(WARSAW, Poland) — "I'm ashamed to tell anyone here I'm a Canadian. When they find out they say 'ohh we pity you'," said Leehi Yona, a 20-year old Montrealer who attended the UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland.

"All Canadians would be outraged if they knew how Canada behaves on the world stage," Yona, a student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, told DeSmog on the last day of the two-week negotiations. She's in Warsaw with the US Climate Action Network, a coalition of environmental groups.

"I'm determined to tell as many Canadians as I can what's happening in Warsaw."

About 12,000 people are involved in the climate treaty negotiations known as COP 19. At least 1,500 are members of environmental and civil society organizations. In a nutshell, COP 19 is step towards creating a new climate treaty by 2015 to keep global warming to less than 2˚ C and to help poor countries survive the mounting impacts.

There's little love for Canada in Warsaw. For two long weeks nations of the world have tried to come to grips with the climate crisis. Canada's representatives blocked and delayed progress, generating no small amount of anger from the Philippines, Bangladesh, African countries and small island states facing threats to their very existence.

"The international community has given up Canada. We're seen as a tragic story now," Yona said.

Even international environmental organizations can't be bothered to criticize Canada any more. After being judged the worst country at the last five UN climate meetings, Canada didn't even make the list. 

There were dozens of young Canadians in Warsaw. Most weren't even born when Canada was the leading international force in the 1980s and early 1990s, launching many environmental initiatives like the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

"Canada has rarely spoken for itself in Warsaw," said Anjali Appadurai of Vancouver who is a youth representative working as a notetaker for the Third World Network. "When they do speak, it's to pay lip service to the COP process. There is a selfish arrogance and lack of respect," Appadurai told DeSmog. As an observer she has far more access since media are barred from witnessing most of the negotiations.

Appadurai is a COP veteran. As a college student in 2011 she delivered the  “Get it Done!” speech at the close of COP 17 in Durban, garnering media attention around the world. It was an echo of nine-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki's moving speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Cullis-Suzuki received a standing ovation. Appaduari was banned from the COP 17 and future COPs for participating in an "unsanctioned protest" afterward.

National governments acting through the UN have increasingly restricted the role and activities of youth and participants from civil society at these meetings, she said. No posters. No flyers. No demonstrations except at pre-approved times in designated locations well away from the negotiations. When allowed to speak at official sessions, civil society organizations' speaking time has been cut in half to a single minute. 

At last year's COP 18 in Doha, Appaduari was allowed in after a week of appeals and a "Twitter storm" by civil society organizations. She had to sign a declaration promising to behave. Her participation this year was under similar circumstances.

"I had to sign a contract saying I will behave and not participate in any unsanctioned actions," she said.

In Warsaw three youth were banned for five years for holding up signs naming Filipino communities destroyed by super typhoon Haiyan. "It's getting a little bit scary. Youth and civil society are being pushed to the margins," Appaduari said.

That was one of the reasons why more than 800 members of environmental and civil society organizations walked out of the climate talks on the second last day of negotiations.

It takes a huge effort and expense for students to spend one or two weeks at a climate convention. "The UN tells us they want our voices here but no one listens," Yona said. "I came because I refuse to accept inaction on climate. We will have to live with the consequences."

Yona is making things happen. She's President of Green Schools Coalition of Montreal, an environmental advocate and organizer. Civil society organizations are shifting from an international focus to the local and expect to see an increase in community engagement around the world in 2014.

"I want to tell my children I did absolutely everything I could," she said.

A wide-ranging international coalition of youth is being created to help each other win battles in their local communities, Appaduari said.

"We want climate justice and to create a radically different future than the terrible one we're facing today." 

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Canada and every other rich country need to crash their CO2 emissions 10% per year starting in 2014 to have any hopes of ensuring a not-super-dangerous climate for our grandchildren, said Kevin Anderson of Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester.

"We can still do 2C but not the way we're going," Anderson said on the sidelines of the UN climate talks, in Warsaw, Poland.

Anderson wasn't just referring to the lengthy-and-acronym-laden COP 19 process held inside Warsaw's 58,000-seat soccer stadium. It's too late for any normal approaches to emissions reductions. Preventing climate disaster requires a radical measures and our economic system is not up to the task he said.

"Massive amounts of capital needs to be directed towards a low-carbon future straight away."

Not only does that mean governments redirecting the more than $500 billion they spend subsidizing fossil fuels, it means financial institutions and pension funds need to pull their money out of dirty energy and put it into green projects. If they're not willing, then governments will have to make them he said.

And for the next five years most of that money should go into reducing energy consumption. Alternative energy can't be built fast enough or at the scale needed to 100% replace dirty energy sources.

Automobile manufacturers like Kia and BMW already have non-hybrid, non-electric vehicles with double the fuel efficiency of the typical car on the road today. If governments put in tough new efficiency standards, CO2 emissions could fall 40-50% in 10 years he said.

