Leaders in Canada’s environmental community are expressing optimism about the appointment of lawyer Catherine McKenna as Minister of Environment and Climate Change at a swearing in ceremony in Ottawa Wednesday morning.

“Including climate change in the environment minister’s title signals how high a priority this issue is to our new federal government,” said Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada.

As a lawyer, McKenna focused on international trade and competition and co-founded a charity focused on advancing human rights in the developing world.  She was also a legal adviser and negotiator for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in East Timor. A video on her website shows her biking around Ottawa with her three children.

Although her background isn’t heavily weighted to environment and climate change, Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Pembina Institute, said it’s a good appointment.

“I’m impressed with the NGO experience, which suggests a very different approach to working with environmental NGOs like Pembina,” Whittingham told DeSmog Canada. “It indicates a more engaging, communicative, collaborative approach, reading the tea leaves right now.”

McKenna pulled off an upset on Oct. 19, defeating popular NDP MP Paul Dewar to win her seat in Ottawa Centre. She will lead a Canadian delegation to Paris later this month for a critical United Nations meeting to negotiate a new agreement on cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

“I think she has just the right kind of experience,” said Louise Comeau, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada. “We’ve moved beyond the science and even the economic dimensions on climate change. This is now about the issues of justice and fairness and I think she’s well positioned to deal with that.”

Comeau is also pleased with the appointment of Stephane Dion as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Winnipeg South Centre MP Jim Carr as Minister of Natural Resources. Dion, Carr and McKenna will co-ordinate during next month’s climate negotiations.

“The minister responsible for Natural Resources Canada doesn’t have a vested interest in the oilsands or pipelines so we can expect a more open mind on transitioning to a clean energy system,” Comeau told DeSmog Canada. “I’m quite optimistic. This signals a significant attempt to move forward in a balanced way.”

The Liberals’ election platform was vague when it came to how to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, promising only to work with provinces to put a price on carbon and to end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed that Canada will do its part to prevent the catastrophic consequences of more than a two-degree rise in global temperatures.

The Liberals have also promised to restore robust environmental assessments and to review changes to the Fisheries Act. Nunavut MP Hunter Tootoo was named Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard during Wednesday’s swearing in ceremony.

Tootoo defeated Conservative MP and former minister of environment Leona Aglukkaq. Aglukkaq had to apologize in December 2014 for reading the newspaper while opposition parties asked the government about high food prices in the North during Question Period. She also once indicated that there’s still “debate” about some elements of climate science.

The Liberals will have a lot of catching up to do on the environment file. New documents obtained by CBC indicate federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will make just a small dent, in part due to many of the most effective programs — such as the ecoEnergy efficiency programs to help homes and business save energy — being cancelled by the Conservative government.

"For the last 10 years at the federal-provincial table they wouldn't even allow the word climate change to be used. That's a challenge," Ontario's Environment Minister Glen Murray told the CBC.

That means incoming McKenna faces an uphill battle — but also that there are plenty of opportunities for improvement at a time of unprecedented global momentum for action on climate change.

Last week the news broke that the International Monetary Fund will start to factor climate change into its economic forecasts. That means its well-regarded World Economic Outlook could expose how moves to cut greenhouse gas emissions will threaten growth in oil-exporting countries such as Canada.

“Canada has vast, untapped clean energy potential and developing these resources is both a key climate solution and important economic opportunity,” Smith of Clean Energy Canada said.

Trudeau also created a cabinet committee on environment, climate change and energy on Wednesday morning. The committee will be chaired by Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion.

Smith says establishing that committee “sends a clear signal that the new federal government understands that environmental protection and economic prosperity must go hand-in-hand, and is committed to taking an integrated approach to managing our natural resources, fighting climate change and growing our clean energy sector.”

Image: Flickr

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While the office of Canada's Environment Minister is claiming it is consulting with the provinces on a long-term climate commitment, Quebec's Minister of Environment says he hasn't heard from anyone in more than three months. 

As part of preparations for a United Nation's climate leadership summit to be held later this year in Paris, the United States is set to submit its carbon emission commitment to the UN today.

And pressure is mounting against the Harper government as it tries to explain why it is failing to meet the same agreed deadline of March 31st to submit its own set of commitments.

The job of explaning this failure falls to Harper's Minister of Environment, Leona Aglukkaq. The Minister's office sent an e-mail to the Canadian Press earlier this week in response to their inquiries, stating that the Canadian government would be delayed in its submission to the UN because the office wanted to ensure that provinces were adequately consulted. 

“Canada wants to ensure we have a complete picture of what the provinces and territories plan before we submit,” a spokesman for Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said in an e-mail Sunday. "Because this is a national contribution and the provinces have targets of their own, we are collecting information on how they intend to meet their targets.”

However, there appears to be another version of what the government of Canada is actually up to. 

In a CBC interview late yesterday, Quebec's Minister of the Environment David Heurtel said he met with Aglukkaq in early December of last year at the UN climate summit in Lima, Peru, and has since heard nothing from the minister or her office.

As the CBC reports:

"David Heurtel said he met with Aglukkaq at last year’s UN climate summit in Lima, Peru, the precursor to this year's meeting in Paris. Heurtel said he wrote to the minister seeking a dialogue on developing a national strategy on cutting greenhouse gases, but has heard nothing back."

In the same CBC article, Ontario's Minister of the Environment, Glen Murray, expressed his frustration with the consultation process so far by the feds:

"We need the federal government to play a leadership role in the federation. They’ve got to work with particularly Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, and we need to see what they can put on the table to enable [greenhouse gas] reductions," Murray said. "They’ve got to be part of it. They can’t simply publish an inventory of what the provinces are doing and then making that Canada’s contribution. We need leadership here."

There is, of course, quite a bit of time between now and the climate summit to be held in Paris in December. However, the reason countries were asked to submit their plans by the end of March was to allow for a comprehensive "sunlight period." If countries submit too close to the Paris summit there will not be the necessary time for proper analysis of various country's proposals. 

So if you don't want to see things go well at the Paris climate conference, a delay tactic such as the one we are seeing from the Harper government could be quite effective.  

And while the Harper government has gotten away in the past with throwing monkey wrenches in climate talks, it appears this time around that the leadership at the provincial level might not let them get away with it.

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The provincial and federal governments have issued an environmental approval certificate for the Site C dam despite acknowledging it will cause significant adverse environmental effects.

