BC NDP

A special report for The Democrat by Rob Fleming

COPENHAGEN—Citizens in BC and around the world, along with progressive leaders in business, labour, government and the scientific community were extremely disappointed at the outcome of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. In place of a legally binding, comprehensive international agreement to steadily reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and stem runaway climate change, the world community left Denmark with a vague 3-page ‘accord’ passed at the 11th hour - and only thanks to a last-ditch intervention from President Barack Obama.

Canada was not among the states that approached Copenhagen as an opportunity to cap and price carbon and compete in the new green economy with ideas and innovation in low-carbon technologies. Quite the opposite. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper first shunned any GHG targets before he proposed measures ten-times weaker than mainstream EU and OECD industrial countries.

With the UK, Germany, even the U.S. Senate raising the spectre of trade penalties or ‘carbon tariffs’ against non-committal countries like Canada, our provincial premiers began strongly speaking out, with the exception of Gordon Campbell. The BC Liberal premier stayed silent, even rebuffing Carole James’ appeal on the eve of the conference for a bi-partisan joint statement to the Prime Minister from the BC Legislature.

The BC Liberals have chosen to put their provincial political coalition with Harper Conservatives ahead of the bigger picture, ignoring the high stakes at the UN summit and the risk failure presents the Western Climate Initiative’s (WCI) creation of a cap and trade scheme by 2012. Ultimately confusion reigned at Copenhagen, process broke down, and Canada left with a black eye.

Those concerned about tackling climate change are now assessing how much political momentum may have been lost and how it can be regained. The point to take away from this international political setback here in BC is to not allow it to dampen green economic activity and leadership being shown in cities like Vancouver and communities across our province.

I was there representing BC New Democrats alongside our Federal Leader Jack Layton, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger and Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter. There was genuine excitement and expectation that the developed and developing worlds would agree on a plan to slow the planet’s warming by reducing atmospheric carbon levels. And rather than overshadow climate change, the 2008-09 world economic recession seemed to reinforce its urgency amongst social-democratic and other world leaders eager to stabilize and re-regulate the financial sector and re-tool it to finance a green economic recovery.

In BC, there is no time to lose in joining progressive jurisdictions that are laying a low-carbon foundation for profound economic change. With a budget due in March, New Democrats are stressing the need to provide smart green economic stimulus and target climate policy to areas where GHG emissions are concentrated and in some cases growing.

The shock betrayal of the Campbell government’s 2009 post-election budget not only introduced an HST they campaigned against, it also scrapped the LiveSmart program and other modest energy efficient rebates and tax exemptions. And the budget confirmed what New Democrats said during the campaign, that the BC Liberals couldn’t be trusted to fund public transit expansion or build projects like the Evergreen rapid transit project. The BC Liberal government even eliminated capital funds for greening public school buildings to meet public sector carbon neutral targets. And they’ve shown no vision for our forestry sector to rebound as part of a green economic strategy.  That’s not climate leadership. It’s more talk about the environment without real action.

New Democrats opposed these regressive cuts in the fall legislative session and at the Union of BC Municipalities in September, Carole James proposed reforming the government’s carbon tax to direct $150 million per year to creating green jobs in transportation and community infrastructure projects instead of another BC Liberal corporate tax cut.

Our province cannot be innovative on climate solutions or realize green job potential while remaining in 9th place out of ten provinces in per capita research and development funding. There is a lot of work to do in coordinating government climate action and creating investment-friendly green economic opportunities. These things can’t be done behind the backs of British Columbians; they need public support, transparency and engagement of leaders and innovators across the province. But that’s not the BC Liberal’s way, as we’ve seen once again with their green energy task force deliberations being held behind closed doors, shutting out the public.

BC and the world urgently need a new international agreement to allocate responsibility and coordination of action on climate change over many decades. An agreement is essential to address the long-term threat of global temperature rise and the calamity that represents. We must pursue a BC economic recovery strategy that can create tens of thousands of new green jobs developing and installing clean technologies across economic sectors.

This article appeared in the March 2010 edition of The Democrat.