“Emily’s Countdown to Copenhagen”

Written by Emily Rideout for the Sierra Club Atlantic fall newsletter.

This December, I will have the honour of representing Sierra Club Canada at the 15th UN Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark. This round of climate negotiations is of vital importance since governments of the world will come together to sign a new international climate treaty. The current global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, created legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for industrialized countries, and has been implemented with varying degrees of success around the world.

Emily outside of environment minister Jim Prentice's office.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that Canada has an abysmal record when it comes to action on climate change. Kyoto requires Canada to reduce our GHG emissions 6% below 1990 levels by 2012; however we’re currently approximately 25% over our 1990 level emissions! On top of that, the Canadian Delegation obstructed negotiations so successfully that Canada was named the Colossal Fossil by the international NGO community last year in Poznan, Poland. In other words, we were the worst country at the negotiations.

I was most disappointed by the realization that the Canadian Delegation was not representing the views of many Canadians; Canadians who understand that climate change will not only affect coastal, agricultural, and urban communities in Canada, but also developing countries that are poorly equipped to deal with it. Not only are Canadians being misrepresented at these negotiations, the Canadian Delegation actually held Canadians responsible for its inability to act on climate change, citing consumer habits (read: ‘Canadians love big trucks too much’) as a reason why they could not take a constructive role in the negotiations, causing them to play an obstructive role instead.

This is in spite of the fact that individual Canadians have taken actions big and small to stop climate change: industrial regulation and targets (things like a price on carbon, emission targets for vehicles and industry) are needed now. What is missing is leadership and will, not support from the Canadian public.
The lead up to Copenhagen is arguably as or more important than the negotiations themselves because it is our chance to tell our government a million times over that we need to do better, that we are running out of time.

We at Sierra Club need, and indeed the planet, need you to write a letter to your MP, MLA, city councillors and both the federal and provincial Ministers of Environment telling them that there is no time to waste, that we need to adopt aggressive targets in Copenhagen that will drastically reduce our emissions post-2012, somewhere on the order of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. We need more green jobs, and more funding for renewable energy. We need you to tell them that nothing else will do.
For my part, I’ll be tracking daily developments in Copenhagen on the Sierra Club blog at www.sierraclub.ca/climatecrisis/. Stay tuned to find out what your government is doing on your behalf at the negotiations.

This December, I will have the honour of representing Sierra Club Canada at the 15th UN
Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark. This round of climate negotiations is of
vital importance since governments of the world will come together to sign a new international
climate treaty. The current global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012,
created legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for industrialized
countries, and has been implemented with varying degrees of success around the world.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that Canada has an abysmal record when it comes to
action on climate change. Kyoto requires Canada to reduce our GHG emissions 6% below 1990
levels by 2012; however we’re currently approximately 25% over our 1990 level emissions! On
top of that, the Canadian Delegation obstructed negotiations so successfully that Canada was
named the Colossal Fossil by the international NGO community last year in Poznan, Poland. In
other words, we were the worst country at the negotiations.
I was most disappointed by the realization that the Canadian Delegation was not representing
the views of many Canadians; Canadians who understand that climate change will not only
affect coastal, agricultural, and urban communities in Canada, but also developing countries
that are poorly equipped to deal with it. Not only are Canadians being misrepresented at these
negotiations, the Canadian Delegation actually held Canadians responsible for its inability to
act on climate change, citing consumer habits (read: ‘Canadians love big trucks too much’) as
a reason why they could not take a constructive role in the negotiations, causing them to play
an obstructive role instead.This December, I will have the honour of representing Sierra Club Canada at the 15th UN
Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, Denmark. This round of climate negotiations is of
vital importance since governments of the world will come together to sign a new international
climate treaty. The current global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012,
created legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for industrialized
countries, and has been implemented with varying degrees of success around the world.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that Canada has an abysmal record when it comes to
action on climate change. Kyoto requires Canada to reduce our GHG emissions 6% below 1990
levels by 2012; however we’re currently approximately 25% over our 1990 level emissions! On
top of that, the Canadian Delegation obstructed negotiations so successfully that Canada was
named the Colossal Fossil by the international NGO community last year in Poznan, Poland. In
other words, we were the worst country at the negotiations.
I was most disappointed by the realization that the Canadian Delegation was not representing
the views of many Canadians; Canadians who understand that climate change will not only
affect coastal, agricultural, and urban communities in Canada, but also developing countries
that are poorly equipped to deal with it. Not only are Canadians being misrepresented at these
negotiations, the Canadian Delegation actually held Canadians responsible for its inability to
act on climate change, citing consumer habits (read: ‘Canadians love big trucks too much’) as
a reason why they could not take a constructive role in the negotiations, causing them to play
an obstructive role instead.