“Those effects are justified in the circumstances,” says the decision statement signed by Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s minister of environment.

The province must still decide whether to proceed with the 1,100-megawatt project based on an investment decision, expected by the end of this year.

“The final decision still has to go through the cabinet, so we’ll still be working to convince them it’s not the best decision,” said Andrea Morison of the Peace Valley Environment Association, a group that has fought the dam for decades.

The $8 billion project would be the third dam on the Peace River and would be located seven kilometres from Fort St. John, B.C.

The dam has been opposed by local farmers, ranchers and the Treaty 8 First Nations because it will flood 87 kilometres of the Peace River, impacting wildlife and flooding 30,000 acres of farmland, including an area the size of the city of Victoria within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson has already vowed to challenge the decision in court and has said the province can’t have both the Site C dam and liquefied natural gas (LNG) development, which requires gas from Treaty 8 territory.

The environmental assessment certificate is subject to 77 conditions, including establishing a fund of $20 million to compensate for lost agricultural lands and activities.

In May, a federal-provincial Joint Review Panel issued its report on Site C. The panel was ambivalent in its findings, saying both that the dam could provide cheap power but also that the costs needed to be examined further and that it’s not clear that the power will be needed on the timeline provided.

“The Joint Review Panel considering the dam’s impacts determined that they are so significant that only an ‘unambiguous need’ for the power would justify them. And BC Hydro did not demonstrate such a need,” said Karsten Heuer, president of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). “We don’t understand the basis on which the B.C. and federal governments could issue their approvals.”

Y2Y has argued that the Site C reservoir would seriously impede wildlife movement in the region.

“The Peace River Valley is located at the narrowest width of the Yellowstone to Yukon region and the existing Williston Reservoir already is a major blockage to wildlife movement,” Heuer said.

The joint review panel’s report included a recommendation to refer the project for review by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission, saying the panel didn’t have the time or resources to comment on the cost of the project.

“All British Columbia Hydro ratepayers should be concerned about that,” said Gwen Johansson, mayor of the District of Hudson’s Hope.

The panel also found that the province has failed to look at alternatives to the Site C dam for the past three decades. New maps released this month indicate B.C. has enough low-impact geothermal energy to power the entire province. 

Read DeSmog Canada's 12-part series on the Site C dam.

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Although the heads of 125 states are gathering at UN Headquarters in New York today to discuss global commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, Stephen Harper will be elsewhere.

Instead Canada’s prime minister will arrive in New York in two days time to attend the UN’s Every Woman, Every Child event on September 25th.

The UN Climate Summit is intended to “galvanize and catalyze climate action” in advance of the Paris COP climate talks in 2015 where countries will form binding agreements to address global warming.

President Barack Obama will announce a new executive order today that directs all federal agencies to include climate concerns in international aid and development initiatives.

China’s president Xi Jinping, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and Australian prime minister Tony Abbott have also announced they will not attend the summit.

China announced vice premier Zhang Gaoli will attend in the president’s place and Canada will send environment minister Leona Aglukkaq in Harper’s stead.

China is the number one emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, followed by the U.S. and India. Canada and Australia are eighth and fourteenth, respectively, according to data released by the European Commission.

In the lead up to the summit UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said “this is the time for decisive global action.”

“I have been pleased to see climate change rise on the political agenda and in the consciousness of people worldwide,” he said. “But I remain alarmed that governments and businesses have still failed to act at the pace and scale needed.”

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said the absence of a few world leaders will not affect the credibility or outcomes of the summit.

“This is not something that will stop on September 24,” Figueres said, adding, “rather what is important is the strength of commitments and action of all governments moving forward up and until we deliver a new universal agreement in Paris.”

On Sunday an estimated 400,000 people participated in what is being heralded as the largest climate march in history. Support for the People’s Climate March came from across many sectors of society, showing a growing climate concern from religious, youth, business and investment groups.

Figueres said that growing involvement in cross-sector climate action is also represented in climate summit participants.

“The inclusion of business at the summit and over the past few years is frankly a recognition that climate change is not a one person or one sector issue,” she said.

“It cannot be solved by one country, one sector or one level of government. Climate is an every-person issue, and it requires everyone to work collaboratively in order to reach the solutions to the level and at the speed we need to find.”

Recently prime ministers Harper and Abbott hosted a press conference in Canada where they criticized government actions to make polluters pay for carbon emissions.

At the press gathering Harper said, “No country is going to undertake actions on climate change, no matter what they say, no country is going to [take] actions that are going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country. We are just a little more frank about that, but that is the approach that every country is seeking.”

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This article originally appeared on mikedesouza.com.

On the eve of an international climate change summit of government leaders in New York, Canada is being challenged about its own domestic record in addressing the heat-trapping pollution that contributes to global warming.

Here’s a historical timeline of some of the major climate change policies, statements and related decisions made by Canada since 2006 when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was first elected to form a government.

From a pledge to introduce a carbon tax in 2007 to internal debates about climate change science, this timeline covers the promises and the action by the Canadian government in recent years.

February 2006:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is sworn in after his Conservative Party wins a general election with a minority of seats in the Canadian House of Commons. The election ends a 13-year-old government led by the Liberal Party of Canada.

Harper’s Conservatives mainly focused on accountability and tax cuts during the campaign. They also criticized Canada’s participation in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, pledging to introduce a “made-in-Canada” solution to promote a healthy environment.

The newly-elected government cancels billions of dollars in federal spending to address climate change and promote energy efficiency. They also cancel work underway within Environment Canada to regulate greenhouse gases from large industrial facilities, describing the country’s legally-binding Kyoto target as unrealistic.

Harper and members of his cabinet note that the previous Liberal administration had promised to take action on climate change, but didn’t do anything to stop the rise in industrial greenhouse gas emissions that put Canada’s Kyoto target out of reach.

May 2006:

The Globe and Mail reports on leaked documents from international climate talks in Bonn, Germany, that reveal the Harper government has instructed its negotiators to oppose “stringent targets” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The newspaper reports that the instructions tell negotiators to instead favour a voluntary approach to addressing climate-warming pollution.

Environmental groups accuse the government of sabotaging the talks. It’s the first of many conferences over the next decade in which critics describe Canada as the worst and least helpful party at the negotiating table on climate change issues.

