There’s nothing like a cold winter to take your mind off global warming. Unfortunately, the rough winter we are having in the eastern half of North America is not a signal that we can stop worrying about greenhouse gas emissions, and their impact on the future of our planet.
The federal government ratified the Kyoto Accord (see my article of September, 2002), with its commitments to long-term reductions in emissions, just before Christmas, and Finance Minister Manley announced in the recent federal budget that $2 billion would be available over the next five years to “help implement the climate change plan”, but he was very vague about the actual details of the climate change plan.
On the face of it, it looks like things are going well on the climate change issue in Canada. Looks can be deceiving.
The Kyoto protocol sets only some limited and long-term targets for emissions reduction, and the government has already signaled that it is actively creating loopholes for its corporate backers.
The government is now meeting behind closed doors with business interests, cutting deals to minimize the impact of the plan on corporations and their shareholders. Corporations are also pushing to grab most of the allotted billions to make doubly sure that they are not going to be the losers from Kyoto. Particularly hungry are those poor vulnerable energy companies, with profits already bloated by our currently inflated energy prices.
Canadian workers and communities must insist that the government stop making backroom deals. It is important for our future that the Kyoto targets not be avoided, but met and exceeded, and that our money goes not to inflate corporate profits, but to encourage energy conservation and pollution reduction. We need investments in areas like public transit, retrofitting buildings and alternative energy, that not only reduce global warming, but also create good jobs and more livable communities.
Most important, we need to ensure that public funding supports just transition programs to help workers and communities who will be affected by the necessary changes, rather than easing the pain for corporate shareholders.
The issue of how we will meet the Kyoto targets has to be brought into the open, and discussed at the local, provincial and federal level. It must become an unavoidable question for all parties and candidates in the provincial elections we will be seeing across the country in the coming year, as well as for the candidates to be our next Prime Minister.
The battle has barely begun.
