Canada is “flying under the radar” at this year’s UNFCCC COP20 climate talks in Lima, Peru according to Canada Youth Delegation member Brenna Owen.

Canada’s negotiators are working hard to sidestep the issue of the country’s growing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector according to Owen, while simultaneously keeping quiet about the oilsands as nations come up with their “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) in the global climate agreement.

“They’re not going to be able to do that much longer,” she added. “And they’re not going to be able to avoid talking about the tar sands.”

Aleah Loney, another member of the 10-person youth delegation, said the group is eager to push Canada’s ministers and negotiators to address the issue of oil and gas emissions rather than employing evasive tactics to avoid the concerns outright.

On Tuesday, as ministers and delegates from around the world continued to arrive at the climate talks to negotiate an internationally binding climate agreement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons he would not regulate emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.

“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy – it would be crazy economic policy – to do unilateral penalties on that sector,” he said. “We’re clearly not going to do that.”

The oilsands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. In October, Canada’s environment commissioner Julie Gelfand said the country has “no overall vision” when it comes to oil and gas regulations and as a result will not meet its 2020 international greenhouse gas reductions targets agreed to in Copenhagen.

In the House of Commons Harper also claimed “nobody in the world is regulating their oil and gas sector.”

“I’d be delighted if they did, Canada will be there with them. But we are not going to impose unilateral penalties.”

Harper’s comments add another layer of insight into the activities of Canadian negotiators in Lima who are actively skirting the issue of national responsibility by pointing fingers at other nations.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq told delegates at the climate talks Canada is interested in an agreement “that would see all major emitters commit to do their fair share.”

Dale Marshall, national program manager with Environmental Defence, told DeSmog that Canada “for the longest time has been trying to…talk about all major emitters to put everyone in the same boat.”

“On the one hand you could argue there are major developing countries that could do more, but from what I see in terms of historical responsibility countries like Canada have much, much greater responsibility to act and much greater resources to act and should take on greater commitments.”

“When you point at countries like China and India,” Marshall said, “you’re essentially deflecting blame and making it easy for Canada to stay with very weak targets.”

Christian Holz, international policy director with the Climate Action Network, said Canada has “maneuvered itself into a corner of insignificance,” at UNFCCC talks.

He said instead of talking about oil and gas regulations and growth in the oilsands, Canada is redirecting attention to a new commitment to reduce hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in air conditioning and heating.

“They decided to focus on one of the smallest areas of Canada’s emissions profile. HFCs account for about one per cent of Canadian emissions and the oil and gas sector is about 25 per cent right now. So of course, we’re not picking the right areas to focus on.”

Holz said this kind of diversion tactic isn’t even generating controversy within the negotiations or at home because “nobody’s really taking Canada seriously anymore.”

“I guess that’s why you don’t see the outrage that you would expect from bait and switches like that if Canada was considered a genuine participant in this global effort to address climate change.”

Loney from the Canada Youth Delegation said her group is putting effort into keeping the oil and gas sector relevant to Canada’s participation in the climate negotiations.

“We really want to talk about the oil and gas sector as a whole and that includes fracking. But we feel it’s important to highlight the tar sands as well,” she said. “We’re talking at a very high level at the UNFCCC and people know what the tar sands are here.”

Kelsey Mech from the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and a member of the youth delegation in Lima said it’s important for their group to keep the pressure squarely on Canada.

“We’re linking the two worlds,” between Lima and Canada, Mech said, “trying to bring back to Canada what’s going on here.”

“One of the reason why it’s important for folks like us to be here is to put that pressure on internationally on our own government. They’re not going to bring something strong to the table internationally if there isn’t that pressure back home domestically.”

“We’re here to put tar sands back on the table.”

Loney added that this process benefits from being complicated. “They take climate negotiations to such a high-brow that it cuts people off.”

“It’s been important for me to bring these issues back down,” she added.

On Tuesday, Loney brought the question of the oilsands to the negotiations, asking Canadian representatives, “what can I bring back to my friends in Alberta? What can I take back to my friends in Fort McMurray and my friends in treaty territory that are dealing with the effects of living downstream of the tar sands?”

“These are real things that impact real people.”

Image Credit: Environment Canada via Twitter

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Professors at the University of Victoria (UVic) are demanding the school’s administration freeze all new investment in fossil fuels and initiate a three-year divestment of all fossil fuel holdings.

The university endowment fund has approximately $21 million currently invested in fossil fuels.

In an open letter addressed to Lisa Hill, Chair of the University of Victoria Foundation and copied to university president Jamie Cassels, faculty members voiced concerns over the ethical and financial viability of fossil fuel investments, noting “the growing North American movement, led by students, to see their universities act as moral leaders for their communities by disinvesting from such companies.” The full list of signatories can be seen here.