September 2006:

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose pledges to introduce a new law that would use the federal government’s constitutional authority to require all industrial sectors to reduce pollution. Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers president Pierre Alvarez says that his industry is prepared to accept targets as long as other sectors faced the same regulations.

The opposition, which forms a majority in the House of Commons, would later reject her proposed legislation as inadequate. The opposition parties would then attempt to rewrite the bill, but the new version was abandoned by the Conservative government that claimed it would harm the Canadian economy.

March 2007:

Preserving the environment is one of the top themes of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s federal budget. The plan includes $4.5 billion in spending “to clean our air and water, reduce greenhouse gases and combat climate change, as well as protect our natural environment.” The budget also restores funding to some measures that were scrapped, one year earlier, by the government, reintroducing them with new names.

April 2007:

Environment Minister John Baird unveils new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution across the Canadian economy. The targets set new goals that are aggressive, but weaker than Canada’s existing commitments, under the Kyoto Protocol. Baird says that the new targets will come into force as early as 2010 for some sectors at an estimated cost of about $8 billion to the Canadian economy.

The Conservative plan proposes to give companies the possibility of meeting their targets by paying a $15 carbon tax per tonne of emissions that would go into a fund supporting the development of new technologies.

Baird’s new “Turning the Corner” plan also estimates the targets will also result in health benefits worth about $6 billion due to a reduction in air pollution and related respiratory illnesses.

“This is a mammoth undertaking,” Baird tells a news conference in Toronto. “It doesn’t end today. Global warming, climate change is one of the biggest ecological threats the environment has ever faced, and it’s going to require work every day, every week, every month and every year.”

Despite extensive consultations with all major industrial sectors over the previous year, Baird explains that more negotiations with industry would likely follow before introducing any draft regulations.

June 2007:

Speaking to an audience in Germany, Prime Minister Stephen Harper describes climate change as “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today.” He also notes that Canada was a small contributor to global warming since it was responsible for two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“But we owe it to future generations to do whatever we can to address this world problem,” Harper says. “And Canadians, blessed as we are, should make a substantial contribution to confronting this challenge.”

He also says in his speech that his government has already introduced mandatory emissions reductions targets for large emitters that would result in “absolute reductions in emissions levels by at least 2012 and as early as 2010.”

October 2008:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative party is re-elected as a minority government in a general election, following a campaign in which the party pledged to introduce a cap and trade system as part of its climate change policies. The system would set targets to cap pollution from industry and then allow facilities to meet targets either by reducing emissions or by purchasing credits. The credits could be sold provided that they have certified a reduction in emissions beyond business as usual.

Harper names Jim Prentice as his third environment minister after winning the election.

The global financial crisis and lobbying from industry warning about economic impacts would later derail legislation in the U.S. to introduce a cap and trade system.

December 2009:

An international climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark collapses without a binding agreement.

Stephen Harper signs a new voluntary climate change accord spear-headed by U.S. President Barack Obama. Harper weakens Canada’s previous target set under Baird’s Turning the Corner proposal, but matches a target set by the Obama administration.

February 2010:

Jim Prentice criticizes the Quebec government for planning its own aggressive fuel economy tailpipe standards for cars, describing the province’s approach as a “folly.”

October 2010:

The Harper government adopts new fuel economy rules, based largely on the Quebec and California model, matching regulations introduced by the Obama administration to reduce tailpipe pollution from new cars. Environment Canada estimates the new regulations will save the equivalent of 28 billion litres of fuel between 2011 and 2016. Jim Prentice sayshigher costs of purchasing cars would be offset by savings in fuel consumption and that the regulations would also encourage more electric cars on Canadian roads.

November 2010:

Prentice resigns from federal politics to accept a job as a vice-president of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and is temporarily replaced as environment minister by John Baird.

December 2010:

John Baird hails a series of agreements reached at an international climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico as the “first step” toward a binding global deal to ensure greenhouse gases peak within a decade and then start to decline. But he also warns that it would be mathematically impossible to stabilize emissions in the atmosphere without getting the biggest polluters, China, India and the United States, to take on firm commitments.

“I hope that coming out of Cancun that people, other countries will reflect,” Baird says. “Whatever we’ve been trying for the last 13 years hasn’t worked. Emissions are way up since 1997. If we want to stabilize them by 2015 or 2020, we’re going to have to get the big players involved.”

January 2011:

Peter Kent becomes Stephen Harper’s fourth environment minister and begins his new role by praising Canadian oil as an “ethical” fuel.

February 2011:

The Harper government confirms that it is no longer pursuing a cap and trade regime, but aiming to introduce new mandatory rules and standards for industrial pollution.

Peter Kent says in an interview that the government had a “target” of introducing all of its proposed greenhouse gas regulations by the end of 2011.

May 2011:

Following a general election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are re-elected, this time forming a majority in the House of Commons.

September 2011:

Peter Kent says the spring federal election has delayed work on the oil and gas regulations and that they wouldn’t be introduced in 2011.

Fall 2011:

Environment Canada creates a new group to work on the oil and gas regulations. It includes representatives from the Alberta government, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and three oil companies – Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Cenovus and Suncor. The group meets roughly once every four weeks.

December 2011:

Peter Kent announces that Canada is withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol.

Across the government, officials are working on plans behind the scenes to reduce federal oversight of industrial activities and accelerate energy and resource development.

These plans follow a decision by President Obama to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion project, that would allow for more oilsands exports from Alberta to the United States.

The new federal policies and laws would also respond to many detailed requests from oil, gas and pipeline lobbyists.

In response to questions about the Kyoto withdrawal in the House of Commons, Stephen Harper says: “I have said many times that climate change is a great problem for the world.”

March 2012:

The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research is forced to shut its doors after repeated requests for renewed funding fall on deaf ears. The foundation had offered about $120 million in university grants for climate and weather-related research over about 10 years. The total is above the $110 million multi-year grant it received from the government.

The foundation would later rebrand itself as the Canadian Climate Forum, relying on private donors to fund its work.

A labour union representing federal scientists, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, would also estimate that the Canadian government was in the middle of a three-year purge, cutting nearly $3 billion in spending and up to 5,000 jobs from its science-based departments, including many scientific research positions and programs in charge of monitoring air, water, and wildlife.

One of the victims of the cuts is the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab – also known as PEARL – a scientific observatory station near Eureka in the high Arctic that loses about a third of its federal funding and is no longer able to remain fully operational throughout the entire year.

