Canada's Most Environmentally Destructive Leader

What does that have to do with Harper’s cuts to environmental programs? According to Dave Layzell, who runs a program called BIOCAP, he could lose eighty percent of his funding. The effects, according to Layzell, will be devastating. “We will lose researchers, we will lose funding partners, we will lose a number of industries that have been looking at opportunities to move to, for example, new energy sources.” What does BIOCAP do? It researches ways to use agricultural and forestry waste to produce bio-fuels. In other words, it is instrumental in developing ways to increase farm income while meeting our Kyoto goals.

Harper made a statement in the House of Commons in response to the farm protest where he mentioned bio-fuels and the environment, saying, “As those who make their living from the land already know, there is a fast growing market for agriculture products in the area of renewable fuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel.

“My Government intends to merge environmental goals with those of agriculture by requiring an average of 5 percent renewable fuel content in Canadian fuel by 2010.

“This will not only help to lower emissions and reduce greenhouse gases, but also give consumers a buffer against rising petroleum prices.”

Five percent renewable content by 2010? It would be a reasonable goal for 2008 as long as the 2010 goal was double that and flex-fuel vehicles, bio-diesel and E-85 were part of the mix. That would require more research and development, though, and would almost certainly upset Harper’s friends in the oil industry. The commitment for five percent renewable fuel by 2010 is inadequate in either the context of Kyoto or the context of providing our farmers with new markets. Not only does the program do little to help farmers or cut emissions, it is really just a re-announcement of the inadequate Liberal plans the Conservatives are so critical of.

Harper did not mention carbon sequestration programs that provide farmers with income while helping to meet our Kyoto goals. While the Liberal government had produced a plan that had some serious problems, those problems were not with the idea of sequestering carbon through agriculture. The problems were with restrictions and conditions placed on farmers who sold credits from sequestration to final large emitters.

While the Soil Conservation Council of Canada sounds hopeful that Harper will improve the Liberal program, the fact that Harper never mentioned carbon sequestration in his speech to farmers leaves some serious doubts, as does the lack of interest Harper and his party have shown in meeting Canada’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. If the Harper government has no interest in meeting our goals, and has been prone to denying global warming science in the past, why would they have an interest in carbon sequestration programs?

The election of the Harper government has been a bit of a rallying point for those who continue to deny the consensus among scientists that anthropomorphic global warming is real and must be addressed. The day after the story about Harper’s cuts broke, the National Post published an open letter to Stephen Harper. While ostensibly from a group of 60 concerned climate scientists, as Tim Lambert noted in his Deltoid Blog, of the 60 scientists, “Most of them aren't climate scientists, and seventeen of them have got mentioned on this blog, typically for making serious errors of fact and interpretation....” Lambert then goes on to name the seventeen, complete to with links pointing out their errors and misrepresentations.

The letter is signed by many of the same people that the Conservatives, then in opposition, were quoting, including those errors and misrepresentations, in parliamentary committee meetings about Kyoto.

On April 18, a group of 90 Canadian scientists released an open letter to Stephen Harper urging him to act to reduce emissions. The letter stressed the scientific consensus that anthropomorphic climate change was occurring and emissions must be reduced.

“We urge you and your government to develop an effective national strategy to deal with the many important aspects of climate that will affect both Canada and the rest of the world in the near future. We believe that sound policy requires good scientific input.

“We would be pleased to provide a scientific briefing and further support, clarification and information at any time,” the letter read in part. Harper was cool to the letter and has not asked the scientists involved for further information.

The Harper government seems to have no plan at all in regard to Kyoto and they don’t seem to want one. Harper has said in the past that he would walk away from the agreement. He has been trying to distance himself from that position of late, perhaps because of the support for the Kyoto Protocol among Quebec voters. Distancing himself from past statements about abandoning Kyoto does not mean that he’s willing to try to meet the goals, however. The Harper government’s most recent position is that we can’t meet our commitments and so shouldn’t try. Instead Harper says he prefers to come up with a new plan. He will not say what that new plan is, but he did claim to have a plan in the past. Apparently that plan was either nonexistent or would prove politically unpalatable, because Harper is no longer talking about it.

Mr. Harper, as an economist, should be able to understand that meeting our Kyoto goals will drive technological development and that throughout history new technologies have brought more wealth, not less. There is no evidence that Harper has grasped this very basic point. Instead he and his cabinet seem very prone to clinging to the nineteenth-century technology of burning fossil fuels.

People in business are beginning to understand this basic point, which makes the Conservative Party’s claims of having to make a choice between the economy and the environment even more questionable. Among the latest of the business class to recognise the importance of the Kyoto Protocol are from one of the few countries that has refused to sign it.

According to an article in The Age six leaders of business in Australia, the world’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gas, are calling for drastic action on their country’s emissions. According to The Age, “Their message is that Australia, and the world, needs to deeply cut greenhouse emissions, not just slow their growth. We cannot get there on the soft path the Government has taken. We need to switch paths, get tough, introduce a carbon charge, set targets and meet them.”

Harper’s only apparent plan to this point is blaming the Liberals. Since we already know that the Liberals did a poor job, criticism of them should be expected, but laying blame is no substitute for taking responsibility and working to meet our commitments.

Stephen Harper recently attended an event recognizing that Brian Mulroney was Canada’s greenest prime minister ever. Mulroney did do some positive things for the environment, but for him to receive such an award should be seen more as an indictment of all Canadian prime ministers’ environmental records than an accolade for Mulroney.

During his speech at the event, Harper did not mention Kyoto, greenhouse gas emissions, or climate change. Mulroney did. He even suggested, gently, that Harper should do something about it. Notably, Mulroney was careful to qualify, “Kyoto,” with, “or another mechanism,” and tie everything into our dealings with the United States, which effectively supplies Harper with an excuse to do nothing as long as George W. Bush is in office. Since the Kyoto Accord largely grew out of the process of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer-–one of the accomplishments Mulroney was being recognised for playing a part in–-the lack of discussion about Kyoto was painfully obvious.

Brian Mulroney may have stumbled over the low bar to be recognised as Canada’s most environmentally friendly prime minister, but Stephen Harper seems determined to go down in history as our most environmentally destructive leader.