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Now that Cancun is over and the ritual vilification of Canada is done, it may be time for us to think about where we want to go on climate, not just where we don’t want to go.
Canada is rightly seen as a hypocrite for ratifying a treaty and then refusing to live up to it. But which of those two acts makes us more the hypocrite: the ratifying or the failure to implement? The answer to that question may give some guidance for the future.
The answer isn’t that hard to find. Canada’s signing on to and then ratification of Kyoto was done in the face of blindingly obvious evidence we would fall far short of its provisions. Anyone who actually cared to think about it could have understood meeting Kyoto was a physical, economic and political impossibility. And if that wasn’t enough, our largest trading partner put itself outside the treaty by a 95 to 0 vote of the U.S. Senate in the same week Al Gore was saying the opposite in Kyoto.
As to the failure to implement, would every political leader whose party has formed a national government since 1997 please put up his hand?
Having committed ourselves to something we could not possibly live up to and paid the diplomatic price, are there things we can do to both restore our reputation and advance our own national interest?
Herewith, a few proposals:
Let Kyoto die: It was a mistake for most countries — especially Canada — and trying to keep it alive is counterproductive.
Build on the Copenhagen model: Meaningful action as opposed to mere payback for what is seen as the West’s past profligacy needs everyone in the game. And most of those that matter — the U.S., China and India, for example — will never ratify a treaty as intrusive as Kyoto. A new treaty needs to be driven much more by the prize of clean energy and less by pain.
Stop treating carbon as a pollution control issue: This leads to selectively defining villains who are poisoning the world and must be punished. Stopping carbon is about fundamentally transforming our whole energy economy, including the communities in which we live and where we use the energy. That means it will be largely achieved not by guilt or command and control but by economic incentive and, if done that way, there are almost certainly economic benefits in prospect.
Put a price on carbon: We need a carbon price — transparent, unmistakable and extending across the economy. With the carbon pricing discussion temporarily sterilized, we are at risk of falling into the worst of all worlds — command and control regulation and subsidies that will be at one and the same time ineffective and economically harmful.
Restart the conversation about carbon pricing now: Waiting on the U.S. is strategically unwise for several reasons. One is that the U.S. legislative process, whenever it produces anything, is more than likely to produce bad policy Canada should not want to emulate. And if we are behind the U.S., every difference in Canada will be a lightning rod for protectionists. In any event, the claims of economic disadvantage are far overstated. B.C. has a carbon tax that will soon produce an average price of carbon in B.C. in excess of virtually any other carbon regime in the world and most B.C. energy consumption is carbon-based. Not only has the B.C. economy not collapsed, but evidence is emerging investors are being constructively motivated by the tax.
This is not to say a carbon tax is a practical political possibility today. But ideas have a way of coming in their time and a conversation restarted today could bear fruit in a year or so. By focusing on domestically feasible but real action, Canada could once again become a voice at the climate table.
Michael Cleland, former Canadian Gas Association president and CEO, is the Nexen executive in residence on energy for the Canada West Foundation. Canada West Foundation is committed to sustainable prosperity in Western Canada, and is the only think tank dedicated to being the objective, nonpartisan voice for issues of vital concern to Western Canadians.
www.cwf.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 16, 2010 A10