What happened up there?

It is 9:30pm, pitch-dark and pouring rain. I have been awake for 35 hours, crossed two continents, and am standing in front of a security booth in an otherwise entirely deserted university campus. It is my first night in Durban, and there has been a miscomunication about my accommodation. I sent payment to the university for the full two weeks of COP17, but they neglected to tell me that they were not open until the second day. Robert, a security guard with a fondness for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, commiserates with me when he finds out I am Canadian. “Ha” he chortles, “you are Canadian and that is one of the worst countries, it must be very hard to be a Canadian here right now”. Finally the phone in his security booth rings. Someone has located the sub-warden of one of the dorms and after much negotiation they are willing to open a room for me. Still chuckling at my unfortunate nationality, Robert leads me off down a broken sidewalk lit only sporadically by dim, flickering lamps.

Two weeks later I am standing in the Johannesburg airport on my way home. I turn around and see a leading American academic and policy expert. “How was your COP”, he asks? “Well”, I say frankly, “it was somewhat frustrating considering I'm Canadian ”. He throws his head back and laughs so hard his eyes squint shut, “I forgot you were Canadian, but I don't think frustrating is really the word for it”. We are on the same flight so we make our way through the airport together. “What happened up there?”, he asks. “Canada used to have a stellar reputation, a stellar reputation based on fact. It was the country that helped the WTO disputes, it sent peacekeepers to places that needed it, it helped countries talk. And now, now you are worse than the United States”.

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Being Canadian, I can’t leave COP 17 without thinking about our role in these negotiations. Reputation is a difficult thing to measure, but neither Robert nor the US expert were exaggerating. The majority of the world’s countries are furious with Canada for not meeting its Kyoto commitments, and for being unwilling to sign onto a second commitment period. Perhaps even worse, Canada's lack of clarity about whether it will or will not completely withdraw from Kyoto has eroded any lingering trust others have in it. The charge is that Canada is negotiating in bad faith, as well as having entirely failed to meet any of the promises it made. As a delegate from Benin says, “How can we trust them? They didn’t even try, and we are the ones facing the impacts of climate change.”

Once again Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s chief negotiator lowers his voice slightly and slows down, signalling how reasonable he is being in the face of hysteria. “We are here to cooperate”, he says, “climate change is a global problem and we want a collective agreement”. This sounds innocuous, even honourable, but is the central issue preventing a deal in Durban.

For years people have used “CBD” as a short-hand description of the UNFCCC’s founding principle. CBD refers to “common but differentiated responsibilities” which has been interpreted to mean that developed countries have more obligations to reduce emissions than developing countries. The Kyoto protocol did not require any emission reductions from developing countries. This was based on the logic that developed countries produced most of the greenhouse gases causing climate change and have the greatest financial resources available to reduce emissions. In contrast, developing countries have not, until very recently, contributed to the problem, are often most vulnerable to climate change impacts, and have the fewest resources. Let us not forget that 1 billion people, a seventh of the world’s population, live in absolute poverty without access to sufficient food, water or shelter; reducing GHG emissions is hardly going to be high on their priority list.

Throughout COP17 a new acronym has appeared, “CBDR + RC”. This acronym refers to the longer text of Article 3 of the UNFCCC and stresses the second part of it, “respective capabilities”. Canada, the United States, and Japan apear particularly enamoured with this extended acronym, and are insisting that no global deal can be reached which does not include large emitting developing countries. The argument is that developing countries such as India or China, have sufficient “RC” to allow them to start reducing their emissions. In return these countries, in particular India and China, point out that their per capita emissions are a fraction of those in the developed world, and that they still have millions of citizens living in poverty. When Canada calls for a “collective global agreement”, India and China hear something along the lines of, “we caused the problem but you fix it”. Until someone decides to show some leadership we can give up the idea of global cooperation, regardless of M. Saint-Jacques smooth protestations to the contrary.

Together, the United States, Japan, India, China and yes, Canada, have locked the world into a global game of ‘chicken’. Global emissions are soaring, scientists are warning us that soon it will be too late to avoid a greater than 2 degree rise in global temperature, but nobody will move first. Canada could take a leadership role. It could start investing in low-carbon technologies. It could start dismantling fossil fuel subsidies. It could start putting a price on carbon, so that atmospheric space was no longer free. It could do all of these things but this would require leadership. I don’t know where the Canada with leadership went, but it certainly didn’t bother showing up in Durban.

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It is my last day. I have only one hour left at COP17 and I decide to check my flight on-line before I go. I find a free computer, sit down, open Firefox and break up with laughter. Someone has changed the settings so that computer’s homepage is www.bitumenswear.org. Two models show off the latest line of clothing designed especially for the Canadian negotiators by the Canadian Youth Delegation. Their blacks suits are emblazoned with logos from oil companies, and tag-lines appear beneath them to elucidate the features of each outfit as the full line of apparel is modeled. “Lie-cra”, reads one, “an external layer that reduces drag from environmental regulations and respecting Indigenous rights”.

Yesterday 6 members of the CYD were thrown out of the conference for standing silently with their backs turned to Minister Kent while he extolled Canada’s ambitious role in climate negotiations. This morning the remaining youth delegates stormed out of the Canadian stakeholder briefing en-masse in response to depty minister Booth’s claim that he was negotiating in good faith for the next generation. And now, here I am, there is not a youth to be seen but they have left their mark for every person using the computer centre to see. We may not be able to be proud of our country, but we should certainly be proud of our youth.