Anywhere global leaders are negotiating climate action, you can always count on Canada to work diligently behind the scenes to yank the teeth out of it. Take this week’s G7 meeting in Germany. The big news is that the G7 has, as of Monday, collectively called for a “decarbonization of the global economy.”
Sounds positively revolutionary, except word is German chancellor Angela Merkel had actually been gunning to get a firmer commitment to a low-carbon economy by 2050 from the leaders. Insiders say Canada and Japan blocked any concrete wording that would hem them in. In the end, the G7 leaders issued a wishy-washy statement about “doing our part to achieve a low-carbon economy” by 2050. They tossed in a pledge to go zero carbon by 2100 – far enough in the future that Stephen Harper could nonchalantly tell reporters, “I don’t think we should fool ourselves. Nobody’s going to start to shut down their industries or turn off the lights. We’ve simply got to find a way to create lower-carbon-emitting sources of energy.”
Just last week former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan condemned Canada and Japan, as well as Russia and Australia, for “effectively withdrawing from constructive engagement on climate” and giving “free rides” to greenhouse gas emitters. Annan’s Africa Progress Panel recently called on not just the G7 but the whole G20 to ban fossil fuel subsidies starting in 2018 and go carbon zero by 2050. Otherwise, Annan said rich countries may say they want a climate deal but are, in fact, “subsidizing catastrophe.”
ecoholic@nowtoronto.com | @ecoholicnation