As "pushers of petroleum" the Harper government isn't about to do anything like this said David Cadman, President of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), the only network of sustainable cities operating worldwide.

"They don't understand science and are willing to leave future generations with a bleak and nasty world," Cadman told DeSmog in Warsaw.

The practical alternative vision is a green low-carbon future that is different but far better than the present. And cities are leading the way. Currently a group of 441 cities representing 15% of people on the planet are taking concrete action to reduce their emissions said Cadman, a Vancouver city councilor.

Cities like Vancouver, Mexico City, Hyderbad India, Osaka, Japan, and Bangkok have registered their efforts to reduce emissions on an official Cities Climate Registry. The idea is to raise the global level of ambition through taking measurable, reportable, verifiable local climate action. After only two years these cities have now found ways to reduce their collective CO2 emissions by 2.2 billion tons a year.

Cities are amongst the biggest source of emissions but equally important is their role in giving birth to a low-carbon global culture that we need to thrive said Cadman.

"The green way of living will be fairer, more compact, create more jobs, reduce energy and other costs, and be more in harmony with nature and our own true natures. It's the opposite of where we are now where a few get rich."

The climate action by cities and subnational governments (regional and provincial) is finally being noticed at the UN climate talks that are dominated by national governments. Thursday, 21 November was “Cities Day”, a first-of-its kind initiative that bundles numerous city-focused events.

"Cities are central in tackling climate change. They are proving grounds for our efforts in ensuring a low carbon future that benefits people and the planet,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the opening in Warsaw.

Now that cities are finally inside the UN tent, Cadman hopes their actions will help inspire generally fearful national governments to take ambitious action.

"That won't be enough however. Climate is simply not a priority of national governments. Cities and regional governments have to mobilize the public," he said.

This mobilization means working with civil society organizations, First Nations, business and especially young people.

"We have to work together to motivate national governments to help create a green future for all of us," Cadman told a packed audience on Cities Day.

Time is short. There are just two years before the new climate treaty is signed in Paris. That agreement needs to be the turning point.  We can’t wait for a second chance to keep global temperatures below the 2C threshold.

"Everyone must be involved. Nothing else is more important.”

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WARSAW, Poland — Canada has led the way to scuttle the UN climate talks here in Warsaw, Poland taking with it nearly all hope of keeping global warming to less than 2C say members of various international organizations.

Along with 190-plus nations, the Harper government signed an international agreement to keep carbon emissions below 2C at the UN climate talks in Cancun in 2011. And yet here at these very difficult climate talks to create a new treaty to protect the climate, the Canadian delegation considers the 2C target "aspirational" and not especially important according to sources.

The government's official COP 19 Qs and As webpage fails to mention the 2C target.

Canada has unilaterally walked away from it's international climate commitments including the Kyoto Protocol and the 2009 Copenhagen Accord said Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics, a German climate science research organization.

Following Canada's lead, Japan abandoned its Copenhagen target last Friday. Meanwhile, Australia under the Abbott government, has gutted its climate policies making it impossible to reach even its inadequate Copenhagen target Hare told DeSmog here in Warsaw.

The Harper government actually congratulated the Abbott government for doing this.

"These countries' promises and commitments are not worth the paper they're written on," said Hare.

This is creating a "very corrosive atmosphere" here. Why should any country trust Canada, Japan or Australia when these countries have no problem walking away from previous commitments he said.

"We're in a downward spiral that's pushing us on a path to 5C a temperature the planet has not seen in 55 million years," he said.

Even a future where the global average temperature is 4C higher means temperatures in southern Canada will be 10 to 12C hotter than the warmest days. Food production will collapse as well most nations says Alice Bows-Larkin, a climate scientist at the UK's Tyndall Climate Center.

"A 4C world must be avoided at all costs," Bows-Larkin said.

This bleak future can be avoided but countries like Canada must cut their carbon emissions 10 percent per year starting now she said.

Instead Canada's emissions are skyrocketing mainly because of the tar sands. Meanwhile the Harper government tells Canadians it takes climate change seriously and is acting.

"As a Canadian I'm ashamed of our increasing emissions and our efforts to block progress on creating a new climate treaty," said Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and leader of Canada's Green Party.

That's probably why the Harper government refused to allow May to be part of the Canadian delegation here in Warsaw. Instead, she is here as a member of the tiny Afghanistan delegation, who are grateful for her knowledgable support in what is a very complex negotiation.

"Rich countries like Canada never talk about staying below 2C," May told DeSmog. "We're walking away from our commitments, even the ones the Harper government made."

She urged Canadians to pressure their MPs, and not just Tory MPs. The Liberals and NDP need to be pushed to take a strong stand on climate she said.

"There is an election coming in 2015. We have to make climate change the key issue." 

