Nairobi, Kenya — Environment Minister Rona Ambrose is facing the international community and some of her harshest critics in Kenya this week as she declares Canada’s ongoing commitment to fight climate change.

This public position is drastically different from the Canadian strategy in Bonn less than six months ago, where a leaked memo directed Canadian climate negotiators to oppose tougher emissions targets and a “continuation of the status quo beyond 2012.”

Now, during this most-recent set of international climate negotiations, delegates, negotiators, non-governmental organizations and the media are asking themselves: is the Canadian shift for real, and even if it isn’t, why the changed approach?

There are opinions galore circling in the UN plenary. Maybe the move reflects a genuine change of heart by the Conservatives towards Kyoto. Maybe it’s due to a lack of experience or it’s just a temporary, cynical ploy to fool Canadians.

Most intriguingly, perhaps it is a concrete indication of what the future holds for Canadian politics.

Climate change, according to a majority of scientists, economists and environmentalists, is going to affect Canada economically, socially and culturally. Migrating pine beetles have already devastated huge parts of the timber industry in British Columbia and Alberta. Entire northern cities are sinking into the permafrost and may be forced to relocate.

Outdoor hockey rinks may be a thing of the past.

“I think it’s always been more than an environmental issue,” says Jonathan Pershing, a former U.S. climate negotiator, now a director at the World Resources Institute. “My sense is that the public is only just starting to realize that it’s so much more than that.

“In the last five years we’ve seen a shift from climate change being this theoretical thing in the long term, to being much more real and much more immediate,” he explains. “The consequence is two things. One, the public starts to pay attention. Two, industries and investment houses and people concerned about risk to infrastructure start paying attention. The combination shifts the political debate.”

Jumping in on this debate this week were Quebec’s environment minister Claude Bechard, Bloc Québécois environment critic Bernard Bigras and Liberal MP John Godfrey, all of whom slammed the Conservatives for not supporting Kyoto. In Nairobi, representatives from both Greenpeace and the Sierra Club of Canada echoed their sentiments.

Their presence was markedly partisan and unabashedly so.

“I think in the future more and more people will give their votes to someone who wants to fight against climate change and take care of the environment,” said Bechard after their press conference. “I think it will be more and more important. In Quebec it’s now the third and fourth priority when in the last election it was the sixth or seventh priority.”

When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives declared their five “priorities” for Canada earlier this year, environment was absent, a move blasted by environmental activists and political opponents across the country. Their recently released Clean Air Act received a similar reception.

Formerly Conservative MP Garth Turner and his ouster from caucus came directly after his online criticism of his own government’s environmental policies.

“Climate change is the greatest all-round threat this country faces,” he said in his online blog. “My nation’s government should not let us down with half-measures, a curtsy to junk science or a sell-out to the tar sands.”

Steven Guilbault of Greenpeace says Turner’s move was encouraging and environmentalists may have made a mistake in thinking the Conservative Party was of one mind on the environment. He also says it is very likely that this issue will go into the ballot box with Canadian voters in the next election.

A media-funded poll recently indicated that environment is the top priority of Canadians. The same poll also found that over 50 per cent of Canadians support a carbon tax on gasoline and other fuels.

According to Godfrey, environment critic for the Liberals, Canadians feel they have had enough consultation on the issue of climate change and want their politicians to act quickly and accordingly.

“I think that in the next federal election we’ll have environment front and centre as one of the major issues, how political parties are going to respond to the challenges of global warming crashing in on us now,” says Godfrey. “The worst risk is that the climate will continue to deteriorate, global warming will accelerate and Canada and the whole world will be much worse off if we don’t take action now.”

As the conference draws to a close, many in the environmental, financial and governmental sectors are holding their collective breath for any decisions made in the international forum. On the table are various proposals for the future of the Kyoto Protocol, as well as measures to protect vulnerable communities and stimulate a growing carbon market.

The options are complicated and varied, yet one thing is clear: the world is watching, and so are the voters.

“If there’s any lesson that can be learned from the predicament in which the Conservatives are it’s that good communication lines with empty actions simply don’t cut it,” says Guilbault. “I think it is a political issue and, frankly, I think the only ones who haven’t realized that are the Conservatives.

“I don’t want to use a play on words, but it is a changing climate.”Climate change, according to a majority of scientists, economists and environmentalists, is going to affect Canada economically, socially and culturally.Karen Pinchin is a graduate of Carleton’s journalism school and has been in Kenya since November 1 for the international climate change conference. She was born in Etobicoke, Ontario, and has worked with newspapers and broadcasters across Canada.