Edmonton Journal - "Canada missing golden opportunity in Bali"


Exerpts -

"Canada has moved from being a quiet climate failure on the margins of multilateral negotiations to a roadblock to international progress."

"Canada has been and continues to be amongst the worst per capita contributors to climate change in the world. With only 0.5 per cent of the world's population, Canada produces roughly two per cent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution. If negotiations were to equitably distribute the "safe" amount of greenhouse gas pollution (as estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to each person on the planet, Canadians would need to cut our greenhouse gas footprint by well over ten times what we committed to in the Kyoto Protocol.

Our current position is being framed with the language of 'fairness,' while it seems to be asking China and India to be responsible for the same reductions as Canada, though the average Chinese citizen is responsible for only one-fifth as much pollution as the average Canadian, and the average Indian citizen one-tenth."

"Having failed to even attempt to curb our emissions, we are left with very little credibility to demand action from others. By entrenching in a position that is completely unacceptable to developing countries such as China and India, Canada is doing little more than scuttling the debate.

This is a prescription for inaction"

"Those who are most vulnerable to the worst of these impacts are found in the world's poorest regions -- those least responsible for the damage."

Yet "the government has ... regularly resisted committing to actual overall reductions in emissions."