by David Suzuki
We already have the UNFCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the COP/MOP. Now we can add the Marrakesh accords and the Montreal Action Plan.
Climate change discussions seem to contain a bewildering array of titles and acronyms, but whatever the wording, the results coming out of Montreal are good news for humanity.
After a particularly long and grueling negotiating session, delegates last weekend at the international climate convention in that city managed to hammer out an agreement that will see the parties create a long-term plan to reduce heat-trapping emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
That's right. They didn't create an actual plan to reduce emissions over the long term, complete with targets and timelines; they just drafted an agreement to build a plan together.
No targets? No timelines? Can we really call this good news? Yes, we can.
The agreement sets the stage for negotiating bigger emissions cuts needed to prevent dangerous climate change. That we urgently need to make those cuts was more and more evident with every scientific paper presented in Montreal. Climate change is a huge, huge problem, one that threatens world economies and our quality of life in the not-so-distant future. The Montreal agreement keeps the Kyoto process, and the best shot we have at reducing emissions, alive.
Just as important, the agreement for longer-term talks provides some certainty for business. It shows that climate change is not the international community's flavour of the month and it will not go away anytime soon. With the adoption of the Marrakesh accords, there is now clarity around an international carbon market that will lead to clean-energy and energy-efficient technologies being exported to developing nations.
If this session had failed to produce at least a process for long-term discussions, it would have been a disaster. Throughout the negotiations, the United States steadfastly blocked progress and refused to agree to anything post 2012 that would possibly lead to mandatory pollution cuts. The U.S. made it clear that it was "not open to any discussion leading to new commitments."
In the end, delegates had to opt for a two-track process, with the United States agreeing to merely "open and nonbinding" talks, while the rest of the world would pursue a process that could lead to real and substantial climate pollution reductions.
Some have argued that the U.S. track is meaningless, and they are right. However, given the American government's intransigence on the issue of climate change, the fact that they've agreed to continue talking at all shows that the Bush administration may finally be succumbing to international pressure, as well as pressure from within the U.S. itself. Many American states, including California and New York, and 192 U.S. cities, are already engaged in their own emission-reduction processes, many of which mirror Kyoto.
In fact, due in part to these internal efforts, the U.S. is actually well ahead of Canada in reducing greenhouse gases. This puts Canada in an awkward position. The federal government played an important role in Montreal, ensuring climate discussions moved forward. But our own record on reducing emissions is pitiful. Instead, our emissions have gone steadily upwards. And most provincial plans to reduce them are either weak or non-existent. We don't have a California or a New York pushing for innovative change.
Now that we have some hope for long-term reductions at an international level, it's time for Canada to look inwards and start making the changes we need to clean up our own backyard. We need to look at what the current leaders are doing and build on their successes. We need to stop our own internal bickering and finally put some weight behind our words.
First Published on December 16, 2005
Dr. David Takayoshi Suzuki is distinguished Canadian geneticist who has attained prominence as a science broadcaster and an environmental activist. He is also a co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.
