News

Canada is vigorously campaigning for an international deal on climate change that rejects the central foundation of the Kyoto Protocol, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last week.

Instead of capping greenhouse-gas emissions at specific levels, as called for under Kyoto, Mr. Harper wants the world to adopt a completely different system of measuring success for reducing emissions.

That view is in stark contrast to European countries and is more in line with the preferred approach of the United States.

Mr. Harper said measuring results with "intensity targets" is the best way to engage major polluters such as the U.S. and China.

In response, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said one of his four conditions for keeping Mr. Harper's minority Conservative government in office after its Throne Speech Oct. 16 is that the Conservatives agree that Canada will meet its Kyoto targets.

That's something the Conservatives appear dead-set against doing.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe also said last week that respecting the Kyoto Protocol was one of his party's requirements for supporting the Throne Speech.

The Bloc Leader is threatening to vote against the speech if all his conditions are not met, increasing the chance of a fall election.

Kyoto critics argue that Canada cannot meet those targets without touching off an economic recession. Critics of Mr. Harper's position argue that "intensity-based" targets could actually result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Who's right? Or are both sides wrong? How did we get to this bitter standoff? Are there any other solutions?

We are pleased that Globe political columnist Jeffrey Simpson is online now until noon EDT to answer your questions on this important issue and to discuss the new book Hot Air: Meeting Canada's Climate Change Challenge which he has co-authored with Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers.

Join the Conversation or submit your questions or comments . Your questions and Mr. Simpson's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

"Many things went wrong with Canada's attempts to grapple with climate change," Mr. Simpson wrote in an excerpt published Saturday in The Globe .

"Certainly our political culture and federal system frustrated action. From the beginning of climate-change discussions in Canada, there was a lack of political honesty about what would have been realistic emissions-reduction targets for Canada, and what serious measures would have been required to meet them. Alas, the lack of honesty remains in too many quarters.

"But we can learn from our recent past what not to do: how not to negotiate internationally, how not to make commitments we cannot keep to others and ourselves, and how not to pursue policies bound to fail . . .

"Throughout the drama, we listened to politicians who purported to lead but did not. The failed leadership began with prime minister Brian Mulroney, although he deserves the least blame because the issue was just taking shape internationally during his years in office. The leadership failures intensified greatly under prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.

"In Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadians are watching a politician move from denial, skepticism, and criticism to hurried action in less than a year. Like his predecessors, Harper has ruled out a carbon tax. His emissions targets for heavy industry have too many loopholes. And his measures do little, if anything, for the half of total emissions that do not come from large final emitters . . .

"Canadians need to become realistic after years of failure and fantasy. We need to combine what we might call quantity restraints on the total of greenhouse gas emitted, with price signals to deter or prevent those emissions.

"We can use a greenhouse-gas tax. Intensity policy can work, but not if the intensity target becomes overwhelmed by a surge in units of output, as in the oil sands. Finally, we can use a carbon-management standard. It works its way down through the economy because it is imposed on producers that are obligated to provide certain low- or zero-emissions products.

"There will be dislocations for individuals and businesses along the way as they adapt to changed policies. Long lead times can ease the transition. In general, as we have seen, the Canadian economy will do fine.

Mr. Simpson has won all three of Canada's leading literary prizes — the Governor-General's award for non-fiction book writing, the National Magazine Award for political writing, and the National Newspaper Award for column writing (twice). He has also won the Hyman Solomon Award for excellence in public policy journalism. In January 2000, he became an Officer of the Order of Canada.

He joined The Globe and Mail in 1974. His career with the newspaper began at City Hall in Toronto and with coverage of Quebec politics. In 1977, he became a member of the paper's Ottawa bureau, and eighteen months later he was named The Globe and Mail's Ottawa bureau chief. From 1981-1983, Mr. Simpson served as The Globe's European correspondent based in London, England. He began writing his national affairs column in January, 1984.

Mr. Simpson has published six books — Discipline of Power (1980); Spoils of Power (1988); Faultlines, Struggling for a Canadian Vision (1993); The Anxious Years (1996) and Star-Spangled Canadians (2000). His most recent book, The Friendly Dictatorship: Reflections on Canadian Democracy (2001), was nominated for the Donner Prize as the best book on public policy.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements.

