Twenty years ago, the nations of the world rushed to Rio with sunny ambitions and plans to create political momentum for a world-wide green economy, to protect the environment and tackle poverty and inequality. Within weeks, it had all started to unravel. Twenty years later another Rio Summit is set to begin but the Canadians who took part last time return in a different political climate. Today, we look at what they hoped for and what we’ve got.

That’s where the Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development officially opens tomorrow. My next two guests were among Canada’s key players in Rio in 1992. Elizabeth May is now the member of parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, and the leader of the Green Party of Canada. She was in our Ottawa studio. And David MacDonald served as chair of the parliamentary committee on the Environment as a Progressive Conservative MP under PM Brian Mulroney. He was also the Lead Parliamentary Advisor for the Canadian delegation at the 1992 Earth Summit. He was in our Toronto studio.

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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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It can be a useful opportunity.  The NDP opted for Defence and Environment and the time for the meetings was duly scheduled by the Conservatives.  As customary, the Committee of the Whole (COW) begins when the daily business of the House is over.  The Conservatives chose the week the environment committee was out on the road, holding meetings across Canada, to have the Environment COW and then scheduled late votes both nights.  Earlier that day it was announced that last night would be the cut-off on Copyright legislation, Bill C-11.  I had many amendments to attempt removing the most onerous digital locks sections of the Copyright bill. Thanks to support from the Liberals as seconders and in forcing votes, we were able to force recorded votes.  Only once all substantive amendments had been defeated did I ask to compress the voting process to “Apply the vote,” cutting about an hour and a half off our voting time.  Still, COW did not start until about 9:30 pm and ran for four hours til 1:30 am. I attended both and wondered why anyone thought this could be useful.

True, departmental officials were available.  In each case a small table was placed at about the spot where the Prime Minister usually sits (although he was not there), and at the table top ranking officials sit in case their expertise and background is needed to answer questions.  I want to try to paint the picture of the table, one side pressed against the government bench.  In close formation, one on each of the three open sides of the table, sit the highest ranking officials.  Sitting like statues, facing each other.  True, General Walter Natynczyk had the best ram-rod like posture.  Staring straight ahead at the Defence Deputy Minister Rob Fonberg at a distance of a few feet.  The same formation for the Environment Deputy, Paul Booth, only he stared straight at Peter Kent, in the front row of government benches, flanked by the head of Parks Canada Paul Latourelle and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency head Elaine Feldman.  What must have been going through their minds? In four hours of Defence and four hours of Environment, they never spoke.  Why were they there?  Maybe that’s what they were thinking: why am I here? 

Certainly not to help Peter MacKay or Julian Fantino answer a simple question from Liberal John McKay who asked (three times? four times?) if anyone knew the cost per hour of the Department’s current jets, the F-18s.  And the only person rustling through papers to provide answers to Peter Kent was Michelle Rempel, his Parliamentary Secretary.  And, really, when nearly every answer was like a Chinese menu, why did anyone need to be there to help with answers?

Menu options for Peter Kent:

Option A: If asked anything by an NDP MP, answer with some variation of how bad bad bad the leader of the Official Opposition was to call the oil sands a disease;

Option B: If asked anything by a Liberal MP,  say “we will never ever ever bring in a carbon tax;”

Option C: If asked by a Conservative backbencher, for extra measure one MP actually bothered to read from the script and ask Peter Kent, “will you ever bring in a carbon tax?”  Answer: We will never ever ever bring in a carbon tax, unlike those bad bad bad Liberals. 

So was there anything new?

Well, last night Peter Kent said some unbelievable things.   For one, when Megan Leslie asked if the government planned to allow Opposition Members on the delegation to the Rio plus 20 conference this June, he said “no” (that was the believable part). And then he said, for the Durban climate conference, the government had offered assistance to the two Opposition MPs who attended. He claimed that while not actually providing credentials as part of the Canadian delegation, the government helped with getting the Opposition MPs into the UN FCCC Conference of the Parties in Durban.  Well, that description only applies to two people: me and NDP MP Laurin Liu.  I tried to help Laurin.  She had a whole day in Durban without being able to get into the conference centre at all. The NGO Climate Action Network finally succeeded in begging the UN Secretariat to grant her a badge with them. I asked her last night if she had had any offer of help from the “official” delegation that I didn’t know about. Nope. 

I know for a fact I was never offered any help.  And I know I never saw any help.  Since I was granted credentials as an advisor to the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and they never had any request from Canada, the whole claim was as unnecessary as it was invented.   (Fun to imagine the conversation as a senior Canadian diplomat rings up his counter-part in PNG, “We have the Leader of the Green Party, you know. And it’s kind of awkward because we are not going to allow Canadian MPs on our delegation, unless they are Conservatives, so we aren’t paying her way or helping her find a hotel, and frankly, we feel pretty lousy about it, but it would be just aces if you could accept her on your delegation.” Not.)

There was also the claim, not once but twice, that the contaminated sites programme was a Harper Conservative initiative: “Our government invested $3.5 billion”. Twice, they said it.  Even though the $3.5 billion was put in place in 2005 by Paul Martin’s government to remediate contaminated sites on federal land.  At the time they thought there were a total of 8,500 sites.  Now, with half the money gone and 40% of the sites remediated, they realize the total is 22,000 sites.  So the Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan reported that a plan is needed.  More to the “unbelievably score card,” when Liberal Kirsty Duncan asked about the Commissioner’s report, Kent managed to insult both her and Scott Vaughan (and here I paraphrase) “The hon. member is as confused as the Environment Commissioner.”  She pressed to find out if he accepted the commissioner’s report. Nope. Not really. On toxics, Vaughan was confused. On climate, well, the poor man is obviously out of his depth.  Used out of date data sets. 

To both Liberal and NDP environment critics wanting to see plans for climate or toxic sites, Kent delivered a paternalistic, “the hon. members should be patient.”

Perhaps most unbelievable was Kent confusing the goal, to which Stephen Harper affixed his signature in Copenhagen (in the non-binding Copenhagen Accord) to avoid allowing global average temperature from reaching 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.  Kirsty Duncan prefaced a question noting that the “window is closing” on our ability to avoid a global average temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius. Kent looked at me as he said, (not yet recognized by the chair) “it’s closed.”   And then he rose and said the temperature in our Arctic has already risen above 2 degrees Celsius.

He said the same thing to me in Durban and I had explained that Arctic temperature increases are not the same thing as a global average temperature increase. The poles warm more rapidly than any other part of the planet.  The reason scientists are warning that we must avoid 2 degrees Celsius global average temperature increase is because that is a level of serious danger. It will be too late for low-lying island states at 2 degrees global average temperature.  That is why scientists and African nations rally around the slogan “1.5 to stay alive.”  Going beyond a 2 degree global average temperature increase is catastrophic.  The Minister of Environment doesn’t know the difference.  Kirsty Duncan explained the difference.  She is both a Liberal MP and a scientist. She worked on the IPCC. When she had clarified the science for the minister, she let out a sad sigh. It carried on her mic.  And Peter Van Loan and Peter Kent and Michelle Rempel all found that a hilarious moment.  And they all laughed uproariously. I wish I had found that more unbelievable.

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