From December 7th to 18th the United Nations Conference on Climate Change will take place in Copenhagen Denmark (aka COP15, the 15th “Conference of the Parties”). At this conference the participating nations will develop a climate agreement to replace the Kyoto agreement once it expires in 2012.
While I fully support the principal behind creating such agreements, I don’t have much faith in their effectiveness. Canada signed the Kyoto protocol and didn’t meet any of it’s targets (so far). And it doesn’t look like Harper has any intention of changing that trend. He recently announced a project to create a massive underground storage facility for CO2 emissions. That’s essentially an underground dump for air pollution. What a wonderful sustainable idea! Don’t worry about any potential leakage up to the surface…
So if our countrys’ leaders are not going to honour such agreements and drastic changes still need to be made, how does it get done? Our local politicians are no better. Light rail is a perfect example in Ottawa. Any of the options that were discussed would take cars off the roads but still nothing gets done. Aren’t we at the point where anything is better than wasting more money?
Part of the problem is the nature of the politics. At the federal level Harper has loyalties to oil companies (i.e the tar sands) so he won’t do anything to reduce their profits, and at the local level every constituent has their say. So the guy in Orleans wants east-west rail, and the guy in Riverside South wants a north-south rail. Everyone gets heard and nothing gets done. Landsdowne park is another example of that – don’t expect anything too soon.
The only way things are gonna change is if we take it upon ourselves. We can no longer count on governments to change policy and do the right thing. The only thing we need are choices. We can take the bus if we don’t want to drive, we can buy energy efficient bulbs instead of incandescent, we will recycle everything that can be recycled, to get clean electricity instead of coal, we can buy local food instead of imported, become vegetarian instead of meataterian (that’s for you Erica). Choices can be made that will make a difference. And where we don’t have the choices, that’s when we need to pressure our politicians.
And as much as the almighty dollar is controlling Harpers moves, it controls ours as well. Some environmentally conscious choices are more expensive than others. But at least we can make our own choice and not have one man decide for all.