Kelsey Mech, Divest UVic student organizer and chair of the UVic student society, said such strong faculty support for the campaign comes as a surprise. “I am floored. I am so blown away,” she told DeSmog Canada.

“Our goal was to have 100 faculty sign on by April 30th. We just blew that target out of the water as we are already at 160, representing just shy of 20 per cent of faculty,” she said. Nearly 2000 UVic students have signed a petition in support of the divestment campaign.

“I’ve been organizing on campus at the University of Victoria on various environmental issues for the past five years, and I have never seen something light up the campus like divestment has,” Mech told DeSmog Canada. “I’m beyond thrilled, and so grateful for everyone who is willing to take a public stand for our collective futures.”

In their open letter faculty members state “the science is clear” on human-caused climate change, which is expected to cost the Canadian economy $5 billion per year by 2020. The adverse effects of a warming planet, they note, has already killed thousands and creates vulnerable environmental refugees. The burning, transportation and refinement of fossil fuels, they add, perpetuates these negative impacts. 

“We should not support, let alone profit from, companies responsible for this suite of effects.”

The divestment campaign will be presented to the board of the endowment fund and the board of governors at UVic this summer.

Environmental studies professor and letter signatory Jessica Dempsey said faculty support for the initiative is growing: “everyday there are more signatories as more faculty become aware of the issue.”

“I think both students and faculty are looking for ways to seriously engage and confront the climate crisis, in a time when we have no governmental leadership, and no signs of it on the horizon,” she told DeSmog Canada.

Although there has been some resistance on campus, says Dempsey, the majority of it has not been against divestment in principle.

“There is pushback on campus, of course,” she said. “But what is surprising is how much of that pushback – at least so far – comes not in terms of outright disagreement, but rather is focused on the difficulty of implementation. A common refrain is that ‘it’s complex.’”

The UVic endowment and pension investments are managed by trustees with a fiduciary duty “that legally enshrines them to maximize returns,” Dempsey explains, leading to questions about how these and similar funds can account for ethical considerations as well as their legal mandate to maximize returns to the beneficiaries. Pensions, she notes, are governed separately from the university's endowment.

According to Kelsey Mech “the university has asked fund managers to consider environmental, social and governance factors when deciding on investments, but there is no formal or mandatory screening process to follow.”

These kinds of investment ‘complexities’ should be confronted, according to Dempsey, and the university is an ideal place to do so.

“Surely fiduciary duty needs to be revised, or reinterpreted so that we don’t retire to an increasingly uninhabitable planet,” she said.

And concerns surrounding investment in fossil fuels bring up a host of other considerations for Dempsey, especially in terms of employee pensions.

“If you can believe it, my faculty pension has no ethical screens. We can invest in arms, tobacco, and so on. It’s outrageous, really. But of all places in society, the university is well-positioned to lead, to find creative solutions to these complexities.” She clarified that her UVic pension is not, as far as she knows, invested in arms or tobacco, but there is no screen in place that would prevent the pension trustees from doing so.

She added, “who is better placed than UVic law faculty and students to innovate and propose concrete changes to currently unethical but legal mandates like fiduciary duty to maximize returns?”

James Rowe, another professor at the School of Environmental Studies and lead organizer for the campaign, said there is also a strong financial case to be made for divestment.

“The current valuation of oil companies includes huge reserves of fossil fuels that cannot be burned if humanity wants to avoid run-away climate change. When policy making inevitably catches up with the scientific consensus on climate change, share prices for oil companies will be negatively impacted, generating losses for investors,” he said.

Investment in fossil fuels “conflicts” with the university’s environmental leadership role on campus, the open letter states, including the housing of the influential Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

“As with the movement against apartheid in South Africa, students have challenged the university to fulfill its role as a leader on issues of justice. And as with the anti-apartheid movement, this movement will not retire until it has succeeded,” the letter reads.

Divestment, according to Mech, is not only practical, but gives institutions like the university a productive way to move the climate conversation forward.

“Divestment is an extremely impactful way to shift the narrative around our reliance on fossil fuels and to force people to recognize the urgency of the climate change crisis,” she said.

“When major institutes, like universities, choose to divest from these dirty industries it sends a strong message that we are no longer willing to accept the status quo and are demanding a transition to a clean energy future,” she said.

More than 300 other North American universities are currently home to a divestment campaign. Recently the Simon Fraser University Faculty Association voted to create a fossil fuel free option in their pension and the City of Seattle voted to divest from fossil fuels.

Image Credit: K8 via Flickr

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