Is the Conservative government calculating that Canadians have lost interest in climate change and in the environment generally?
Does it believe that concern about the economy is so overwhelming that it totally trumps such peripheral and relatively unimportant issues as a warming planet?
The government does seem to be tapping into a rich vein of apathy and cynicism on the environment.
These days one hears, more and more, from all kinds of people — even some who would describe themselves as enlightened and progressive — that a warming climate might actually have an economic upside for Canada.
We would pay less to heat our homes.
The Northwest passage would become easily navigable.
And more of Canada would be suitable for agriculture.
And what about the aboriginal people whose lands are affected by the tar sands development?
Well, they are very few in number, after all — and, in any case, all economic development entails trade-offs, doesn’t it?
As one seasoned observer comments: “Support for the environment was always a mile wide and an inch deep.” Was it just a kind of “intellectual fad,” as Rex Murphy likes to say?
“Kyoto is the past” — and the future is … ?
CTV thought it had a scoop when it reported that the government plans to pull out of the Kyoto Accord shortly after the current Durban discussions. But the Environment minister just about confirmed that scoop when he said, first, that he would neither confirm nor deny the story, but then added that “Kyoto is the past.”
While the minister was meeting the press, so was a group of environmental advocates, who accused the government of wanting to sabotage the Durban discussions and, in effect, do “public relations for the oil and gas industry.”
But this is one case where both the government and the environmentalists seem to be telling the same story.
The government says it is really not interested in getting serious about climate change unless China and India and all other greenhouse gas producing countries get on board.
And the government is quite clear that it opposes the mandatory targets of Kyoto — and, to all appearances, it does not even want to be held to the voluntary targets it signed on in Copenhagen.
The activists argue that demanding that all countries sign on before Canada will do anything betrays a petulant attitude. It is on a par with proclaiming: “I won’t drive safely until the truck in the next lane drives safely too!”
Scandal in Durban: Do we care?
Graham Saul, Executive Director of the Climate Action Network Canada, notes that news of Canada’s imminent plan to withdraw from Kyoto will cause a major scandal among delegates gathered in Durban.
Such a scandal is not likely to worry Environment Minister Peter Kent too much. He has already said that he expects the Canadian government’s position at Durban to be unpopular.
The government seems to be confident that it can count on massive public indifference — or maybe it figures that the next election is years away and voters have short memories.
…more to come soon… a modest proposal from the CCPA…
…stay tuned …
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