It's hard deciding whether to laugh or cry when considering the Chrétien government's environmental policies.
Even Liberal members of Parliament are starting to express concern over the government's lack of environmental commitment on global warming and on achieving its goal under Kyoto to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
First, Ottawa had the audacity to insist Canada should receive "emission credits" because our vast forests and agricultural lands act as "sinks" absorbing carbon dioxide, thus helping reduce greenhouse gases. Most advanced European nations, bereft of large forests, roundly opposed the Chrétien government's demand.
Having made little headway on the dubious "sinks," Ottawa came up with another ploy to avoid cutting emissions: Count Canadian energy exports to the U.S. (in the form of "clean" hydro-electric power and natural gas) as "credits" toward our commitment to cut emissions.
This blatant attempt by Ottawa to weasel out of its commitment to reduce emissions is generating increasing criticism in many capitals -- except Washington, which has turned its back on the Kyoto accord. Delegates to the recent conference of G8 environmental ministers in Alberta, chaired by Environment Minister David Anderson, made no bones about their lack of support for the government's position. This week, Industry Minister Allan Rock urged cabinet colleagues to consider a made-in-Canada scheme for combating climate change that would be an alternative to Kyoto, an approach supposedly intended to meet the concerns of Canada's business lobby and keep Canada competitive with the United States.
Clearly, Ottawa is giving the interests of business groups, especially energy suppliers, more importance than the best interests of Canadian society and the global community. The Liberal chairman of the Senate's energy and environment committee, Senator Nick Taylor from Alberta, has expressed strong concern over Jean Chrétien's apparent backsliding on Kyoto, as well as the efforts of a "powerful" oil lobby to undercut Kyoto through donations to Liberal MPs, including leadership candidates.
The transparent campaign by such lobby groups as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (formerly the Business Council on National Issues), Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters to undermine the Kyoto accord has been non-stop, abetted by several provincial governments, particularly Alberta and Ontario. They all claim there is no proof that reducing greenhouse gases will influence global warming; they insist that the costs involved could result in billions in lost profits and hundreds of thousands more unemployed. Mr. Chrétien has suggested he won't sign Kyoto without the support of the provinces.
This well-orchestrated campaign has reached the point where a number of business leaders, including prominent Montreal philanthropist Stephen Bronfman, have joined forces to counter the actions of the anti-Kyoto organizations. The embryonic group, known as the E-mission 55 Canada -- named after a European group formed last summer to promote the Kyoto accord -- has criticized the anti-Kyoto campaign as "scaremongering."
Despite differences regarding the dangers of global climate change and the costs and benefits involved in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, there's another compelling factor: Overall environmental degradation -- e.g. pollution -- is not diminishing. It's actually worsening in many places. Greenhouse gas emissions spewed out by coal-burning plants and gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles are very much a part of that unwelcome phenomenon.
Smog alerts in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and elsewhere are increasing, as are medical ailments caused by pollution, including early deaths. One study found that rural areas downwind from Lake Ontario had degraded air quality that was as bad or worse as the air in Toronto, Hamilton and Windsor.
For its part, the Quebec government has begun contingency planning for removing entire villages in northern regions where global warming has reportedly melted permafrost, potentially threatening homes and other structures. One village, Salluit, has already been affected.
Although there obviously are costs in combating global climate change -- and pollution in general -- such costs can be offset by increased productivity, even profits. Irving Oil's technologically advanced refinery in the Maritimes has dramatically cut sulphur in gasoline and increased sales in the environmentally conscious New England region.
Reduced emissions also mean fewer environmentally induced deaths and savings on medical and hospitalization costs, as well as workplace absenteeism.
Until we begin to treat all human actions as interrelated, there will be no way to safeguard the ecosystem, whether it is threatened by global warming, acid rain, contaminated water or smog alerts.
It's not Canada's forests that should be responsible for cleaning up the environment, but governments and the people electing them. Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, was Ottawa's representative to the International Joint Commission on Canada-U.S. transboundary environmental issues.
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