Please be advised that Mr. Simpson will take questions only from readers who use their name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Welcome, Jeffrey, and thanks for joining us today to take questions from the readers of globeandmail.com. I'd like to start today with two very different questions:

First, how serious do you think the opposition parties are about bringing down the Harper minority government in the Throne Speech debate and non-confidence vote over the issue of how to combat climate change? That's just one of the issues they have mentioned as a test for their support. But it appears to be a key one.

Second, what compelled you professionally and personally to write your new book on the subject?

Jeffrey Simpson: Thank you, Jim. I welcome the change to talk about climate change: the politics, the science and the solution, and to refer to the book, Hot Air, that I just wrote with my co-authors Mark Jaccard and Nik Rivers.

We are seeing a great deal of posturing about an election, and I have certainly witnessed instances when opposition parties and government got themselves boxed themselves into corners from which they could not escape and so precipitated an unwelcome election.

I believe — and I don't spend much time twittering about this — that there will be no election, especially not on climate change.

I say especially because the issue risks becoming like health-care in which each party broadly speaking says the same thing, leaving few real choices among parties.

Why the book? It was really quite simple.

I had been writing episodically but in a lazy way about climate change over the years. Lazy because I was contenting myself with superficial columns essentially saying the latest government white paper or policy document wouldn't work.

But I never drilled down into the substance of the issue. So I gave myself the challenge of getting more familiar with the issue, and therefore starting reading quite intensely on the subject.

In the course of that reading, I came across Mark Jaccard's book which won the Donner Prize for the best book on public policy. The analysis therein, and the suggested solutions, struck me as the soundest of anything I was reading.

We had lunch at my invitation, just so I could pick his brain, and from that lunch grew the idea for a collaboration on a book that had two overriding objectives.

First, to focus only on Canada, since no such book existed.

Second, to go beyond simply describing what had gone wrong, apart from everything, and to run through in straightforward, non-technical language what would comprise effective solutions.

So the book, as published, is modest in length (230 pages), direct in approach, not encumbered by too much science, and full of what we think are solutions that will work, essentially economic ones.

Dennis Choptiany, Markham, Ont.: In your opinion, are we going to have a federal election this autumn or this spring? In either case, do you expect to see a Conservative minority again?

I have a second question: Al Gore, Bill Clinton and many others agree that more jobs will be created by creating ways to be more energy-efficient or developing new technologies to replace energy-inefficient ones.

Yet the media continues to play the sound bites from Bush, Harper and other deniers who say that our economies will suffer if we try to live up to the Kyoto targets. Why is the media pandering to the deniers, instead of offsetting their comments with those of people like Gore and Clinton?

Jeffrey Simpson: Dennis: The media has had plenty of commentary from climate change activists. The fact that I'm doing this online discussion being one example.

Michael Marin, Ottawa: As you suggest, the policy debate in Canada regarding climate change is mired in dishonesty.

Climate change is not completely unlike other issues — in that the policy solutions are complex and politicians can exploit voters' ignorance, giving them the impression that they champion the issue, however flawed their policies may be.

However, climate change is different from other issues in that the consequences of inaction are remote.

I think these two aspects of climate change politics make it very difficult for citizens to become engaged and to demand a more-honest debate.

Is it possible for citizens to overcome this hurdle or is this simply an issue that demands determined political leadership? Is either likely in the current political climate?

Jeffrey Simpson: Michael, I agree that climate change seemed remote to many citizens. It was unlike a river discolored by toxicity or air pollution caused by particulate matter that stings the eyes, such as you see in Beijing or Tehran or even in smog-filled North American cities.

But I believe that as time has gone on, more and more Canadians are seeing the effects: in the Arctic, with the mountain pine beetle ravaging Western forests, with additional smog, and erratic weather patterns.

We have now had 10 consecutive years of above-average temperatures. The winters of 2005 and 2006 were the warmest on record. 2006 overall was the second-warmest year on record in Canada.

So the evidence worldwide is being felt in Canada, and this is bringing home the issue to Canada.

I think, too, that people are worried about their children and grandchildren.

What my co-authors and I worry about, however, is that Canadians, having finally accepted that a problem exists, will fall for non-solutions portrayed as being effective.

That is why we take some care in the book trying to outline solutions that will work and to provide a "smell test" for voters to detect the ones that clearly won't.

Wayne Patterson, Toronto: Thanks, Mr. Simpson, for taking my question.

In the U.S., many states, such as California, are not waiting for the feds to take action. California has a robust plan to combat greenhouse gas emissions, which Ontario isn't prepared to match.