The government instead opts to spend millions of dollars to build a new research station that is more than 1,000 kilometres to the southwest.

April 2012:

The Harper government introduces a 400-page document in Parliament that proposes to scrap major Canadian environmental laws and replace them with new legislation.

May 2012:

At international negotiations, Guy Saint-Jacques, then the former chief federal climate change negotiator and ambassador, says that the Canadian government is working towards draft regulations for 2013” in the oil and gas sector.

“Once we have finalized the oil and gas regulations, we will have covered some 60 per cent of our emissions,” Saint-Jacques told his international counterparts.

June 2012:

A series of newly-released letters reveals that Peter Kent has been challenged by many of his caucus colleagues, including the prime minister, to answer questions about whether scientific evidence is real about climate change and whether the phenomenon requires a government response. When asked about the letters, Kent says that having debates and being challenged demonstrates the “vitality of any government.”

July 2012:

New environmental laws adopted by Parliament eliminate nearly 3,000 federal environmental reviews of industrial projects, including hundreds of projects related to oil, gas and pipeline development.

September 2012:

Peter Kent announces the government has finalized its regulations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal power plants, predicting that the new rules will result in the equivalent of taking about 2.6 million vehicles off Canadian roads over 21 years. The new rules are slated to come into force on July 1, 2015.

His department, meantime, confirms it has handed over the monitoring of data for ozone and radiation in the atmosphere, previously done by atmospheric scientists, to an information technology computer expert.

November 2012:

Following damage caused to the U.S. northeast by Hurricane Sandy, Peter Kent says climate change is a “very real and present danger” that governments need to address.

December 2012:

Canada confirms its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.

February 2013:

Peter Kent says the federal government is “very close” to finalizing new carbon pollution regulations for oil and gas companies.

April 2013:

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, who would later become finance minister in 2014,says in an interview with La Presse that scientists are exaggerating the climate crisis. He follows others in Harper’s cabinet and caucus who had cast doubts on occasion about whether humans are significantly contributing to climate change. Those include the prime minister, junior industry minister Maxime Bernier, former public safety minister Stockwell Day and Senator Nancy Greene Raine, a former Winter Olympic champion skier.

March 2013:

The special group created by Environment Canada to develop greenhouse gas regulations for oil and gas companies has its final meeting.

Environment Canada later explains that its engagement with stakeholders on regulations was continuing on many fronts, but that it was moving toward more targeted discussions.

April 2013:

In internal correspondence with the provincial government in Alberta, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers expresses concerns about stringent climate change policies, suggesting that the government should spend more time studying the issue. The industry lobby group also tells the government that tough regulations won’t satisfy its biggest critics.

June 2013:

Peter Kent says industry groups are cooperating with the government’s efforts to introduce regulations, also noting that companies are concerned about “maximiz(ing) profits for their shareholders.”

July 2013:

After being replaced in a cabinet shuffle by Harper’s fifth environment minister, Leona Aglukkaq, Peter Kent says he was “profoundly disappointed” that the government didn’t complete the oil and gas regulations under his watch. He reiterates that the government was close but had to navigate through many lobby interests as well as concerns of putting jobs or investments at risk.

September 2013:

Leona Aglukkaq’s office prevents her department from publicly stating that the government accepts scientific evidence that humans are causing climate change and takes the matter seriously.

Aglukkaq later gives a television interview in which she casts doubts about whether ice is melting in the Arctic.

October 2013:

The Harper government opens a new session of Parliament with a throne speech saying that it will work with provinces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas companies.

November 2013:

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq says she’s “not ready” to introduce new regulations for oil and gas companies.

June 2014:

Stephen Harper, at a joint news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, suggests other countries aren’t being frank about scaling back climate change policies to protect their economies. He suggests aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a carbon tax, would harm the economy.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Stephen Harper on his 9th annual Arctic visit. Image courtesy of the Prime Minister of Canada's photo gallery.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article originally appeared on mikedesouza.com.

You may have seen this report in the Toronto Star about a mysterious end to a secretive group [an oil and gas pollution committee] that was created to draft new rules to reduce carbon pollution from oil and gas companies.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq was asked about the long-delayed rules for oil companies on Tuesday in the House of Commons by NDP environment critic Megan Leslie.

Aglukkaq responded by changing the topic.

“We have taken action on some of the largest sources of emissions in this country, the transportation and the electricity-generation sector,” said Aglukkaq in the Commons. “I’m also looking forward to taking part in the UN climate summit in New York next week to speak to Canada’s record in taking action on climate change.”

Leslie recommended that the federal government should “quit stalling” in addressing climate change.

“After seven years of the government’s broken promises to introduce greenhouse gas rules for the oil and gas sector Canadians are still waiting,” Leslie said.

“Now we hear that Environment Canada has stopped talking to the industry and the Alberta government altogether. In fact, the (federal) government-led committee hasn’t met since March 2013. When will this government quit stalling and when will we see the regulations?”

David McLaughlin, a former senior Conservative government staffer who later led a federal advisory panel on the environment and economy, said any delays in action would increase economic risks.

“Delay in tackling Canada’s top emitting source is short-term economic gain for long-term economic risk,” said McLaughlin, an adviser on sustainability issues at the University of Waterloo’s environment faculty who also served as chief of staff to former prime minister Brian Mulroney. “Market access will be more, not less, assured when Canada comes to grips with a carbon management plan for this sector.”

The latest comments coincided with a new international report – released by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate – that concluded countries could expand their economies by reducing carbon pollution.

Environment Canada estimated earlier this year that greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands increased by 307 per cent between 1990 and 2012. The carbon emissions were projected to grow a further 61 per cent before the end of the decade.

Scientists estimate that humans must reduce global emissions by up to 72 per cent in order to meet an international target, under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, of preventing global warming of more than two degrees Celsius.

In a written statement, Environment Canada confirmed that the group working on oil and gas regulations had stopped meeting in March 2013.

“Since that time, Environment Canada has been engaging provinces, industry and others to discuss the potential for GHG emission reductions from the oil and gas sector,” wrote spokesman Danny Kingsberry in the statement. “As discussions evolved there was a need to explore the specific circumstances and variation within the sector and across the country, resulting in a move away from the working group structure and toward more targeted discussions. Our engagement is continuing on many fronts.”

