Oh Canada ... You GOT to be kidding me!

I am currently in Durban (South Africa) at the 17^th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and will blog from here occasionally to share my thoughts and observations with the BSIA community. If you are interested in climate change and governance, failing international regimes, divisive issues, emerging powers or transnational networks, keep checking this page in the coming two weeks. You can also follow me on Twitter (ManjanaM).

While the hot topic of this round of international negotiations on the international climate regime will be the future of the Kyoto Protocol (an ineffective international agreement that obliges a limited number of countries to reduce their GHG emissions by 2012), I decided to dedicate my first blog to Canada – an actor not often in the center of climate action. The reason for this choice  - and why Canadians should care – is Canada’s unparalleled skill to turn itself into the Black Sheep of the big (and unhappy) UNFCCC family (and that says something if you have ever listened to the Saudi delegation).

If you thought Canada’s green reputation could not sink lower than earning the “Fossil of the Year” Award for the 3rd time in a row, you were wrong. On day one of COP 17 Canada managed to make the biggest conference headlines by publicly suggesting (back in Ottawa) that the federal government might formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol by the end of the year. (Peter Kent’s wording was that “Kyoto is in the past” and that he would neither confirm nor deny that Canada will withdraw). If withdrawal from the only internationally binding climate treaty is indeed Canada’s intention, why did the Canadian delegation show up in Durban at all? The most vulnerable parties to the Protocol (Least Developed Countries and the Small Developing Island States), who are here to urge the big carbon emitters to take serious steps towards slowing global warming immediately, might think that Canada’s behavior just adds insult to injury. For most participants COP 17 is about “saving” the Kyoto Protocol, and the African Group has dramatically stated that it will not “’allow the African soil to be the graveyard” for the 1997 agreement. In this emotionally heated context it is not surprising that the environmental NGOs present in Durban accuse Canada of being immoral and negotiating in “outrageously bad faith”: “Canada is acting on behalf of polluters, not people.”

While Canada’s move is not particularly surprising for those who have been following the climate issue – Canada has been a climate sinner for a number of years now driven mainly by its interests to expand tar sand oil production – I find it puzzling for three reasons.

First, being mean is not Canadian. Isolating Canada even further in the UNFCCC negotiation process is one thing, but timing the withdrawal announcement around the opening day of COP17 seems right-out malicious, because it casts a shadow over the already difficult climate negotiations. After the disruptive experience in Copenhagen in 2009, the Cancun negotiations in 2010 were able to rekindle some small glimmer of hope that the UNFCCC process might be able to deliver after all. Yesterday, Canada trampled all over this fragile little plant of optimism. Being mean and destructive is simply not very Canadian.

Second, Canada could simply ‘let it die’. Even without any Canadian demolition efforts, the fragile Kyoto Protocol has a good chance to break down over the next two weeks in Durban anyway. So why spend the last bit of credibility that the Canadians might have had left on the Kyoto Protocol if your goal might be achieved at no political cost at all? Is this part of building a new, international bad-guy image?

Third, Canada ‘is not like the US’. Shouldn’t Canada be concerned about its growing reputation to be like the Americans when it comes to climate change? If I learned anything about the Canadian identity since I moved to Waterloo, it is that the defining feature of being Canadian is ‘not being like the US.’ But for some mysterious reason, Canada seems to be working very hard to become the Americans’ best friend at the climate talks.

So let’s try to understand what is going on. I will offer two different ways to look at Canada’s not-so-implicit threat to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, but I welcome your thoughts on this! Help me figure out why this big & beautiful country is squandering its green credentials with so little care!

Let’s start with the most optimistic perspective I can think of. (You can call this ‘The Pink Glasses’). One could argue that Canada is threatening a KP withdrawal to create much needed negotiation leverage for Durban, in order to pressure other players into a “better”, more effective climate agreement. Canada might be seriously concerned about the weaknesses and deficiencies of the Kyoto Protocol on the one side, and the unwillingness of countries with fast-growing GHG emissions (e.g., China, India, Brazil) to commit to their own emission reduction targets on the other. In this situation the threat of withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol might send a strong signal to the international community gathered in Durban that a new, and more effective climate agreement is the only way forward, and that such a new agreement would have to include more ambitious mitigation targets for the developed countries (including Canada), but also serious commitments by the emerging economies. Further, after the threat of withdrawal, not withdrawing could be offered as a concession, something that Canada could “give” in exchange for concessions by others. So maybe Canada is simply a crude negotiator with good intentions for the climate regime.

Now let’s put on the oil-smeared glasses (and this might be hard for my liberal and environmentally concerned Canadian friends): Talking about withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol might simply reflect Canada’s lack of interest in the climate issue and reluctance to contribute to the solution of this global problem. Maybe the oil lobby finally convinced the Harper government to trash the climate treaty (and Canada’s green image along with it). Seeing that the Protocol is currently on life support – without a decision for a second commitment period in Durban the Treaty is politically dead – the Conservatives might have thought that this is the right time to pull on that plug … just a little and from a safe distance.

While the latter explanation seems more realistic and in line with Canada’s climate policies over the last years, I am not sure that’s actually what’s behind Peter Kent’s move. Canadians, what do you think?