THE POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: FROM ONE GOVERNMENT TO THE NEXT Robin V. Sears Most Canadians support the Kyoto Protocol, even if they don’t know what’s in it. They support clean air and Kyoto’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But they expect government and industry to achieve the necessary efficiencies and are generally unprepared to sacrifice their SUVs or home heating habits to help achieve the Kyoto targets. Contributing writer Robin Sears looks inside the politics of climate change, including the “Kyoto implementation fiasco,” and looks ahead to the Harper government’s Clean Air Act and Green Plan II as a made-in-Canada alternative to unachievable Kyoto targets. La majorité des Canadiens soutiennent l’accord de Kyoto même s’ils en ignorent le contenu. Ils veulent un air pur et appuient la cible de réduction des gaz à effet de serre, qui prévoit pour 2008-2012 d’en ramener le niveau à 6 p. cent de moins qu’en 1990. Mais ils s’en remettent au gouvernement et au secteur industriel pour agir, et sont peu enclins à sacrifier leurs VUS et leurs habitudes de chauffage. Notre collaborateur Robin Sears analyse la dimension politique des changements climatiques, y compris le « fiasco de l’implantation de Kyoto », et se demande si la Loi sur l’assainissement de l’air et le plan vert II du gouvernement Harper ne deviendront pas une solution de rechange proprement canadienne aux cibles inatteignables de Kyoto. o subject generates more hot air from politicians is achieved in the way of environmental remediation or around the world than environmental policy. It’s reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or other pol- N not hard to see why. The gap between what we say lutants. It also sets up the hostage to fortune that an incom- we believe about leading a green lifestyle and how we actu- ing government may denounce the fraud, and declare its ally behave leaves a hole in the ozone large enough for a predecessors’ environmental clothes non-existent. fleet of SUVs to thunder through. It is this “truth-telling” mission that the Harper gov- Environmentalists and the liberal left, sensitive to this ernment has adopted for itself on the environment. It will uncomfortable political reality, typically focus on the need attack the inflated and largely incompetent record of the for better green behaviour by corporations and govern- Government of Canada in the past decade and try to change ments. As a result, we remain free to overheat our houses, the channel to a different green agenda. overcool our offices and light up midnight city skylines while feeling virtuous about the fines our governments he reasons for Ottawa’s long-term failure to perform on occasionally levy on wicked chemical companies or slimy T its list of green promises are many and difficult to fix. businesses caught dumping toxic wastes illegally. The federal government has few effective policy levers in The closest that most Canadian governments come to this largely provincial domain. Its green agenda is hopeless- attempting to nudge us toward less energy-intensive or even ly divided across at least six departments, often more com- less environmentally damaging personal choices is embar- mitted to savaging their ministerial rivals than to delivering rassing exhortations like the Rick Mercer comedy “The One change. It has a limited ability, using either international Tonne Challenge.” The tax regime, real prosecutions and pressure or treaty agreements, to force the provinces or serious negotiations with industry are tools every party has industry to make change, as the sad Kyoto implementation dropped as it moved from opposition to government. fiasco revealed. There are several problems with this approach over These intrinsic federal weaknesses may yet come to bite time, from both policy and political perspectives. First, little the Harper government on the derriere. The Tories will, 6 OPTIONS POLITIQUES OCTOBRE 2006 The politics of climate change: from one government to the next however, attempt to promote a more Successive Liberal Kyoto champions pro-polluter environmental policy” modest and workmanlike approach to failed to persuade either the provinces risks having this embarrassing failure environmental policy development or industry to commit to real change. hurled right back at him. The Tories’ and enforcement. Stephen Harper’s Curiously, both the Tories and the confidence in their ability to attack the convictions about the proper role for NDP failed to nail the government on Liberal record bequeathed them helps government — less is more, and be this nearly decade-long humiliation. explain what appeared to be the Harper sure to deliver — combined with Tory Even on the Rick Mercer crusade, government’s hesitant and even mal- scars and anger at being constantly helpful in pumping his personal