He added that it would be “premature” to comment specifically about what the group was examining, since the regulations were still under development.

Former environment minister Peter Kent had said in February 2013 that the government was “very close” to finalizing the oil and gas carbon pollution rules.

Here are some questions and answers about the committee:

Who was on the committee? Representatives from three oil and gas companies –Cenovus, CNRL and Suncor as well as the industry lobby group – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers were on the committee along with representatives from the Alberta government and Environment Canada, which was leading its work.

How do we know about the committee? The existence of the committee of industry and government representatives – created to write rules for industry – was a secret until it was uncovered through records released under access to information legislation.

When was it created? According to internal records, the committee was created in the fall of 2011 and met approximately once every four weeks, until March 2013.

What was it working on when it stopped meeting? According to internal federal and provincial records, the committee had studied a series of options for new regulations.

Responding to questions from the Toronto Star, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers vice president of policy and performance, Alex Ferguson, said it has “consistently” advocated for “balanced carbon policy” that consider the views of investors or would-be investors.

“We believe that government(s) need to move forward on this topic, and we have consistently advocated that they do so with careful and thorough consideration of all consequences – intended and unintended,” Ferguson told the Star.

Behind closed doors, internal records obtained by Greenpeace Canada through provincial freedom of information legislation revealed that industry lobbyists rejected proposals from the Alberta government to introduce tough rules, and instead suggested delaying action to allow for more “study, analysis and consultation.”

At that time, David Daly, the director of fiscal policy at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers argued that tougher rules wouldn’t likely stop critics from asking companies to do more to reduce their climate change footprint.

The environmental lobby group blames the industry lobbyists for derailing the talks.

“This is what happens when a government opens the doors wide to the oil industry and shuts out everyone else,” said Keith Stewart, a Toronto-based climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. “The upstream oil and gas industry is now the biggest carbon polluter in the country precisely because the Harper government gives in every time they cry poor. Meanwhile, the public foots the ever-rising bill for climate disasters while the oil companies post record profits.”

Stewart said that the toughest proposal on the table from Alberta would tackle part of the increase at a cost of less than $1.00 per barrel of oil, “which is a very small drop in a very large bucket,” he said.

Oil Regs Secret

Image Credit: Kris Krug

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The proposed Site C dam on the Peace River is the best alternative for providing B.C. with reliable cheap power, but BC Hydro has not proved that the power is needed in the immediate future, says a much-anticipated report by the federal Joint Review Panel.

The report does not give a definitive yes or no answer to the planned 1,100 megawatt dam, which will flood about 5,500 hectares of land, but includes 50 recommendations on issues such as threats to endangered wildlife, health effects for those living in the area and destruction of First Nations heritage sites.

If approved, project construction would begin in 2015 with completion projected for 2023.

The ambivalent report says B.C. will need new energy and new capacity at some point and “Site C would be the least expensive of the alternatives and its cost advantages would increase with the passing decades as inflation makes alternatives more costly.”

However, “the panel cannot conclude that the power of Site C is needed on the schedule presented.”

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There are also important environmental, social, economic, health and heritage costs, panel members concluded.

Risks to fish and wildlife include harmful and irreversible effects on migratory birds and species such as the western toad and short-eared owl.

“Justification must rest on an unambiguous need for the power and analyses showing its financial costs being sufficiently attractive as to make tolerable the bearing of substantial environmental, social and other costs,” it says.

High costs yet alternatives not considered

The report notes that BC Hydro has not looked closely enough at alternatives such as geothermal energy.

“The panel concludes that a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left B.C Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of form, economic power with low environmental costs,” it says

The estimated $7.9 billion cost raised questions, but panel members said they do not have the information, time or resources to look at the accuracy of cost estimates and recommended that, if the project proceeds, costs should be examined in detail by the province’s independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC).

The Liberal government previously exempted Site C from BCUC scrutiny and, although the recommendation was applauded by groups such as the Peace Valley Environment Association, Energy Minister Bill Bennett immediately threw cold water on the idea.

“This project has been poked, prodded and analyzed for the last 35 years,” he said

“I think subjecting it to another review after all the years it has been studied, is not a good use of public money.”

Bennett believes BC Hydro will keep to its budget, despite reports showing mega-dams around the world often run 50 per cent over budget.

BC Hydro has included $1.52 billion for inflation and contingencies, he said.

“Of course with large projects like these, there’s no guarantees, but with such a large contingency fund and such a large fund for inflation and all the work that BC Hydro has done, I think we can have confidence in that final number,” he said.

The proposal must gain the approval of the federal and provincial governments and Bennett said he will take a recommendation to cabinet this fall after further environmental and First Nations consultations.

Indecisiveness not all around

Bennett, who said he views the Joint Panel review as “mostly positive,” emphasized that he has not yet made up his mind about the dam, which, if approved, would be the most expensive project built in the province.

“I am right square in the middle of this,” he said.

NDP leader John Horgan said the report shows the Liberal approach to Site C has been reckless and does not have a foundation in the realities of the North American energy market.

“The challenge ratepayers have is they are facing 28 per cent rate increases over the next five years and we have a government proposing to spend $8 billion on power that we may not need, at a time we don’t have the money to spend,” he said.

Former BCUC chair Mark Jaccard, professor in the school of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University, said he is impressed the panel tried to address big questions such as climate impact.

“But I was a bit frustrated that the panel waffled so much. I think I wanted them to say yeah or nay,” he said.

It is a difficult decision, because there are compelling arguments on both sides, and politicians will ultimately have to take a stand, but it would have been good to have a definitive opinion from experts who listened to presentations at the hearings, Jaccard said.

“They are trying to say all the things for all the people,” he said.

Signs of optimism

In the Peace Valley, the report is generating some optimism and Andrea Morison, Peace Valley Environment Association coordinator, applauded recommendations that show the panel has significant concerns about impacts.

“It shows the proponent has not fully demonstrated the need for the project and that there are other sources they should be looking at. Another key point is they can’t conclude the accuracy of the cost estimate,” she said.

Morison believes that once Bennett has studied the report he will decide to follow the key recommendation of referring it to BCUC for a cost review.

“One thing we can count on with politicians is that they do change their minds and it’s not solely his decision,” she said.

Hudson’s Hope Mayor Gwen Johansson also wants Bennett to pass the project to BCUC for scrutiny.

