DELAYED POST: THIS BLOG IS FROM WEDNESDAY!
Today was the third day of COP14, and what a day it was. As a youth delegate following policy developments during these negotiations, there was a lot of talk, but nothing much substantial said.
Let’s take the AWG-LCA meeting this morning. This is a meeting for all the countries who signed onto the UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), which almost all countries in the world have agreed to. So basically the entire world was represented at this meeting, crazy! A couple dozen countries took their turn to give brief presentations about their “shared vision” for long term action (basically what they want in terms of climate change action in the long term, around 2050 and later).
Particularly riveting speeches: Bolivia shot down capitalism, questioned the global model of consumption, and said developed countries should pay for ALL costs to reduce emissions and adaptation to climate effects in developing countries. Applause from the audience!
Gabon: Gabon is a developing country, but still it said that emissions reductions only from rich countries is “HERESY.” Another quotable quote from Gabon: “Are we worthy of our planet? Our planet is burning, we are watching it burn.” Wowza, strong words, Gabon. This presentation was also applauded by the crowd.
Fast forward a few hours to the afternoon, to the AWG-KP meeting about mitigation. As opposed to the meeting in the morning, many countries were represented, although the mandate was to talk about the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates emissions reductions for industrialized countries ONLY.
The meeting began with a series of presentations from scientists, representing the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a huge amalgamation of world scientists that research climate change) and other scientists.
The thing to report from this meeting was Canada’s presentation: Canada was one of six countries to make an 8 minute schtick on its position. Firstly, all other countries took up their entire time plus more. Canada took about five minutes. We had a great opportunity to talk about the huge issue of how we’re going to mitigate our emissions, and we really underused it.
Secondly, let’s talk about content. Canada referenced a big report that was generated by the NRTEE (National Round Table on the Environment and Energy). Back home, our federal government has rejected the recommendations of this report to implement an economy-wide price on carbon, and to implement complementary regulations on certain sectors. Back home, the government funded this report to make recommendations to it, and then “thanks, but no thanks actually.”
But here at the meeting, “Oh yes this support suggests this and this is also Canada’s position.” HUH?? Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Tricky, or what?
Basically the rest of the presentation was on Canada’s national circumstances, to imply why we shouldn’t take on strong targets:
We are a cold country
We are spread out
We are fossil fuel exporters
We have a unique industrial sector so it’s hard to reduce emissions
WHAT? What about the industrialization process that got us to these ‘national circumstances’, that has produced these emissions in the first place? What about the fact that our emissions are some of the highest per capita in the world right now? What about the fact that historically, Canada has contributed REALLY disproportionately to this problem – maybe we should be doing more than others to fix it?
After Canada’s poor showing today, I may need one of these.
