3/6/02

Introduction:

Have you been invited to the federal government's workshops on climate change? Chances are you haven't, unless your name is on a list of selected stakeholders. James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science writer in Yellowknife. On Commentary he says private conferences are no way to deal with an issue that faces all of us.

James Hrynyshyn:

The first in a series of "National Stakeholder Workshops on Climate Change"takes place this Friday in Ottawa. Thirteen other sessions in each of theprovincial and territorial capitals will follow over the next three weeks. Many of those who have been watching the dithering of our politicians overthe five years it's been since Canada committed itself to the Kyoto Protocol, will say it's about time. But there's a problem. All the workshops are being held behind closed doors. Journalists and others will be denied the opportunity to report on thefederal government's first serious attempt to cobble together a nationalconsensus on how to reorganize our economy along environmental lines. Remember the Meech Lake Accord? It failed in large part because o fwidespread distrust over the closed-door drafting process. People simply don't like their futures being decided in secret. The standard excuse politicians trot out is that participants at suchmeetings need to be free to speak their minds if real progress is to be made.

But what they'll talking aboabout is far too important to be left to select"stakeholders." We're all stakeholders, from the seal-hunters of the High Arctic who are facing rapid changes in ice conditions to assembly-line workers in Windsor who are worried whether cars will survive the end of fossil-fuels. Canadians must be able to judge for themselves the arguments of the industrialists and the environmentalists who will attend the workshops. They shouldn't have to wait for the sanitized version to come out from the Climate Change Secretariat in Ottawa. The Chrétien government is already suffering from a serious credibility deficit in scientific and environmental circles thanks to its efforts to weasel out of our share of the Kyoto target. First we managed to convince the Europeans we should get credit for the carbon our forests absorb, eventhough several recent studies suggest our forests may actually be makingclimate change worse. Now we want more credit for exporting so-called "clean"fossil fuels, which are still part of the problem despite their lower carboncontent.

But it may go further than that. It's now beginning to look like Ottawa is actually counting on provincial dissent to shift the blame for not ratifying the Kyoto agreement sooner or even at all. Toss into the mix all the conflicting studies about the costs and benefits of implementing climate-change policies and we've a got a recipe for political paralysis. Canadians need to hear and take part in the debate if they are to evaluate the excuses Alberta has offered to delay reducing greenhouse gas emissions,as well as the evidence in support of more drastic action than called for by Kyoto. There can be no justification for closing these workshops to public scrutiny. Anyone without the courage to stand by their words probably doesn't deserve to be invited in the first place. For Commentary, I'm James Hrynyshyn in Yellowknife.

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