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Canadians are losing confidence that governments will take the lead in battling climate change, all the while becoming more certain that humans are behind global warming, according to a new poll by the Environics Institute, in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation.

The belief that governments will take a lead role battling changes has dropped to 53 percent from 59 percent in a year, according to the poll, which comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government faces rising criticism at home and abroad for inaction concerning greenhouse gas emissions.

"Canadians have for decades looked to their governments for leadership on addressing climate change and other environmental problems," Keith Neuman, executive director of Environics, said in a statement. "This latest survey shows a noticeable drop in the public's confidence in governments' capacity to play this role, and this may well be because citizens haven't seen any evidence of leadership, especially at the federal level."

The survey found that a majority of Canadians accept that climate change is the result of human activity while the number of people that believe in the conclusiveness of climate science continues to grow. "Most Canadians believe something can be done to address climate change, including shifting energy requirements from fossil fuels to cleaner renewable forms of energy," that survey found.

Some 60 percent of Canadians say that climate change is real and caused by human activity, up marginally over the past year but part of an upward trend dating back to 2010. "Those not yet certain about the science remain divided on whether it is best to take action now or wait until we know more," it said.

The relatively large poll of more than 2,000 adult Canadians was taken in early October, ahead of the new global climate talks underway in Poland this week and also before this month's devastating cyclone in the Philippines. Cyclone Haiyan struck earlier this month, leaving massive destruction and death in its wake, while also raising concern that global warming was behind the world's increasingly erratic weather.

The survey also comes as the Canadian government, which pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2011, delays rules to rein in growing greenhouse gas emissions. The Harper government is strongly backing the development of the Alberta oilsands, considered one of the world's most environmentally destructive fuel sources.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq told the Globe and Mail that Canada remains committed to meeting its 2020 target for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, promising the Conservative government will introduce long-delayed regulations to tackle emissions in the oil and gas sector.

“We are committed to achieving Canada’s targets, and our leadership and our actions and our investment demonstrate this,” she told the Globe and Mail before leaving Ottawa for the climate talks. Environment Canada said in a report last month that Canada's emissions will total 734 megatons in 2020, or some 20 per cent higher than committed to at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.

The Suzuki foundation said the poll results show Canadians are looking for stronger action from the federal government. "The results underscore the need for the Canadian government to change its past practices and become a constructive global citizen at the UN climate change summit in Warsaw," said Ian Bruce, science and policy manager at the Suzuki Foundation. "Canada's job in Warsaw should be to collaborate with countries around the world to come up with an effective and binding international agreement to reduce global warming emissions."

The Environics survey was based on telephone interviews with 2,003 Canadians between October 1 and 17, 2013 and is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points in 19 out of 20 samples.

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Three weeks ago a call-out for a national day of action against pipelines, runaway climate change and reckless expansion of the oilsands drifted over the Rockies and spread north and east across Canada. The response from Canadians has been so overwhelming it now appears November 16th will see the biggest climate event in Canadian history. 

“There is a growing movement in Canada that wants climate put back on the national agenda,” says Logan McIntosh, a coordinator with the Vancouver-based democracy advocacy group LeadNow.

A staggering one hundred communities in nearly all provinces and territories have registered for the event known as Defend Our Climate. The local organizers vary from environmental groups, First Nations, and people organizing a rally for the first time. Participants will creatively demonstrate “a united wall of opposition” in their communities against the federal government’s resource extraction agenda.

“On November 16th we will see this movement is united from coast-to-coast-to-coast,” McIntosh told DeSmog Canada. McIntosh is one of the national organizers of Defend Our Climate.

“It’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness given Canada’s current political and economic climate. But I fully reject the idea that we can’t turn this ship around,” says Katie Perfitt, organizer of the Defend Our Climate rally in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Thousands Rallying for the Climate a Sign of the Times in Canada

Planning and promoting an event involving dozens of actions and rallies and thousands of participants across the country usually takes months to accomplish. Defend Our Climate has come together in mere weeks. This may be a sign of the times in Canadians find themselves in.

Defend Our Climate emerges at a time when the federal government is pushing aggressively for the approval of five controversial oilsands pipeline proposals, two of which – Northern Gateway and Line 9 – could have decisions by the New Year. It is hard to find a Canadian province that is not dealing with a pipeline proposal of this sort right now.

Canada heads to this year’s UN talks on the world’s collective response to climate change (UNFCCC) in Warsaw, Poland this week after revelations last October Canada is failing to meet its own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. Canada also has developed a reputation of hindering the progress of UN climate talks.

“You can't keep expanding the tar sands and meet the reduction target," Mark Jaccard an energy economist at Simon Frasier University told DeSmog in a previous interview.

