first meeting the 6% below 1990 target by 2012 we legally obligated ourselves to meet under Kyoto.  This is also not true.  The targets in the second commitment period are a matter of negotiation.  To get Canada committed to new legally binding emission reductions, other countries would likely be accommodating.  As an example, back in 1997, Australia refused to sign onto Kyoto unless their target was 8% above 1990 levels, when all other industrialized countries were pledging to cutting below 1990 emission levels. Australia’s increase in emissions was allowed through negotiation.  There is nothing in the protocol that requires being in compliance with the first commitment period before negotiating the second.

Distortion number eight:  Canada has withdrawn from Kyoto.

Fact check:  Canada has filed a legal notice of intent to withdraw.  It will take legal effect in December 2012.  Until then, Canada is a Kyoto party.  Let’s cancel that letter and start being responsible global citizens.

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Years ago, it was my great privilege to be part of the Canadian negotiating team for the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer. My question follows those of other colleagues.

We have heard today in the House that the minister says we will streamline and optimize our ozone measurements. I hear from academics around Canada that we will streamline our ozone measurements program right out of existence.

I would like to ask the hon. minister to make it very clear for us, to reassure everyone and to withdraw the letters threatening the jobs of the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Centre program manager, the ozone sonde program and the international…

Hon. Peter Kent: First, Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her efforts in the past in working on the Montreal Protocol, but I can assure her that we are not cutting any ozone monitoring services or closing the centre.

Yes, we are optimizing and streamlining the way we collect data to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are spent in the most prudent but still environmentally correct way. That is what we were elected to do.

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