Conservatives’ Halt Canadian Leadership Addressing Climate Change
While some countries demonstrate their leadership in addressing our upcoming environmental catastrophes, others sit on their hands, quarrel over even the most minimal steps toward improvement and use excuses to keep from doing anything.
Stephen Harper’s version of Canada falls into the don’t-lead and the do-nothing camp. The latest evidence comes from the Conservatives’ stance toward the upcoming Copenhagen conference. The meeting could have been an opportunity to make binding changes following Kyoto, which we all know the Harper Conservatives shamed Canada out of.
13 November 2009, Federal Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, articulated the Conservatives’ position against Canada being a leading voice through leading action on climate change. Prentice said
“If the United States does not make substantial efforts, going forward, there is nothing that Canada can do, on our own… Our own mitigation efforts will be futile as a practical matter. In fact, we should probably at that point simply focus on adaptation.”
I don’t follow this logic. Why does Canada, a sovereign country, have to depend on the United States to make an effort toward reducing its carbon emissions? Prentice argues later that Canada would essentially suffer economically while the US wouldn’t. This is the sort of unimaginative argument children make on a playground. It sounds like “I will if you will.” Yet there are no lack of suggestions and analyses for how green economic growth is both viable and preferable to the status quo. Evidence is available from Pembina Institute reports on the subject.
In the second half of the Prentice quote, it sounds like he’d rather give up and find ways to adapt. It seems rather clear to me that if we don’t smarten up, there won’t be much for us to adapt to.
A day later (14 Nov.) Harper’s aids let the media know that he wouldn’t attend the Copenhagen summit unless other world leaders were there too. A story on Canada.com from the Canwest News Service notes Harper’s opinion that
“If everyone is not included, you set up the possible risk that certain countries will gain economic advantage from being included or not included… If some contribute or some contribute disproportionately, then the economic risk for others become enormous”
Sounds to me like our current PM is more concerned with self-defeating rationalization than setting about demonstrating Canada’s leadership in resolving a global crisis. Based on the consistency of the Conservatives’ lines against real carbon reduction, one would assume that Harper thinks countries not participating will have some sort of economic advantage. He doesn’t even consider economic advantages that will be generated through emerging green industries.
Regardless, in his belief that working toward improving Canada’s act on the environment will put Canada at an economic disadvantage, Harper prefers to stick with the lowest common denominator. He won’t do a thing until everyone else does, which defines a follower. And this from a man at the forefront of a party that has spent most of its time in prior election campaigns claiming the other political parties lacked leadership.
