Harper pulls a Bush

Posted by Joshua Holland at 7:35 AM on December 11, 2006.

Harper promised, and it looks like he's following through.

Much to the surprise of most Canadians and the world community, Canada is reneging on its international commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which could weaken an international agreement to fight climate change after Kyoto expires in 2012.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, elected early this year, and the new environment minister, Rona Ambrose, have dismissed Canada's Kyoto commitments for reducing greenhouse gases as impossible to achieve.

They have also cancelled a five-million-dollar pledge to help least developed countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and have withdrawn Canada's participation and funding of the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). […]

Ironically, Canada had been a champion of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to reduce emissions that contribute to the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Under Kyoto, 35 industrialised nations, including Canada, are obligated to reduce their emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

The U.S. has increased its greenhouse emissions by 16% since 1990, while Canada's are up by 30% during the same time. But, while it would be nice to feel some moral superiority to our friends to the North -- just for a change of pace at least -- the fact is that the baseline "carbon footprint" for the average American was higher than that of the average Canadian in 1990 (according to the US Department of Energy (via Wikipedia), Canada's per capita CO2 emmissions increased from 15 to 17.9 metric tons between 1990 and 2003, while the U.S.'s rose from 18.9 to 19.8 during those years).

As for the costs of compliance, whether it's the Kyoto plan or any of the other half-dozen proposals for significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the literature (that is, fair and independent studies) shows that there's a transition period during which there may be a small decrease in economic growth, but there's no long-term negative impact on the economy. Depending on what one looks at, there are also significant potential net economic benefits (if you're feeling nerdy, here's a pretty good review of several scenarios for climate stabilization in Canada, and here's a rebuttal of the Alberta government's "alternative" climate stabilization plan). Oh, and of course doing so might just help avert a human disaster of almost inconceivable proportions.

Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the Libs' popularity is on the rise, and they seem to be making up ground at the expense of the New Dems:

Support for Canada's Liberal Party has surged under its new leader, Stephane Dion, to the point where it would form the next government if an election were held soon, according to a poll published on Saturday.

The EKOS poll for the Toronto Star and Montreal's La Presse indicated 40.1 percent of voters would choose the Liberals, who form the opposition in Parliament.

That puts them well ahead of the 33.5 percent support for the Conservatives, who rule with a minority government.

Note: the poll's MOE is +/- 3.5%.

In the January election, the Conservatives under leader Stephen Harper unseated the Liberal minority government by garnering 36.3 percent of the vote versus 30.2 percent for the Liberals.

Liberal fortunes have rebounded since the party chose Dion as its new leader on December 2, but this was the first time in three years it topped the pivotal 40 percent mark.

To win a majority of seats in the House of Commons in Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system, the winning party generally must win about 40 percent of the popular vote. The New Democrats were at 10.2 percent in the poll, well below the 17.5 percent they picked up in the January election.

Canada's Green Party rose to 7.6 percent support, compared with 3.1 percent in January.

The EKOS poll had the Liberals leading in every province except for wealthy, oil-producing Alberta, where the Conservatives dominate, and Quebec, where the separatist Bloc Quebecois is holding top spot.

Watch for Tom Schaller's next book, Whistling Past Alberta.

I went and had a look at the EKOS poll (downloadable here), and these two stories are likely related:

While public satisfaction with national direction has remained fairly robust, there has been a strong and steady rise in the incidence of those who think the government of Canada is moving in the wrong direction. Most of this is a conversion from uncertainty (which might have been considered tentative receptivity on the part of Canadians) to negativity. This has been particularly pronounced outside of Alberta and The Prairies. The environmental issue has risen from an important to crucial public concern over the past year (which may also explain why Conservative support in Quebec has nearly halved while the LPC has nearly doubled).

Also noteworthy:

Interestingly, the Liberals are not picking up support mostly at the expense of the Conservatives. The Conservatives, however, have been forced back into their traditional core constituency (i.e. males, seniors, non-BC Westerners). Notably the Liberals have regained ground with affluent Canadians and boomers.

While premature to confirm, the NDP could be in deep trouble, with an upwardly mobile Green Party attracting many of their constituency (i.e. young Canadians), while being squeezed from the centre-left.

Also hurting the Tories --according to the EKO poll -- is the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, and, more generally, a rejection of the New Diplomacy championed by folks like Lloyd Axworthy. That's a bit confusing because another EKOS poll from early November showed that public support for the Afghanistan mission appears to have stabilized at just under 60%, after a year of declining popularity.

Anyway, I'll stop here and turn it over to our legion of thoughtful Canuck readers (and interested Canuckophiles) to fill out what I'm missing.

Tagged as: liberals, afghanistan, kyoto, canada, harper, ndp, greens

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.