The Major Greenhouse Gases

A New Kind of Sharing A New Kind of Sharing Why We Can't Ignore Global Environmental Change June D. Hall and Arthur J. Hanson INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE Ottawa • Cairo • Dakar• Johannesburg• Montevideo• Nairobi New Delhi• Singapore Preface We live in a time of great uncertainty, of dazzling political change, and of shifting economic reality. In the twinkling of an eye we have witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and real progress toward nuclear disarmament. We have seen the settlement of many long-standing civil wars, the first steps toward the dismantling of apartheid, and a new status for the United Nations. But the heralded "peace dividend" may be diverted to brush fires else where, as ethnie rivalries, doused during the Cold War, are reignited. In Canada, we face the possible breakup of the country, economic malaise, and the decline of our traditional sources of income. We watch the parallel rise to prominence of Pacifie Rim countries and the launching of an integrated European economy in 1992. In the midst of all this, it would be tempting to close our eyes to the problems of other regions, and especially to forget about the struggles of developing nations outs ide the mainstream of our daily thoughts and actions. In preparation for the 20th anniversary of Canada's Interna tional Development Research Centre (IDRC) in 1990, several studies were commissioned on the impact on Canada of change in the countries we have corne to call the South. This book is one of the products of this effort. It investigates the rapid and destruc- V tive environmental change that is taking place in the South. It looks at elements of global change in which both Canada and developing nations are participants, and at the beginnings of a global compact on environment and development. The survey is selective, focused on key themes and hypotheses, but it draws on an extensive, interdisciplinary base of up-to-date information and personal experience. The analysis leads to some compelling conclusions that Canadians cannot afford to ignore. The most important is that Canada cannot insulate itself from the effects of environmental change in developing countries. Indeed, we are a part of the problem and must expect to pay part of the price. June D. Hall Arthur j. Hanson vi Acknowledgments Many people were involved in one way or another in the produc tion of this book. Deirdre McKay did much of the background research for Chapter 6 and commented on an early draft of the manuscript. Portions of Chapter 7 were abstracted, with the author's permission, from a 1988 Dalhousie University Master of Environmental Studies thesis by Douglas]. Hykle. We owe a special debt of thanks to Ivan Head and his colleagues at IDRC, especially Paz Buttedahl, Bev Chattaway, Bill Carman, and Esther Beaudry; to Tony Tillett and Pat Rodee of the Pearson Institute, Dalhousie University; and to the stu dents and staff of Dalhousie's School for Resource and Environ mental Studies, in particular Judy Reade, the unfailingly cheerful and efficient librarian, who helped in a thousand ways, Peter Stokoe, a great source of information on global warming, Susan MacDonald and Lynn Lantz, and Professor Fay Cohen, who not only made invaluable comments on drafts of Chapter 9 but also provided endless encouragement and support. Of those who granted us interviews, we must especially acknowledge Rodrigo Contreras of the World Council of Indig enous Peoples (WCIP) and Peter Prince and Ralph Roberts of the Forestry Sector of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), ail of Ottawa. Lastly, we wish to thank our families for their patience and endurance. vii Contents Part 1 Introduction Chapter 1 Global Environmental Interdependence: Implications for Canadians .................. 3 Chapter 2 Environmental Change in the South . 25 Part II Global Climate Change and Ozone Depletion Overview. ..... 51 Chapter 3 The Global Atmospheric Experiment: Everyone's Environmental Problem . 53 Chapter4 Scorching Political Winds: Presage of Global Climate Change . 87 ix Part III Canadians and Tropical Forests Overview ............. 113 Chapter 5 Choices in the Harsh World of Trade ............ 116 Chapter 6 Other Canadian Links to Tropical Forests ......... 151 Chapter 7 Compliance Required: Endangered and Migratory Species . 183 Epilogue . 213 Part IV The Human Face ofEnvironmental Degradation Overview .... 217 Chapter 8 Environmental Refugees .................. 219 Chapter 9 Networking: the Potential Power of Indigenous Peoples' Worldwide Campaign for Rights . 253 Part V Conclusion Chapter 10 The New Dialogue ..................... 297 Acronyms and Abbreviations . 313 Bibliography . 317 Index . ... 