The Narwhal | News on Climate Change, Environmental Issues in Canada

All the Positive and Helpful Things in the IPCC Report No One Will Talk About

Carol Linnitt — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:57:29 +0000

If you’ve come across any of the recent headlines on the release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, you’re probably feeling pretty low. The doom and gloom levels were off the charts. And understandably so. Major nations across the globe – especially Canada – are dragging their heels when it comes to climate change action. Canada, sadly, doesn’t have any climate legislation.

But maybe that’s because Canada was waiting for a group of the world’s most knowledgeable scientists to come up with a report for policy makers — you know, something to outline useful guidelines to keep in mind when looking to get your country out of the climate doghouse.

Well, Canada, you’re in luck. Here are some of the IPCC report’s most useful guidelines for responding to the multiple and growing threats of climate change:

1. Start by making changes at the local level where and how they make sense.

There’s no single catch-all solution when it comes to a complex problem like global climate change. The report’s authors recommend taking a local approach that addresses “risk reduction and adaptation strategies” that attend to specific socioeconomic processes and needs. Oh, and don’t wait for the perfect local strategy — just pursue all solutions simultaneously, even if they overlap.

2. We need change on all levels – from individual to government.

The report is clear on this: federal governments should be fostering and supporting climate action on the subnational or municipal level. Federal governments can do this by protecting vulnerable groups – like constitutionally-protected First Nations in Canada, for example – and having a diverse energy portfolio that doesn’t invest too heavily in highly polluting resources, like oilsands bitumen, for example. The authors also recommend governments spend time and money providing information to citizens, construct robust policy and legal frameworks to limit climate change-related risks and work with the private sector to ensure communities are adapting to a changing environment.

3. Make everything better for everyone and that will help the climate issue. Seriously.

If you work hard to “improve human health, livelihoods, social and economic well-being, and environmental quality” you’re pretty much guaranteed to make progress on the climate file. Governments should start working double-time on these fronts as a part of their climate change adaption and mitigation efforts. Co-benefits!

4. Don’t be so single-minded.

Climate change in a way is the result of pursuing the objectives of a small sector of society. If we started to recognize “diverse interests, circumstances, social-cultural contexts, and expectations” that could “benefit decision-making processes.” So, if local communities are suffering as a result of new refineries, coal-fired power plants, oil export pipelines or the expansion of the oilsands — take the interests and needs of those local communities to heart. Giving too much sway to vested fossil-fuel interests is exacerbating climate change, after all. And anyway, "Indigenous, local, and traditional knowledge systems and practices, including indigenous peoples’ holistic view of community and environment, are a major resource for adapting to climate change." We’ve got to stop ignoring these alternative perspectives.

5. Be inclusive and gain support when decision-making.

Governments can be a little bad at this – including diverse groups in decision-making processes. But it turns out, the brightest minds are telling governments to be more sensitive to context when thinking through decisions, and to make those decisions in concert with more diverse groups represented in the process.

6. Use the economy.

Economic instruments can “foster adaptation by providing incentives for anticipating and reducing impacts.” Investing in renewable and clean energy is a good place to start. And “improved resource pricing” might help too. Requiring companies to pay high prices for access to things like freshwater (for fracking companies, for example) or to extract carbon-intensive resources (the oilsands industry, for example) just makes sense.

7. Invest in research and science.

This is a recommendation fit for Canada: do science. Insufficient research, monitoring and observation can get in the way of making the right decisions and keeping the money flowing in the right direction.

8. Plan and plan for the long-term.

We tend to think short term, especially in the political realm. But that doesn’t work so well when we’re trying to resolve a long-term challenge on the immediate level. The report recommends getting serious about planning for the long term, to think ahead. This is crucial if we want to avoid making vulnerable groups more vulnerable.

9. Figure out how much adaptation will cost.

There’s little knowledge of the true costs of climate change adaptation on a global scale. Somebody, anybody, please start assessing this so we know when to put resources and where.

10. Limiting climate change is a great way of avoiding adaptation costs. Who knew?!

“Co-benefits (there’s that word again!), synergies and tradeoffs” are just some of the great things that will come about from getting serious about addressing climate change. If we start using water, energy and land more efficiently, for example, we’re both limiting the causes of climate change while also preserving key resources for the future. Co-benefits come from many activities including energy efficiency, clean energy, reduced pollution, reduced water consumption, greening cities, recycling, practicing sustainable agriculture and forestry, preserving forests that also act as carbon stores. The benefits of practical and long-term decision-making just seem to be endless.

Bonus guidelines

11. Start immediately.

It turns out the sooner we get started limiting climate change, the more time we’ll have to adequate prepare for adaptation. Mitigation, the report’s authors state, “reduces the rate as well as the magnitude of warming.” So, best to get started right away.

12. Seriously. Start immediately.

If we let climate change get worse, we’re just making more work for ourselves. The best time to take advantage of those great co-benefits and synergies is now. The longer we wait, the more those benefits will decrease. And that’s already happening in some places: “In some parts of the world, insufficient responses to emerging impacts are already eroding the basis for sustainable development.”

13. Overhaul your systems. Change it all, if it needs changing.

“Transformations in economic, social, technological, and political decisions and actions can enable climate-resilient pathways.” These kinds of changes don’t just help us respond to climate change but also help “improve livelihoods, social and economic well-being, and responsible environmental management.” And these kinds of transitions are a big deal when they’re supported by national governments. “Transformation is considered most effective when it reflects a country’s own visions and approaches to achieving sustainable development in accordance with their national circumstances and priorities.” But to do this well, we need to keep learning, be iterative, deliberate and innovate.

