Despite being accused of losing credibility on Climate change, Stephen Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister said at the APEC conference today that there is no point in Canada implementing any CO2 reduction program unless developing countries commit to some reductions. As he pointed out, developing countries currently contribute half of the current emissions and if they do not participate, they will soon contribute two thirds. Further, there is no point in Canada having a program that’s different to the U.S. since as a neighbour ten times larger, they dominate the North American emissions and economy.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the developing countries, particularly African countries plus China and India see the negotiations currently being conducted as mostly economic. That is clearly the case since cutting back on emissions would be a major economic burden on everyone. From their point of view, why should they limit themselves before they even reach the level of development of countries like Europe and Australia that are making all the noise?
It doesn’t help that it’s becoming clearer that the supposed consensus does not in fact exist and there are still many unanswered questions. Although Arctic ice is melting, the Antarctic ice is not and world temperatures now seem to be dropping not rising. And it’s far from clear that anything Canada, or for that matter Australia could do would make one jot of difference to CO2 let alone any possible warming. And as Harper points out, any reductions we make would be swamped by increases from India , China and others.