345 X PARTI INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 Global Environmental Interdependence: Implications for Canadians As we near the third millennium, an increasingly interdependent world is at a critical watershed. Never before have we humans as a species, and a.s individual men and women, had such an oppor tunity ta shape our common future. DeFries and Malone (1989, p. v) In June 1992, world leaders met in Rio de janiero at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the "Earth Summit" - the largest summit conference ever organized, and perhaps the most important. To many, the Earth Summit was the last chance for humanity to arrest the planet's downward spiral of environmental degradation, the last chance to reverse the destructive nature of our relationship to planet Earth. Yet whatever the ultimate impact of the meeting and its follow-up, it is the beginning, not the end, of a process. The year 1992 has a symbolic significance far beyond this promise. It marks the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage to the New World - a watershed of a very different nature. ln the 15th century, explorers sought alternative routes to the fabled wealth of the Orient. They were the vanguards of a new era. In their footsteps came Western "civilization": a wave of military might and economic muscle fanning out from Europe, 4 A NEW KIND OF SHARING "a half-millennium of exuberant, exploitive expansion" (Caldwell 1990, p. 6), which has conquered the furthermost corners of the Earth and changed forever the world and its peoples. Aided by technology, this wave has gathered momen tum, culminating in the explosive growth of the 20th century. Since 1900, the human population has tripled, the global econ omy has increased 20-fold, and fossil-fuel use has grown by a factor of 30 (MacNeill et al. 1991, p. 3). Most of this growth has happened since 1950. If United Nations (UN) projections corne true, population may not stabilize until the 22nd century, at a level well over 10 billion, while the world's economy could increase fivefold by the middle of the 2lst century. Such numbers are incomprehensible if we consider the crisis already facing the planet. "The basic reality is that the scale of human activity has grown so large that it is disrupting the planetary systems that support life" (Speth 1990a, p. v). Scientific predictions about the destruction of the ozone layer, already frightening, were shown in the winter of 1992 to have been tao conservative; global warming is considered a virtual certainty by most experts, although its timing and extent remain a matter of debate; our land, waters, and skies are polluted; tropical deforestation removes over 17 million hectares of trees a year; an unknown number of species have become extinct; and ecosystem diversity and the resource base are being destroyed at a catastrophic rate. Nowhere is this process more obvious than in the countries of the developing world, nowhere are the lives of people more stunted by its effects. "Third World," "developing world," "the South" - there are many terms used to describe the lands that are home to three quarters of the world's people. Ali these terms are flawed, ail mask the wonderful diversity and vitality of these nations, ail imply a world divided. To lump together Singapore and Mozambique, South Korea and Afghanistan, is plainly foolish, as foolish as placing ail the industrialized nations in one category - the North. Yet there are similarities, especially in the relationship of INTRODUCTION 5 these countries to the North, and a bond that links them: "their desire to escape from poverty and underdevelopment and secure a better life for their citizens" (South Commission 1990, p. 1). We refer to them as the South. Largely bypassed by the benefits of prosperity and progress, they exist on the periphery of the developed countries of the North. While most of the people of the North are affluent, most of the people of the South are poor; while the economies of the North are generally strong and resilient, those of the South are mostly weak and defence less; while the countries of the North are, by and large, in control of their destinies, those of the South are very vulnera ble to external factors and lacking in functional sovereignty. (South Commission 1990, p. 1) Exceptions spring to mind immediately, but this description was written by a prestigious group of experts from developing countries. It is a view of the South from the South. It emphasizes the ties that bind and the unfavourable position of most devel oping nations in the global economic system, a system that has spread its remorseless net with ever-increasing power in the last decades of the 20th century. There is a gap, a widening gap, between rich and poor. Although considerable economic and social progress was made in much of the South in the years after World War II, the inequities between North and South have increased since the mid-1970s and the first oil crisis. The world's economy was thrown into disarray by the costs of the Vietnam War, the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the recession of the early l 980s.

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