“It would be disappointing if he did not follow that recommendation,” she said.

Treaty 8 First Nations Tribal Chief Liz Logan said the core message to government is why build a project that is not needed. Alternative solutions such as wind power or smaller hydro projects must be considered instead, Logan said.

“We are still going to be vocal about it,” said Logan, who hopes British Columbians throughout the province will put pressure on the province.

“This project doesn’t just affect us on the ground, it’s going to affect the pocketbook of every British Columbian,” she said, adding she wants the project’s cumulative effects studied.

Those living in the area that will be affected by the dam see the report as validation of their belief that the adverse effects outweigh any benefits.

Spring is finally coming to the valley, said Ross Peck, a retired guide outfitter whose family has lived in the area since 1924.The grass is greening up, the leaves are about to pop and the valley is full of animals. I saw the first osprey today he said.

If the dam goes ahead, part of his property will be flooded, roads will cut close to his home and Peck believes he would have to leave.

“I don’t think we could sit on our deck and watch them clearcutting for the reservoir,” he said.

Esther Pederson, who would lose part of her farmland and her home to the dam, has little faith in any consultation process.

“The consultation so far has been ‘do you want to sell your farm now or later,’ ” she said.

Armed with the concerns raised in the report, it should be possible to stall approval at least until the next election, Pederson said.

“It could be dragged out forever and the First Nations people are lined up to take the government to court,” she said.

Photo: Peace Valley courtesy of Andrea Morison and Don Hoffmann.

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Opponents of the proposed Site C dam are hoping a report from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel, to be released Thursday, will emphasize potential environmental damage from the massive dam and persuade the federal and provincial governments that the project should be scrapped.

The report from the Joint Review Panel into BC Hydro’s $8-billion plan to build a dam that would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace River, putting 14,000 hectares of farmland under water, was submitted May 1 to federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq and the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, but there was no obligation to release it to the public for 45 days.

“The fact that they decided to share it just after they got it themselves is a little bit surprising, but we are feeling optimistic and hoping for the best,” said Andrea Morison of the Peace Valley Environment Association.

The panel’s recommendations, put together after 26 days of hearings, are not binding on government, but are likely to outline issues and possible solutions as well as indicating whether some environmental problems are insurmountable.

“There’s nothing binding, but I think it holds a considerable amount of weight,” Morison said.

The report will be posted on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s website Thursday. The provincial and federal governments must make their own decisions within 174 days, or six months, of the report being issued.

“The province has been very clear from the get-go that they support Site C,” said Joe Foy, Wilderness Committee’s national campaign director.

However, if the federal government decides it can’t support the project, Site C would probably die, Foy speculated.

“It’s clearly a matter that would require the federal OK. There are massive impacts that are clearly in the federal arena,” he said.

In February, the federal government rejected the New Prosperity Mine near Williams Lake, despite it having provincial support, after concluding the mine would have environmental effects that could not be mitigated.

There is speculation that even within the B.C. Liberal party there are doubts about whether Site C is necessary, although Premier Christy Clark has made it clear she is a supporter and much of the last election campaign was built on proceeding with Site C as a key building block of developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

However, Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett has consistently been more cautious and said shortly after the election, when revelations were made about BC Hydro’s new capital costs and construction cost overruns, that he wanted to make sure that government would not be facing cost overruns with Site C. Because BC Hydro is a Crown corporation, cost overruns would be borne by taxpayers.

“Bill Bennett frequently seems to be keeping the door open on Site C,” Foy said.

“He told us in January that he had a team of researchers looking at alternatives to Site C.”

Bennett also recently told the Globe and Mail that there could be another level of screening on Site C costs. Government previously decided to circumvent the Crown corporation’s regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission, which would have looked at financial issues. The environmental review is not expected to look closely at cost, necessity or practicality.

Questions have also been raised about whether LNG plants would find hydro power too expensive and would be more likely to use gas to feed their massive electricity needs.

Paul Kariya, executive director of Clean Energy BC — an industry trade association that represents independent power producers, including gas generators — recently told DeSmog Canada that the major LNG companies are looking at powering their plants via natural gas.

“Times have changed. We’ve been through an era of building big dams,” Kariya said. “When you build a dam, you get this one massive lump of power and that’s not the way that energy is planned for anymore.”

Kariya says independent power producers offer a more incremental approach to meeting demand.

However, even with a report from the World Convention on Dams — which says that projects routinely come in at 50 per cent more than estimated — and mounting evidence that the power produced by Site C is not needed and is likely to be sold at a loss, it is doubtful that the province will back down, said retired federal economist Erik Andersen.

“They are addicted to big photo-op projects,” he said.

“Over the course of the past four decades, the need for a Site C generation facility has been part of the larger and exaggerated demand narrative that BC Hydro has been telling.”

Site C — which gets its moniker from being the third dam proposed for the Peace River — has been on the books since the ’70s. It was first turned down by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission in the early '80s, which said BC Hydro hadn't demonstrated that the power was needed or that the dam was preferable to all other sources of power. In the ’90s, BC Hydro suspended the project again because the need for power was still considered insufficient.

Morison is hoping that, with release of the panel’s report, Site C will start catching the attention of people throughout the province, especially if they learn their Hydro bills are likely to rise beyond the 28 per cent increase already expected over the next five years.

“They need to realize that this is going to cost them,” she said.

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

Photo: The Peace River Valley Near the Halfway River by Tuchodi via Flickr.

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Neil Young’s Honour the Treaties tour kicked off with a bang on Sunday when the ex-pat Canadian rocker ripped into the Conservative government’s management of the oilsands.

Calling the oilsands a “disaster” and a “devastating environmental catastrophe” at a press conference at Massey Hall in Toronto, Young stood by his earlier statement that the oilsands region resembles Hiroshima.

It wasn’t long before a war of words with the Prime Minister’s Office broke out. Young’s comments provoked a particularly fierce reaction in Calgary, the corporate headquarters of Canada’s oilpatch.

By Tuesday, the Globe and Mail had posted a cartoon depicting the House of Commons divided into two camps: “pro Neil Young” and “anti Neil Young.”

Talk about turning a complex issue into black and white. The more important question here is whether celebrity awareness-raising efforts like this one serve a valuable role in generating discussion or whether Young’s inflammatory language further divides the country into two opposite camps — moving Canadians further away from the solutions we so desperately need on the energy and climate file.