Why is it that Ontario isn't prepared to pick up the gauntlet, which Mr. Schwarzenegger tossed to Mr. McGuinty? [What about the other leaders in the Ontario election]?

Jeffrey Simpson: Climate change, alas, has been a non-issue in the Ontario campaign — in large part because the financing of faith-based schools has erased almost everything else.

Mr. McGuinty is protecting, he thinks, the car industry. He's wrong.

The Japanese government has already imposed on its domestic car manufacturers much more-stringent vehicle emissions targets. This means the Japanese manufacturers, already ahead of their North American competitors, will be further ahead with each passing year, so that in five years their products will be even more dominant.

The trick is to get ahead of the green wave, not lag behind it. Remember, too, that the Harper government has said it will follow California or other stringent regulations when the voluntary program of today ends. So Mr. McGuinty should get with the program.

Frank Curry: If Canada had met its Kyoto targets, or if Canada were to meet some other GHG target, the effect on global warming would be negligible. The only rational argument for such changes is that they would be an example to the world.

What evidence is there that major GHG emitters including the U.S., China, and India would follow Canada's possibly painful example?

Jeffrey Simpson: Frank, you've asked the cardinal question: Why do anything when Canada's emissions only amount to 2 per cent of the global total?

By that reasoning, Canada would roll up the oceans and forget about the rest of the world, since our contribution to anything will never be decisive.

If we had followed this logic, we would never had fought two world wars, we would never give foreign aid, we would not participate (except nominally) in the United Nations, NATO, the Commonwealth, APEC, the OAS or any other international agency.

That is where the logic of Canada as a two-per-cent contributor inexorably leads.

I don't think Canada wants to go there.

It will be difficult to persuade the countries you mentioned, and others, to accept responsibilities if we have not ourselves.

Also, if we saw this as an opportunity, as other countries have, we would understand what an immense economic opportunity presents itself in providing technology and services to these countries to clean up their environments, because as their people become more affluent, they will demand better environmental protection.

Witnesses the many public disturbances in China these last few years over environmental degradation.

Brent Beach, Victoria, B.C.: In talking with people somewhat uncommitted to the issue, I hear two reasons for inaction all the time.

First, Canada is only two per cent of the problem. Why should we do anything when India and China are polluting like crazy?

Second, the Liberals did nothing for nine years, so whatever Harper does it is better than they did, and must therefore be all right! This second contention absolutely prevents anyone from taking Dion seriously on Kyoto and [I believe] will ensure at least a Conservative minority the next time around.

Are there answers, or are the doubters right?

Jeffrey Simpson: Brent, my answer to the China/India question is above.

But I would add to it by speculating that what will happen after Kyoto 2012 is this: industrialized countries (including this time the post-Bush U.S.) will accept national targets, and the developing countries will accept intensity-reduction targets, with the understanding that in a decade or so they too will take hard targets.

R.C., Toronto: Mr. Simpson, you're absolutely right. Europe is ahead of us on coping with climate change — as I realized on a trip to Italy in the spring. What delighted me was the absence of oversized SUVs, the preponderance of small cars and a proliferation of motorskooters -- easy on gas and easy to park.

What will it take for North Americans to give up their SUVs to reduce emissions?

Jeffrey Simpson: R.C., the North American car manufacturers have compiled a very sorry record on emissions — the worst part of which was successfully lobbying the U.S. government to classify SUVS as trucks, rather than cars, thereby loosening vehicle emission standards for them.

Because SUVS were so profitable, the companies marketed them like crazy and because there was no price disincentive for their terrible emissions to purchase them, consumers did so.

The swiftest thing governments could do would be to declare three years hence that SUVs would have to meet car tailpipe emission standards.

What we argue in the book is that a carbon management regime has to imposed on vehicles. Companies will be given fleet emissions standards they must meet. If they don't, they pay a whopping big tax.

Each year, or every three-to-five years, the standard is lowered. It will be up to the companies to decide how to meet the standard, by which mix of vehicles and fuels.

Over time, this will transform the cars on the road into high-efficiency fossil fuel fleets with hybrids, electric cars and perhaps hydrogen-fuelled ones.

We are going to continue to live in a society in which vehicles will be the principal means of personal transit, but we can't accept the emission problems that these kind of vehicles cause.

Rob Wiebe, Gatineau, Que: Thanks for taking my question, Mr. Simpson.