Well there you have it: the flipside of all those heavy risks and dark tales of drought, famine, violence and extinction.

The authors of the report make a compelling case for meaningful national change at the federal level. We just need to keep these guidelines in view as we work to implement future-oriented policy and practice at the local and federal level.

Image Credit: Ade Russell via flickr

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Van Harten: Canada “Recklessly” Entering Trans-Pacific Partnership, FIPA

Carol Linnitt — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:05:24 +0000

Last week Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada announced Canada had "officially joined the latest round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations" after more than two and a half years of talks by previously engaged nations. The 15th round of talks, involving Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam, wrapped up yesterday in Auckland.

The TPP has already been the cause of significant concern in the U.S. where citizen groups and elected leaders have argued the agreement is shrouded in secrecy, leaving the American public to speculate about its consequences. This summer, after members of Congress complained corporate access to the trade documents superseded their own, leaked portions of the agreement began to circulate online. At the time Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said, "the outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations." During those two years, while Canada was vying for a seat at the TPP table, America made arguments that seemed to anticipate the furor Canadians would soon feel after the announcement of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement, or FIPA. Much like FIPA, the TPP grants unprecedented power to corporate entities with access to international tribunals that have the authority to overrule Canadian decisions regarding domestic policies that may apply to environmental regulation or reform, finance and labour policies and First Nations rights. International investment lawyer and trade agreement expert, Gus Van Harten told DeSmog that Canada is currently on track to become "the most locked in developed country in the world in investor-state arbitration." He added, Canada is "proceeding recklessly" into this enfeebling agreement which will give "almost all foreign corporations in the country exceptional leverage to pressure governments behind closed doors." The Harper government is selling out Canada's long term sovereignty and prosperity in what appears as a thoughtless gamble, without so much as a financial risk assessment. As Van Harten puts it below, "We do not intend to slip on the sidewalk in winter, but we still check for ice." I asked Professor Van Harten 5 questions about the TPP and its relation to the politically-contentious FIPA.

Carol Linnitt: What is the significance of Canada's entry into the TPP? Gus Van Harten: Alongside the Canada-China FIPA and the Canada-Europe CETA [Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement], the TPP is very significant for Canada. These are part of the trio of trade or investment deals now pursued by the government and they are the most significant such deals for Canada since NAFTA. CL: Is the TPP Agreement made public in Canada, either to citizens or elected officials? In other words, do we know what the TPP entails for Canada? GVH: A version of the TPP investment chapter was leaked over the summer. Other parts of the TPP may also have found their way on the public record. But, other than through such leaks, the TPP text would not be public or available to elected members of the legislature, in general, until the negotiations were concluded and agreed text was made public. So we can speculate, or rely on leaked documents, about the content of the treaty in order to analyze its potential implications. CL: You have mentioned before that entry into trade agreements of this nature force disputes of national interests to be settled by international arbiters. GVH: That is correct. The TPP, as proposed, would include an investor-state arbitration mechanism like the one in NAFTA Chapter 11 and, as proposed, in the Canada-China FIPA and the Canada-EU CETA. If Canada agrees to these various deals, it will be the most locked in developed country in the world in terms of investor-state arbitration. This is in contrast the movement by some countries, such as Australia, India, and South Africa, away from investor-state arbitration due to its negative impacts on governments. CL: Does the TPP favour corporate interests and trade expediency over national self-governance? Is Canada in danger of loosing its decision making authority over its own resources and trade preferences? Are we in essence giving up that control to corporations? GVH: Through this network of investor-state mechanisms Canada would give almost all foreign corporations in the country exceptional leverage to pressure governments behind closed doors and, if the companies were unsuccessful in this arm-twisting, to take their claims to arbitration tribunals where the process favours the corporate interest over those of governments, domestic companies, and other domestic constituencies. It is a dangerous and unfortunate development, especially in light of how corporations have used these arbitration mechanisms to frustrate legitimate policy measures on the economy, financial regulation, taxation, public health, and the environment, for example. CL: What are the similarities between FIPA and TPP? If Canadians are concerned about FIPA should they also be concerned about the TPP? GVH: The key similarity is that both contain an investor-state arbitration mechanism that gives special rights and protections to foreign companies to challenge any government decision outside of the Canadian legal system and Canadian courts in arbitration processes that are not independent, open, and fair in the manner of a court. The difference lies in which country's foreign companies obtain these new rights and protections under each treaty. For the government to rush into the FIPA or the TPP, without doing proper risk assessments and legal analyses and without working out the constitutional issues that arise for provincial powers and First Nations rights is irresponsible. Other governments have pulled back from these arbitration mechanisms after they were hit with major lawsuits by major corporations; Canada has a chance to learn from this experience and avoid these outcomes but is proceeding recklessly in the face of evidence about the serious risks to taxpayers and constraints on voters. For example, the federal government indicated, when asked, that it had not done a fiscal risk assessment of the Canada-China FIPA (although it raises a risk of multi-billion dollar awards against Canada) because it had no intention of violating the treaty. This was not a good answer. We do not intend to slip on the sidewalk in winter, but we still check for ice. Moreover, Canada has in various cases been found to have violated NAFTA and ordered to pay compensation to foreign companies, as have other countries under treaties with similar arbitration mechanisms. Image Credit: PMO Photo Gallery

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