Kyoto isn't enough

Climate change is here, and the world's leaders need to start now to develop more ambitious standards for reducing greenhouse gases

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Rarely a day passes without a top news story describing how the consequences of climate change might be showing up already. Hurricane Katrina is but the most recent in a devastating onslaught of possibly climate-change-related natural disasters that occurred this summer.

Klaus Toepfer, executive-director of the United Nations Energy Program recently stated in the Financial Times that the forest fires in southern Europe and the floods in parts of central Europe are signs that climate change is actually occurring.

Climate change will be on the international political agenda once again this fall when environmental leaders gather for the Montreal Conference on Climate. This meeting is an important stage in a long process that began with the signing of the United Nations Climate Change Convention at the 1992 Earth Summit and culminated most recently with this year's entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol.

One of the main aims of the Montreal Conference will be to start formal discussions about climate- change policies in the period beyond 2012 (the point at which the current Kyoto Protocol targets expire).

Currently, there is an enormous disparity between the scale of reductions called for by the world's leading climate scientists and the reduction levels enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol. There is also a massive disparity in terms of the pace of response that is needed.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has warned that climate change may be gradual only in the same sense as slowly increasing the pressure of a finger on a light switch. When it flips, the result is revolutionary, not incremental.

With industrialized countries struggling to stay on track to meet Kyoto Protocol targets, the international community has no choice but to step up collective action to fight a global battle that is no longer merely imminent, but one that is now staring us boldly in the face.

Innovation in combating climate change will be at the centre of the Dutch Canadian Climate Change Conference that will take place in Ottawa on Oct. 6 and 7. Stemming from a recent agreement between the Dutch and Canadian governments to strengthen bilateral relations, the DC4 conference will provide a platform for our two governments and the private sector to exchange experiences in combating climate change and to share those experiences with the international community at the Montreal Conference. New directions in climate policy can only be developed after we fully understand the implementation constraints that our governments have faced to date.

There is much that both unites and divides Canada and The Netherlands. On the one hand, our two countries are very different; with much more untouched nature in Canada than in Holland. On the other hand, our two countries share a close relationship with historical roots stemming from Canada's liberation of the Netherlands during the Second World War. Ties between our two countries have grown over the years, fostered by shared values, trade and especially investment, educational and cultural exchanges, as well as the regular celebration of the bond between our two countries. 

Our long-standing bilateral relationship provides a good basis for the exchange of innovative approaches in combating climate change. The Netherlands expects to gain relevant insights from Canada, and we feel that the early Dutch experience can be instructive for Canada as it steps up the implementation of its climate-change plan.

While it has become clear that the Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction commitments up to 2012 are unequal to the growing challenge, the Kyoto Protocol nevertheless represents an important step forward in tackling the causes of climate change.

We now have a set of global rules and a range of implementation mechanisms that establish a framework for managing emissions. One of the most important elements of this new framework has been the establishment of emissions trading, which has led to the creation of a global carbon market now estimated at $10 billion U.S. a year.

Technology innovation has been another important element in the global approach. Given the world's rising demand for energy, substantial changes in how the world produces and uses energy will be required as a matter of highest priority.

The international community recognizes that efficiency improvements are a very important part of the solution, but this alone will not be enough. Efforts must be directed toward transforming the current fossil-fuels-intensive energy system into one based on low-carbon-energy use and carbon-free-energy sources.

Besides the significant levels of innovation needed at the macro-level, at the micro-scale individuals and societies will have to make new energy choices. Here governments have an important role in motivating us to make sustainable energy choices. At the same time, individuals must recognize how their unsustainable energy choices not only impact the physical environment around them, but also constrain the ability of the world's poor to meet their most basic energy needs.

Moving to the deeper reductions the scientific community demands requires nothing less than a tectonic shift in the political dynamics of the climate-negotiation process. This shift will require serious commitments by the industrialized world to curb its greenhouse-gas emissions, in particular the world's leading emitters such as the U.S. It also means the developed world must show it is serious about creating genuine "equity in the greenhouse."

Developed countries will most likely be able to deal with rising sea levels in the next few decades, although Hurricane Katrina has shown that even the world's economic superpower cannot adequately protect its own people from the ravages of climate-related natural disasters. Nevertheless, we know that the developing world will fare much worse. It is much less adaptive and has minimal natural-disaster response capabilities.

We need a truly global political framework, one that allocates the burden of responsibility fairly and equitably. We also need considerable support to enable developing countries to improve energy efficiency, reduce their own growing emissions, and ultimately leapfrog into a low-carbon future. 

The most critical challenge facing the international political community is how to match the emerging scientific consensus with the necessary level of political will, collective action and resources to preserve a stable and secure climate for the 21st century. It is time to act beyond short-term national self-interests and demonstrate responsible and principled global leadership.

The global warming consequences are undisputable. The solutions are within reach. The window of opportunity is closing rapidly. However, this is a challenge the world can still resolve.

Victoria Liberal MP David Anderson is a former federal environment minister and chairman of the DC4 Thematic Panels.

Como van Hellenberg Hubar is Dutch Ambassador to Canada and co-chair of the DC4 Steering Committee.

Avoiding Catastrophe

© The Ottawa Citizen 2005