First some context: I have several PDF documents regarding the creation of a North American Union by a global group of business elites. One of these documents is signed by John Manley, Thomas P. d'Aquino and other members of the CCCE, the group that recommended that Mr. Harper create a plan to address global warming.

The documents state that in order for the U.S.A. to ensure long-term "business as usual," a North American energy and emissions regime with aspirational targets and carbon trading with Mexico must be implemented by 2010.

Now my question: Are Mr. Harper's current pronouncements an indication that he is working with Mr. Bush to create such a regime or does he actually want to create a Canadian plan to address the climate crisis?

Jeffrey Simpson: Rob, I don't know which PDF documents you have, but I can guess because they are likely from paranoid left-wing conspiracy theorists who think a group of business people are plotting the disappearance of Canadian sovereignty and the hegemony of the United States on this continent and around the world — the kind of people who actually believe Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow.

The larger an emissions scheme's ambit, the better, since it gives firms the widest possible incentives to trade credits, which means to exceed targets. Thoughtful companies and governments are already thinking about this, as among California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Emissions, after all, know no boundaries.

Frank C., Toronto: [What are] Mr. Simpson's scientific credentials?

Since it's not mentioned in the introduction of this event, can you please clarify what is your scientific background? Have you received any training in sciences? If so, for how long? Have you had any experience on the field? I do not mean paper (diplomas, certificates), I am asking about your scientific knowledge and experience — theoretical and on the ground).

Now, if the two other authors of the book are scientists and you are providing the journalistic angle/language, then my questions would be: How long have you spent in the Arctic, or Beijing, or in the rain forest in Brazil, or any other place on Earth that are mostly causing or receiving direct impact from artificial global warming?

I can feel right here from Toronto that the patterns with our climate have changed drastically in the last 12, 15 years.

But conducting a deeper research in the most-affected areas in the globe would give a better understanding of the causes and how far are we from the solution.

I have not read your book as of yet and would appreciate your clarifications (before I get in line at the TO Public Library). Thank you.

P.S. It may not sound like it, but I enjoy a lot reading your columns in the paper. Thank you again.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: To our readers, Frank Curry, who also asked a question in this discussion, has written in after reading the transcript and wants to make it clear that the "Frank C." who wrote this question about Mr. Simpson's background is not the same person as Frank Curry.

Jeffrey Simpson: Frank, I'm not a scientist, never purported to be, never will.

Like you, I'm an interested observer who decided to read widely and try to sort through the issue based on listening to what people more-experienced than myself had to say, and to arrive at some conclusions.

I think that's what sensible people try to do on many issues.

I don't have a PhD in economics, although I have some familiarity with the basic tools of the discipline. I try to make sense of economic issues with all my limitations.

I mean since we all — as citizens or journalists — can't be experts in everything, we have to exercise our best judgment. That's what I have done.

The overwhelming evidence from scientists around the world — in contrast to the assertion of John Miller below — is that the earth is warming owing to human activity, mostly but not exclusively, because of the emitting of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

For those who deny the science, or who fulminate against it, such as John, there is very little that rational argument can do by way of convincing them.

There are creationists, Flat-Earthers, conspiracy theorists and all kinds of people who hold views that are not rationally tenable but they hold them with the unshakeable faith of true believers.

Happily in the field of climate change, they are dwindling in number — the evidence politically for which is that there is no political market for them or else a political party would be trying to capture it. None do any more because the market is so small.

And so those who now hold marginal views naturally blame the media for distorting the "facts," leading the public astray, failing to provide both sides of the story etc. etc.

There's nothing new about this line of thinking. It comes with the intellectual (if I might use that term) territory of those whose views are marginal, and are angry about it, but can't give them up.

John Miller, Grand Bend, Ont.: It's good that The Globe and Mail puts up an eminent climate scientist like Jeffrey Simpson to, predictably, dump on Harper. Surely this will advance the quality of climate change hysteria in Canada.

Regrettably, but not uniquely, The Globe has adopted climate change alarmism as an editorial position. No doubt your editors know what sells newspapers.

I will start paying attention to what you have to say about climate change when you start fairly reporting what people like Bjorn Lombourg have to say.

Until then, The Globe can go on preaching to the choir and ignoring the growing number of legitimate scientists who think the issue of human-caused climate change is vastly overblown by intellectually-dishonest journalists.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: In addition to what Jeffrey said above about Mr. Miller's "question," let me just add that Mr. Miller wrote the line that Jeffrey would "predictably, dump on Harper" almost an entire day before the actual discussion took place. We'll leave it to our readers to decide if that happened.