pro- adroit approach to environmental poli- wrong-footed by the Liberals on green file but never likely to have any real cy in its early months. Rona Ambrose virtue in opposition are the drivers of impact on our emission levels, the gets few points from government insid- this less sweeping vision. Some very opposition got little traction. ers for her early stumbles in attempting savvy public opinion research con- This puzzled expert observers, to define a Harper environmental agen- vinced the Tories to adopt a policy who pointed out that few Canadians da. She is being “supported” by the stance which is, at least, refreshingly had the ability to pick up the chal- PMO in the management of the file this candid about what is possible and lenge. Few of us, in our Ontario-built fall, as a result. Her acting chief of staff, what ain’t. Bruce Carson, is a senior adviser Veterans of the period dif- The reasons for Ottawa’s long-term to the prime minister in the fer about which Chrétien insid- failure to perform on its list of green PMO. Some clever analysis of ers knew their Kyoto promises are many and difficult to Canadians’ real environmental commitments were a fraud views has made the Harper PMO from day one. Some say they fix. The federal government has few confident of the appeal of its believed, and that the effective policy levers in this largely vision to its target voters. inevitable failure was a sobering provincial domain. Its green agenda reality that crept up on them is hopelessly divided across at least ccording to most pollsters, only when they tried to deliver. A environmental policy has Others acknowledge that the six departments, often more been highly ranked as a top whole initiative was a political committed to savaging their political concern for most game driven from the Prime ministerial rivals than to delivering Canadians, across most demo- Minister’s Office and Foreign change. It has a limited ability, using graphic, geographic and parti- Affairs in defiance of alarm bells san divides, for years. As a from the economic ministries, either international pressure or top-of-mind issue it ranks con- from day one. Politically, today, treaty agreements, to force the sistently with health care and it doesn’t matter: they failed on provinces or industry to make crime, for urban voters. While all fronts, miserably. change, as the sad Kyoto Afghanistan has pushed it down the charts, most Canadians iberal leadership candidate implementation fiasco revealed. know that they should have a L Stéphane Dion’s tri- greener Canada high on their umphalist stump rhetoric about his gas-guzzlers, drive long distances to wish lists when pollsters call. protection of a sacred “Kyoto trust” and from work out of environmental Even in qualitative research, the notwithstanding, the legacy of those recklessness. We live far from work and focus-group-based tool usually more years is naked defeat. Canadians now have few bearable transit options, revealing of underlying attitudes and pump nearly a third more GHGs into especially on a Friday night in a values than phone call interviews, a the ether than we did when the Canadian February. Of the fewer than majority of Canadians claim they Liberals signed the Kyoto deal. Six half of us who own our homes, many would like to do more to ensure envi- years from now we are not likely to be are skeptical about the payback on the ronmental sustainability. The Tories much below that mark, and nowhere five to ten thousand dollars required to recognized that one-on-one private near the 6 percent cut we had pledged effectively insulate even a heat-sink interviews might reveal a different pic- ourselves to by 2012. home. Apart from those big-chunk ture. They’d used this technique on Despite two separate Chrétien lifestyle changes, few of us ever had earlier myth-busting projects such as “Kyoto Action Plans” and a Martin the interest or ability to meet anything research on attitudes to crime. Given promise of massive spending to cut like a “one-tonne challenge,” especial- that until recently, SUV sales soared, emissions, it was foolishness like the ly in the absence of any financial car- despite years of attack for their dread- “One Tonne Challenge” that was as rot or stick to do so. ful GHG impact, it did not take a polit- close as the previous government came Any Liberal leader, or local Liberal ical genius to speculate that what to actually implementing a policy. candidate, tempted to slam “Harper’s Canadians demanded of corporations, POLICY OPTIONS 7 OCTOBER 2006 Robin V. Sears governments and “others” might be a that the list of at-risk and/or potential- Harper needs to be careful not to much stiffer agenda than what they ly troublesome environmental sites diminish climate change as a widely were really willing to commit their exceeded a hundred thousand, mean- popular concern, however.