In an editorial on Wednesday, the Hamilton Spectator wrote:

“If there's a downside to Young's comments … it’s that the kerfuffle around Young might detract from the substance of his remarks. Some — including comparing the area to Hiroshima — are over-the-top silly. But about the pace of oilsands development and lack of environmental oversight, he's not wrong. The question isn’t whether or not oilsands development should take place. It should, responsibly. The question is how fast growth should happen, and whether the regulatory and monitoring infrastructure is in place to make sure environmental damage is mitigated.”

Agreed. You might not know it from reading the news headlines, but the vast majority of Canadians strongly believe the country needs an integrated approach to climate change and energy. In July, Clean Energy Canada released the results of a Harris-Decima poll, which found 87 per cent of Canadians surveyed agreed: “The nation needs a Canadian climate and energy strategy to plan its energy future.”

Canadians were asked to indicate to what degree they would prioritize a series of objectives for a potential Canadian energy strategy. What did Canadians most frequently rank as “high” or “top” priorities? Improving energy efficiency (80 per cent), creating more jobs in clean energy (73 per cent), reducing Canada’s carbon pollution to slow down climate change (67 per cent) and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal (61 per cent). In contrast, only 31 per cent of those surveyed called “exporting more of Canada’s oil and gas resources” a high priority.

So why, when there’s so much common ground in the middle, does the Canadian energy debate continue to rage around the edges?

Well, for one, that’s where the conflict happens and we all know the media loves a good ole’ dust-up. And since the media likes a brawl, it’s tempting for players on all sides to make polarizing statements because they chalk up media hits and social media shares.

However, in doing so, they’re playing a dangerous game. Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, describes scenarios in which two opposing sides talk past each other, impeding meaningful dialogue, as a “logic schism.”

“In a logic schism, a contest emerges in which opposing sides are debating different issues, seeking only information that supports their position and disconfirms their opponents’ arguments,” Hoffman told the University of Michigan Record. “Each side views the other with suspicion, even demonizing the other, leading to a strong resistance to any form of engagement, much less negotiation and concession.”

Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale, who researches science communication and the application of science to law and policymaking (and who just so happens to be a fan of Neil Young's music), says debates like the one stirred by Neil Young become about much more than what they appear to be on the surface.

“People end up seeing questions of fact as kinds of symbols that are badges of who they are and stock that indicates their status in society,” Kahan says. “The kinds of dynamics that I find disturbing and sad are the ones that prevent people who really probably have the same goals, or at least pretty close to the same goals, from recognizing what the best available evidence is."

Which brings us to the state of debate in Canada today. When Young says the Canadian government is “trading integrity for money,” Harper’s spokesman says: “Canada’s natural resources sector is and has always been a fundamental part of our country’s economy.”

Logic schism, anyone? The fact is rapid oilsands development comes with tradeoffs. Now, people are free to make different value judgments on those tradeoffs, but to deny they exist is to deny Canadians a sensible conversation on natural resource issues.

Young responded to the PMO with this: “Our issue is not whether the natural resource sector is a fundamental part of the country, our issue is with the government breaking treaties with the First Nation and plundering the natural resources the First Nation has rights to under the treaties.”

Indeed, proceeds from ticket sales for the concerts are going to support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in their legal challenges of oilsands projects. Unfortunately, as of right now, most of the conversation spurred by Young’s tour doesn’t appear to be of a substantive nature about the issues the First Nation faces.

Reading the PMO’s statement, you’d think there is nothing controversial going on up there. “Projects are approved only when they are deemed safe for Canadians and [the] environment,” MacDonald said.

That seems a strange thing to say given the federal government recently approved Shell Canada’s Jackpine mine expansion even though Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said it is “likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.” (That's what's called a tradeoff, folks.)

And so it is that almost every environmental issue in our country plays out as a he said-she said in the media, and then goes on to one of two fates — stagnation or escalation, wherein both sides of the debate end up viewing the other as untrustworthy without much discussion of the real issues.

Roger Conner, a law professor at Vanderbilt Law School who also runs a consulting practice specializing in consensus building and conflict resolution on contentious public policy issues, coined the term “the advocacy trap” for this point in the debate where both sides have a profound distrust of the other.

“There are a few profoundly evil people in the world, but if you think you’re surrounded by them, you probably need to change your own psyche,” Conner said in an interview with DeSmog Canada founder Jim Hoggan. “If you think that the whole movement of people for the pipeline in Canada is made up of people who are either evil or idiots, I can almost assure you with great certainty that’ s not accurate.”

The only way out of this trap, Conner says, is for advocates to police their attitudes so they can learn to push sometimes, pull sometimes, collaborate sometimes and remain limber enough to sway back and forth as the situation demands, like a light-footed boxer. To use the entire range of strategic options, a public advocate must be able to avoid thinking of others as foes, he stresses.

“Resentment is like a drug. It feels good to go home and say: ‘Those assholes! Those jerks! Those liberals. Those conservatives … I’m right, they’re wrong,’ ” Conner says. “The truth is we all have some degree of uncertainty and we go to this self-righteous place to protect ourselves from that uncertainty.”

In other words, while it might feel good to be self-righteous and demonize people on the other side of the debate, it's likely not helpful in advancing the energy policy solutions the vast majority of Canadians want for their country.

So long as civil society groups rely on ingenuity to do battle with companies with multi-million dollar PR budgets, celebrity activists are likely to continue to play a role in the debate. But if you're using this as a moment for self-affirmation, to dig your trench a little deeper, remember: if we’re going to make progress on energy issues in this country, we’re all going to have to stick our heads up, stop seeing the people on the other side of the debate as enemies and find some common ground in the middle. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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Mercury levels have risen to 16 times the regional "background" levels in an area around oilsands developments in northeastern Alberta, according to Environment Canada researchers.

Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk, who presented the as-yet unpublished report at a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) conference in Nashville last November, told Postmedia News the affected area encompasses 19,000 square kilometres around oilsands operations.

Margaret Munro of Postmedia News reports that Kirk told the conference the area is "currently impacted by airborne Hg (mercury) emissions originating from oilsands developments."

The mercury levels fall off gradually with increasing distance from the oilsands "like a bull's eye," said co-researcher Derek Muir, head of Environment Canada's ecosystem contaminants dynamics section. The highest mercury loadings, which reached up to 1,000 nanograms per square metre, were found in the "middle of the bull's eye," covering around 10 percent of the impacted area.

