EMILY GERTZ
Although this year’s round of global warming talks is barely two days old, Canada has already drawn a line in the sand (tar sand?).
According to an unsourced report on CTV on Nov. 27, the government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change before the end of 2011.
Speaking the following day in Ottawa, Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent would not confirm the report, but did tell reporters that the Kyoto agreement “is in the past,” according to Reuters and that opting into the treaty was “one of the biggest blunders” made by the previous Liberal government.
The “rumor”–coming so early in the climate negotiations–is likely to render the low-held chances for a treaty breakthrough at the Durban talks even more remote.
Canada was never likely to sign on to any agreement that the U.S. rejected, as that would put it at an economic disadvantage to its southern neighbor and largest trading partner.
But Canda does seem to be shifting into open conflict with a formidable bloc of dozens of developing nations, led by China, which have come to Durban insisting that the essential framework of the Kyoto treaty be carried forward to any “Son of Kyoto” successor treaty.
They also want the major industrial nations agree to much stricter greenhouse gas cuts, since they are the nations responsible for overheating the atmosphere in the first place.
Canada’s stance should be no surprise to even casual observers of climate diplomacy. Although it was among the Kyoto Protocol’s earliest supporters, Canada was always on track to miss its emissions reduction targets by a wide margin, thanks largely to Intensified oil extraction from the tar sands of northern Alberta.
The Conservatives came to power in 2006 on a platform that included abandoning Canada’s targets under the Kyoto agreement.
Now Canada–like the U.S., which never ratified the treaty–holds that Kyoto’s successor must bind all nations to greenhouse gas reductions. This includes emgerging economic powerhouses like Brazil, India, and China, which have not been held to legally binding cuts so far.
Underscoring the stakes of all this diplomatic theatre, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced at Durban that 2011 is likely to be the 10th warmest year on record, and the warmest year in which the “La Nina” Pacific weather pattern was present. Arctic sea ice melted back to its second-lowest extent on record this year, as well.
In its “Provisional Statement on the Status of the Global Climate,” the WMO reports a lot of remarkable heavy weather woe for 2011:
–Well-above-average rainfall has killed hundreds and displacing thousands in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
–Unusual cycles of drought and heavy rains have brought familne and displacement to millions in Africa.
–Helsinki, Finland had its hottest summer in nearly 200 years.
–Spain had its hottest January-October span on record, and several other western European nations nearly set records as well.
–Some parts of northern Russia had spring temperatures 9 deg. C. above historical averages, and Moscow saw its third-hottest summer on record
–The La Nina effect cooled temperatures below norms in some Pacific areas, including northern and central Australia, the western U.S., southwestern Canada, and parts of east Asia.