The oilsands (also called tar sands) of northern Alberta have become the poster child of the federal government's inaction on climate change. The energy intensive process required to turn oilsands bitumen into something similar to oil makes development in the area the fastest growing source of GHG emissions in Canada. And the industry plans on tripling production of this low-grade unconventional oil by 2030.

“Why is Canada moving backwards instead of forward? Why can't the government step in and invest in more sustainable technology instead of spending money harming the environment?” says Abby Locke, Defend Our Climate rally organizer in Oshawa, Ontario. Locke is a third year forensic psychology undergraduate at UOIT in Oshawa.

Participants Will Demonstrate a 'Wall of Opposition' in 100 Communities Across Canada

Locke and other participants will stand together arm-in-arm in front of federal MP Colin Carrie’s office in Oshawa and snap a quick photo of their ‘wall of opposition’, a theme that will play out in Canadian cities and towns from Repulse Bay, Nunavut to Baie-Comeau, Quebec on November 16th.

In Halifax, organizer Katie Perfitt says participants will also lock arms but with a touch of street theatre. Individuals in costumes representing pipelines and fossil fuels will be ‘blocked’ by another group representing alternative energy standing between the ‘pipelines/fossil fuels lobby’ and Nova Scotia’s provincial legislature.

“We need to keep pressuring the federal government and show them large numbers of Canadians are concerned about these issues. The more they are forced to listen, the more they have to do something about it,” Locke told DeSmog Canada. Oshawa is one of the many communities the Line 9 pipeline passes through in Ontario and Quebec.

A Community of Canadians Striving for A Sustainable Energy Future

For many Canadians it may be difficult to share the optimism of people like Perfitt, McIntosh or Locke that Canada can move towards taking adequate action on climate change and reduce the country’s growing carbon footprint. The next federal election will bring either a Liberal or Conservative government and both parties support the expansion of the tar sands and the construction of more pipelines despite the consequences for the climate.

Still, Perfitt finds inspiration in local success stories.

Nova Scotia has enacted legislation that limits the province’s GHG emissions from electrical production and lays out plans for renewable energy to supply 25% of the province’s electricity in two years. Nova Scotia, along with Quebec and Newfoundland, has a moratorium on ‘fracking’ for natural gas in the province.

“Being part of a coast-to-coast-to-coast community of Canadians who believe in a equitable, secure and sustainable energy future for all Canadians gives me hope,” says Perfitt, who is a graduate student in environmental studies.

In a way, Defend Our Climate is the day these Canadian success stories stand together along with the success stories in the making such as BC’s unwavering opposition to Northern Gateway and residents of New Brunswick digging in their heels in against fracking. These are stories that will shape the future of Canada and determine if the nation will join the world in tackling climate change before it is too late.

Image Credit: Defend Our Climate, CAN-RAC Canada, Powershift

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With another round of international climate negotiations opening this week in Warsaw, Poland, and a new poll finding Canadians wanting leadership on the issue, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government have an opportunity to turn the tides on what has been so far a policy trend in the wrong direction.

Since taking the helm, the majority Harper government has floundered at United Nations climate events, relegating Canada to perpetual fossil of the day and year awards.

As someone who has been working in and around these international climate talks and other such global negotiations for many years now, I have witnessed first hand Canada's fall from grace. Our small country (population-wise) has historically hit well above its weight in many international forums, with a reputation for neutrality and expert diplomacy. Now, we are called a "petrostate" and a "climate obstructionist" at such talks. 

Canada has previously been a international leader on global efforts to battle environmental issues. Former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was an outspoken global leader on reducing Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere and his leadership culminated in the Montreal Accord that saw 191 countries agree to phasing out ozone depleting chemicals.

Under Jean Chretien and the Liberals Canada was one of the first countries to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global climate change pollution, with many countries following our lead. Canada's lack of performance, and in many cases outright opposition to deals on climate change, is not only being noticed by the international community, it is also starting to be noticed at home.

A poll out late last week finds that a large majority – almost 60 percent – of Canadians agree that climate change should be a top issue for the Harper government. A whopping 76 percent say that Canada should sign on to a new international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Beyond the evidence of the poll, a cross-country day of events planned for Canada called "Defend our Climate, Defend our Communities" suggests the country's lack of climate leadership is having its effect on the street level. 

Everyday people are hoping to rejuvenate Canada's international reputation on the issue of climate change.

And the need for this has never been more urgent as more and more extreme weather events make headlines across the globe. The atmospheric disruption and extreme weather scientists talked about almost 20 years ago when Canada signed on to the Kyoto Protocol is now "the new normal."

With climate talks starting this week and next in Warsaw, Harper and his new environment minister, Leona Aglukaqq, have an opportunity to redeem Canada's reputation. Not only would this start the country on the right path when it comes to climate change, but according to public opinion polls, a strong stance on climate by Harper would be good politics.

So what's stopping him?

Image Credit: Kris Krug via Flickr

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