In October, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed a global treaty pledging to decrease mercury emissions.

The federal researchers stressed that the findings were still lower than mercury levels found in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, where toxins from incinerators and coal-burning power plants are affecting the environment.

But the scientists said that mercury is "the number one concern" when looking at toxins released by oilsands production, with "indications that the toxin is building up in some of the region's wildlife." The contamination is further worrying to environmental groups and First Nations concerned about the oilsands' impact on fishing, hunting and wildlife.

Environment Canada wildlife scientist Craig Herbert told the toxicology conference that the eggs of several species of waterbirds downstream of the oilsands have been showing increasing levels of mercury, with levels found in the majority of Caspian Tern eggs in 2012 exceeding "the lower toxicity threshold."

Kirk's team measured contaminants in cores of the snowpack collected from over 100 sites near the oilsands every March, to calculate how much pollution enters the ecosystem at spring melt after gathering in snow over winter.

The team's 2011 results confirmed that "aerial loadings" of 13 priority pollutant elements including mercury were 13 to 15 times higher at sites within 50 km of the upgraders that convert bitumen into synthetic crude oil, and "highest within 10 km of the upgraders," according to the presentation abstract.

The results "support earlier findings that the bitumen upgraders and local Oil Sands development are sources of airborne emissions to the Alberta Oil Sands Region."

The researchers also found up to 19 nanograms of methyl mercury per square metre near oilsands sites, which is 16 times the region's background level. Postmedia News reports that this is the first finding of this more toxic form of mercury in snow. The finding is significant because, as the abstract explains, "methyl mercury is a neurotoxin that bioaccumulates through foodwebs."

"Here we have a direct source of methyl mercury being emitted in this region and deposited to the landscapes and water bodies," Kirk told Postmedia News. "So come snowmelt that methyl mercury is now going to enter lakes and rivers where potentially it could be taken up directly by organisms and then bioaccumulated and biomagnified though food webs."

Muir said that microbes in the snow could be converting mercury into methyl mercury, or that it could be coming from "dust and land disturbances," though there is currently no data to support this.

"To our knowledge, emissions data from blowing dusts due to various landscape disturbances (open pit mines, exposed coke piles, new roads, etc.) and volatilization from tailing ponds are not publicly available," the researchers said.

The research shows that zinc, nickel and vanadium levels in lake sediments peaked in the 1990s following oilsands development, but have fallen off since, which Kirk attributes to "improvements in the air pollution catcher technology at the upgraders."

But levels of mercury and other "crustal elements" in lake sediments have been "going up more or less continually" with the expansion of the oilsands, said Muir, with open pit mines and coke piles possibly contributing to the pollution.

The fact remains that more research is required on why mercury levels are going up and the impact it's having on ecosystems.

"Is it affecting fish levels and is it going to result in increasing fish consumption advisories? We don't know," said Kirk.

But Environment Canada's latest results only confirm the need to further study and address the serious impacts of oilsands development.

Image Credit: Elias Schewel / Flickr

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All week people have been coming by the press center here at the COP-19 UN climate negotiations asking, "Hey Kevin, why are you just sitting there playing with that pencil?" I sigh and reply, "Just waiting for Canada to do something… anything." 

Finally, Canada's Environment Minister showed up Wednesday to make a statement. But, not surprisingly, the Minister's words were a far cry from reality. 

It used to be easy to write about Canada from UN climate negotiations. There was always some outrageous story to cover about how Canada was blocking progress or making life miserable for countries trying to actually make headway. But it has become a lot harder here at the negotiations underway right now in Warsaw, Poland.

At this round of climate negotiations Canadian negotiators are doing nothing. Literally.

According to reports from more than one observer to the talks, the Canadians joined their newfound allies in climate inaction, the Australians, early in the week to submit a paper that proposes nothing new. Now they are kicking back and doing nothing.

In her address to the COP-19 assembly, Canada's Environment Minister, Leona Aglukkaq claimed that, “Canada is taking a leadership role in international climate change efforts by focusing on delivering significant environmental and economic benefits for all Canadians."

But speaking on Canada's lack of action here in Warsaw, Aglukkaq's counterpart Jayanthi Natarajan, India's Minister of the Environment and Forestry told me a very different story. She said:

"I know at Durban [a previous negotiations meeting], Canada spoke very strongly about the importance of climate change and thereafter refused to endorse the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. All I can say is that I hope countries like Canada, Australia, those that are no longer part of the process, will come on board and join the international community in trying to solve this problem." [emphasis is mine]

While critics of these negotiations are always quick to point out that we should be looking to countries like China and India to act, I have attended events for both the Indian and Chinese delegations and it is clear that both those countries are at the negotiating tables here in Warsaw, and playing a leadership role.

Canada, one of the largest per-capita emitters of climate pollution in the world, from the looks of it is doing nothing more than their newfound friends down under who are lounging around in t-shirts, gorging on snacks.

The inequity of the situation reeks.

Two countries responsible for a massive amount of historical carbon emissions are kicking back eating doughnuts, while developing nations like the Philippines, who are the victims of all these emissions and warming, are desperately working to hammer out a deal. 

At climate negotiations in the past Canada has always been a major recipient of the "Fossil of the Day" award – a notorious prize handed out each day of negotiations by the environment umbrella group, Climate Action Network (CAN) International. But speaking at a CAN press conference Tim Gore, International Policy Advisor for Oxfam suggested Canada has become a meaningless recipient of the Fossil award:

"In terms of the negotiations, they [Canada] put their names to a text… this text I should say commits no one to anything. It's just words on a page reiterating previous agreements. Some soft urging or encouraging people to do things if they would like to do that. It commits nobody to anything at all," he said.

Another country pleading for leadership and action is Bangladesh, a country that is drowning already from the impacts of a warming world. In response to my question about what Canada is doing here in Warsaw, a chief negotiator and scientist from the Bangladeshi contingent had this to say:

So there remains some hope here in Warsaw. Canadians, who in a recent opinion poll overwhelmingly said they want Canada to lead on a new international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, should also remain hopeful given the pressure their government is feeling at home and here in Warsaw. 

But without the Minister of Environment and her team present at the negotiating table, the use of taxpayer money to fly them all the way to Warsaw was a complete waste. 

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