Copenhagen, it's not about climate change

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper once famously described the Kyoto Protocol as “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”

Mr. Harper is still facing criticism over those remarks, yet if he were to use them today to describe the proposed follow-up agreement to Kyoto, he'd be entirely accurate and supporters of the deal are not denying it, although some might object to the word socialist.

As reported by Kevin Libin in the National Post last week, a good chunk of the agreement being negotiated for the Copenhagen Conference is about payments from developed countries to developing ones. The documents do not as yet stipulate an exact level of payment but even Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper estimates those payments to be in the tens of billions of dollars annually if not over, the $100 billion mark.

Have I mentioned that India and China, the emerging economic giants of Asia are considered developing countries under the proposed agreement? Those two countries, now seeking to replace North America and Europe as the world’s manufacturing hotbed, would be in line for a large part of the payments. America, as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, will end up paying the lion's share of the funds but with the growth of the oil sands in Alberta, the potential of the Bakken oil fields in Saskatchewan and the Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline, Canada, as a major fossil fuel producer, will pay plenty as well.

Now an argument can be made that if Canada is digging up and creating the fossil fuels that will lead to the emissions the agreement is looking to curb, then Canada should pay. But the agreement in fact wants Canada, and all other developed nations, to pay for what we have emitted, what we will emit and what developing nations could emit but will not emit if proper measures are taken.

None of this is cause for pause for Copenhagen’s backers. In fact some, such as scientist Tim Flannery, say it's a mistake to view Copenhagen as a climate change agreement; to him it is much more than that. During his visit to Ottawa earlier this week to promote his new book Now Or Never, Flannery said, “We all too often mistake the nature of those negotiations in Copenhagen. We think of them as being concerned with some sort of environmental treaty. That is far from the case. The negotiations now ongoing towards the Copenhagen agreement are in effect diplomacy at the most profound global level. They deal with every aspect of our life and they will influence every aspect of our life, our economy, our society, our relationship with the developing world, our relationship with the environment as well.”

Yet, if you were to ask most Canadians about Copenhagen (once you found one that knew what you were talking about), they would likely tell you that Copenhagen is about climate change. All of the political discussion in Ottawa and all of the media coverage about Copenhagen is about a climate change deal.  Even the latest edition of Reader’s Digest which showed up in the mailbox last week views it as a climate change agreement including the ads dubbing it “Hopenhagen” and the last chance to save the earth. So which view is right Flannery’s or the general perception? Probably Flannery’s view.

Consider this, in addition to being required to cut their own emissions of greenhouse gasses by 25 to 40 percent by 2020, developed countries must make immediate payments to developing countries for their past emissions of greenhouse gases. In addition, the agreement also says (page 16, sect. 33), “Annex I Parties [developed countries] shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the full costs incurred by developing country Parties” for any undertakings to curb emissions in the developing world. This is in addition to any aid money currently given or promised for the future and in addition to any credits bought by developed countries. Just as with Kyoto, it appears that the Copenhagen deal will allow industrial nations to buy credits rather than cut emissions, such as Canada paying Costa Rica not to cut down its own forests, rather than the government requiring more fuel-efficient cars on Canadian roads.

It is understandable for the Canadian public to expect the government of the day to do what it can to protect the environment, to set regulations that prevent individuals or corporations from destroying our natural resources and polluting our air, land and water.  Unfortunately, Copenhagen isn’t really about any of that. I highly doubt most Canadians know that an agreement the government is being pressured into signing by all three opposition parties, international organizations like the United Nations and by the green movement, would require that billions of dollars worth of Canadian tax money be sent overseas without any direct benefit to Canada or Canadians. Nor would we have any control over this money that would be transferred to the U.N., which would then dole it out to countries Canada is competing with economically, such as Mexico, Brazil, India and China. We could very well end up paying not only for our emissions, but also the transfer of our own jobs to foreign countries under an agreement that would have a profound impact on Canadian sovereignty.

As a political issue, the environment has fallen in importance in the eyes of Canadians, the economy taking over the number one spot, as each of us has had to deal with the fallout of the economic downturn. The drumbeat of ensuring Copenhagen doesn’t fail and that the planet isn’t lost will likely bring environmental concerns back to the fore in coming months. Before our government signs the Copenhagen agreement and all that it entails, Canadians should at least know what their government is committing to.

Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.

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