Jasmine Francis, Halifax: In your book, do you address the question of whether there anything that we, as individuals, can do to combat climate change? Or is it such a big issue that only governments and industry can take effective action?

Jeffrey Simpson: Jasmine, we do suggest ways that individuals can help, but I don't want to mislead you. Half of emissions are from large industrial emitters and about one-quarter from transportation vehicles. So that's where the big reductions lie.

Energy-efficiency improvements are useful, of course, but not determinate.

What we need to do is implement a suite of economic policies: a carbon tax, a market trading system for emissions, a carbon management standard for industry, vehicle emission standards, among other tools, that should be tightened as time goes on.

Individuals will then find many more products that will help them save energy and the planet.

John Robertson, Regina: What is your view of the purchase of international carbon credits? Is that a viable option?

Jeffrey Simpson: John, at the moment, most of the credits through the U.N. are going to China, so I don't think that's a surrogate for reducing emissions in Canada.

We send billions to China (and other countries) and don't do serious things at home.

Kyoto for Canada is dead. Get over it. We blew it. We cannot meet out Kyoto target of a six-per-cent reduction from 1990 levels by 2008-2012 without quite literally slamming the country into a huge recession, or foolishly sending billions of dollars offshore.

So we should admit our culpability and resolve to make up in post-Kyoto what we failed to achieve in the Kyoto Protocol period.

Be careful, by the way, about what Mr. Harper is saying. He says we should aim to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 from 2006 levels, forgetting that they have risen in Canada by 35 per cent of so since 1990. It really does matter what year we take as the base line year.

Frank C., Toronto: Mr. Simpson, from your experience as a journalist covering global campaigns against the warming of the planet, why do you think is that no one is talking about tackling [what I think is] the main cause of the artificial global warming, namely overpopulation of the only species causing this problem . . .

So, along with the message of "drive less, walk more, change the light bulbs in your home, do not use bottled water" and so on, why not start to say in global forums: "People, consider not having kids . . . or if you are planning a family, consider having one or two kids, instead of three or four or nine."

Put this concern out there and let people decide.

I understand the sensitivity of this issue in our country and in Europe, where birth rates are steadily low (possibly the reason no one is talking about it here).

But on the other hand, that would be an index where Canada would serve as a model to other nations, because we are already achieving that (as opposed to our Kyoto targets) Thanks!

Jeffrey Simpson: Frank, Thomas Malthus argued in the early 19th Century that since population grows exponentially whereas food supplies grow slowly, that massive starvation and deprivation loomed.

This was when the earth's population was about one-tenth of today's. Although there are hundreds of millions of people malnourished in the world today with a population of 6-billion and rising, the vast majority of the world's population is not.

I don't believe Malthusian predictions of impending gloom, of the kind repeatedly profeered by certain environmentalists, because they neglect the capacity of the human mind to invent and adapt.

You tend to find, of course, that as populations become more affluent, the number of children fall. So, no, I don't think this is going to help the climate change challenge.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Jeffrey, thanks again for joining us today to take questions from our readers. I'm sure they appreciate your insight and analysis. Any last thoughts?

Jeffrey Simpson: Thank you, Jim. Yes, a few final thoughts, after thanking those who sent along questions and those who might follow this discussion later.

We Canadians have not lacked for policy papers and political rhetoric about global warming.

The first policy paper was emitted by Prime Minister Mulroney. Prime Minister Chrétien's government emitted three, Prime Minister Martin's one, and the Harper government has produced two. We have also had seven action plans and the like — not one of which has worked.

Emissions have grown steadily throughout this period of Hot Air (the book's title).

The reason fundamentally has been that governments chose policies they thought would be the least politically controversial: subsidies, information/exhortation and voluntarism.

These policies have failed — here and elsewhere.

The only policies therefore that will work are those based on economics: the free-market guided by government regulations, that puts a price on carbon emissions and forces the market to adapt.

I am delighted that belatedly the Council of Chief Executives, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Lehman Brothers, Goldman-Sachs and other big business groups are now aboard, or nearly aboard, in this way of framing the issue.

We stand near a turning point on this issue, and I hope in a modest way that Hot Air — for those who are kind enough to read it — will provide a road map of learning from past mistakes and making real progress in future.