The Green Giants: Greenpeace and the NDP        
Jessica Bruno - Second Year Journalism Student and Editor

Canada’s environmental record has “slipped back badly” in recent years, said Jack Layton, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party.

“Increasingly we are being known as laggards internationally,” said Layton, Canada used to be among the frontrunners of environmental policy.

Canada ranked 53 of 56 countries in managing climate change in a 2007 report by Germanwatch, an international environment watchdog. Falling two places since the last rankings, Canada is above only the United States, Australia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s worst climate change country.

The Kyoto Protocol, an important part of the global movement to stop climate change, has been in effect in Canada and Saudi Arabia since 2005. Australia ratified the agreement just this year, and the US has yet to sign.

“The debate in Canada about climate change is in a pretty sorry state – you’ve got a prime minister and a government that are in denial and are basically out of touch with the level of scientific knowledge in the topic,” said Steve Shallhorn, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. Shallhorn started his Greenpeace career twenty years ago in Canada and has since worked for the organization in London, Washington and Japan.

In 2006 the Canadian government, under Stephen Harper, introduced the Clean Air Act, which aims to lessen pollution and greenhouse gasses. The Act is a major facet of the Conservative’s environmental policy.

“The Clean Air Act is meant to subvert the Kyoto Protocol,” said Shallhorn.

Canada is the only member of the Kyoto Protocol that has announced it will not meet its targets. The Protocol commits Canada to lowering greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The Clean Air Act states the government would lower emissions by 45 to 65 per cent of 2003 levels by 2050.

In this year’s federal budget there is over $600 million in environmental spending. This includes money for bio-fuel research and nuclear energy, and tax breaks for renewable energy sources.
In a release along with the budget, the Canadian government called greenhouse gas reduction a Canadian priority.

Last December, the Canadian government participated in the UN climate convention in Bali, Indonesia. Talks centred on climate change policy post-Kyoto. Canada, the US and Japan opposed a proposal from the European Union for developed countries to cut emissions 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

When formulating the NDP’s stance on the environment, the party looks at the policies of other governments, like Australia, Britain, Iceland and the Netherlands, said Layton. “You often find that other countries have jumped out ahead of us,” he said. 

Until recently, said Shallhorn, Australia was also trailing behind.

“Canada is above only the United States,
Australia and Saudi Arabia
as the world’s worst climate change country.”

“The release of the Stern Report on the economics of climate change, by the UK government, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change both had really strong effect on the media and public in Australia,” said Shallhorn.

In Australia last November, Kevin Rudd, of the centre-left Australian Labour Party, was voted in as prime minister. One of his first acts of office was to sign Australia up for the Kyoto Accord.

“The coalition government did not move fast enough on climate change issues,” said Shallhorn. He said believes this is one of the reasons incumbent John Howard was defeated.

 “The costs of stabilising the climate are significant but manageable,” said the Stern report, “delay would be dangerous and much more costly.”

The report, which was released by the British Treasury in 2006, estimated that the cost of climate change would be at least five per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product each year. Acting to fix climate change, the report said, would cost about one per cent of the world’s GDP.