This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some things I’ve learned this week that I don’t think I could have gotten from just following the news coverage from back home.

Canada’s international reputation really is very damaged. That’s not eco-spin or a partisan jab, it’s the reality on the ground. You can see it in people’s eyes when you introduce yourself as Canadian, and hear it in their voices as they ask how we went so wrong. I now understand first-hand what George Monbiot meant when he said that Stephen Harper risks doing to Canada what George Bush and Dick Cheney did to the United States. By the end of the week members of the Canadian Youth Delegation had actually sewed American flags onto their backpacks.

Speaking of youth, they really are having an incredible impact. I’d wondered if reports of youth influence was just pandering, but the members of the youth delegation I saw in action are truly some of the most engaged, intelligent, passionate, and affective people here.

Despite claims by some of the government’s defeatist defenders (“Canada isn’t significant enough to have an impact on the talks anyway”), Canada could have taken a major leadership position at this conference. I’ll point to two pieces of evidence. First, an account of the Rio climate talks told by Jean Charest at a press conference Wednesday morning (and confirmed by former MP David MacDonald, who’s traveling with me and was in government at the time), at which Canada was the first G7 country to sign the deal at a critical moment, convincing others to follow. Second, the fact that countries like Tuvalu and Maldives have dominated this conference due to their strong leadership, and despite their extremely small size.

There are lots of easy obvious things we could be doing that Copenhagen and other European cities take for granted. Escalators and hallway lights are all motion activated. My hotel room has a “master switch” by the door that lets me turn off all the power in the room before I leave. All toilets have two flush options. I bought a drink of Gløgg at an outdoor stand and put a deposit down on the cup, then got the deposit back by returning my cup to an automated station. All simple ideas we seem to have not even considered.

People who live in Copenhagen are hard core. It’s freezing, it’s night time, there’s snow on the ground, and they’re still cycling around the city in large numbers. And they look like they’re enjoying it.

Out of the full hour, here’s five minutes I put together for the United Church of Canada’s YouTube channel.

Downtown I received reports that protesters were violently clashing with police, and I could hear and see helicopters hovering over the center seven kilometers away. By early afternoon sirens were sounding throughout the city core as well, and police started shutting down sections of streets and stores. A local woman named Anna Sophia told me that people who live in Copenhagen think of it as a small town. Now this town is growing up quickly.

Aside from the frustrations around access, it’s also becoming clear that the national governments gathered here are not going to reach an agreement that satisfies the unflappable demands of our best science. The new buzzword to emerge, therefore, is “sub-national.” As in, regional and municipal governments all around the world are going to have to pick up the slack and get to work. Yesterday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (perhaps you’ve heard of him) called for formal talks between these “sub-national” governments, and offered his state as a venue. This morning, I attended a press conference where the premiers of Quebec, Nova Scotia and B.C. and the ministers of the environment from Ontario and Manitoba were congratulated by environmentalists on the leadership they’ve shown. In accepting the award, Jean Charest offered “reassurance” that by no means would they take this as a sign that everything they’re doing is great, nor are they under the impression that there isn’t a lot more work to be done. Still, it’s an encouraging start.

That’s where I’m finding hope in these final days. When things fall apart and the central governments cannot hold to their responsibilities, more local governments can and will step in. At a Canadian reception this evening, I had a number of conversations with elected leaders and activists about the possibilities for Toronto to take a leadership position not only in Canada but on the international stage. Those conversations and ideas solidified my growing excitement about what the Toronto government could and should do to move our city into the future.

Photo by kk+ from the Copenhagen Flickr pool.

Initially impressed

The purpose of the meeting is for Martin to update on how talks are going and to take questions and comments from those in attendance. The discussion contained a lot of detail and all of the acronyms you can expect at a UN meeting (REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, AWG-KP refers to the Ad hoc Working Group on further commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol, etc). I was initially impressed both with the knowledge displayed by the NGOs asking questions and by the detail of Martin’s answers. What also impressed me was that comments and opinions were explicitly welcomed. When a labour leader asked a question about a particular component of an agreement, Martin’s response was to say that he wasn’t yet familiar with the specifics but would welcome input on what Canada’s position should be.

In this way, Martin comes across as (and I think likely is) a dispassionate reasonable person, trying to do the best job he can and genuinely open to input from civil society. The catch is that this only applies to the micro level of a negotiating position that is flawed at the macro level.

I’m sorry, your question cannot be answered as asked

Leave it to members of the Canadian Youth Delegation to shine a light on that contradiction. (I hope it won’t come across as patronizing or pandering when I say thank goodness the youth delegates are here and making their voices heard. I’m witnessing first hand their intelligence, commitment and tenacity.) Devon Willis, a student at McGill University in Montreal, pointed out that at Monday’s briefing the room was full of “professionals, academics, workers, farmers, youth, students” and “representatives from indigenous communities and arctic communities.” In other words, she said, “all Canadians are concerned about this issue…it’s not a particular interest group that can be shoved away and not addressed.”

I smiled as I realized where she was going with this. Her question was, since groups from all over Canada are represented and expressing support for stronger action at these talks, “which Canadians are being represented in the position that Canada has taken at this conference, specifically?”

That’s the kind of question that Martin can’t touch. “You’re posing a political question and I’m not the guy,” he said, inadvertently drawing attention to the fact that “the guy,” Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice, does not make himself available to us for questions. “My role as chief negotiator is to work with government, provide advice, help develop options. When the government makes decisions on positions then it’s my job to represent those positions.” He’s not wrong, of course, but personally I couldn’t tolerate being in his position. There comes a point where “just doing my job…just following orders” isn’t a good enough defence.

Opacity level rising

No one is available to answer your question. Please try again later.

Willis’ next question, a good one in my opinion, was about the dwindling numbers of NGO delegates who are allowed to enter the Bella Center where these meetings take place. Out of tens of thousands of people, by Thursday only 1,000 will be let in. By Friday that number will be reduced to 90. “Is there an alternative meeting place we can have so we can keep this dialog open?”

Again, that wasn’t Martin’s problem. “We don’t control the conference and it is true we are getting into crunch time,” he said. “I cannot offer you a different option at this meeting than this one. It’s just a constraint of the organization. I’ll be ready to meet here at 8am with those who are able to have access.” Transparency of the process, which is withering fast, is not the government’s concern.

The CBC bombshell

Another member of the youth delegation, Caroline Lee, brought up the topic that’s generating the most buzz today, a report that says Canada is poised to abandon some of their already week emission reduction goals. Its being seen as proof that Canada has no intention of meeting its own targets and is therefore negotiating in bad faith. Lee knew that Martin wouldn’t address the political dimensions of the report, so she took a different tact, trying to ask him a question he should be able to answer. “How does [this report] affect Canada’s credibility in a forum like this where both developed and developing countries are ramping-up ambition, taking stronger action on climate change, and Canada’s position appears to be moving backwards?”

“First,” Martin said, “the government has made clear what its 2020 target is and we have made clear that we are working to put in place the policies and measures that will achieve that target.” Well, ok, there isn’t any objective third party in Canada that would agree that’s true, but go on. “The second part relates to we are seeking both for reasons of environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency to align and harmonize our approaches with those of the United States.” Sounds good if we weren’t, in reality, already behind the United States’ inadequate progress.

Moving on

30 minutes had passed and Lee’s question was declared the last. Out in the hall the Canadian Youth Delegation knew they had been intentionally stonewalled. They don’t blame Martin; they recognize that Jim Prentice has placed him in the middle as a barrier between himself and citizens. NDP MP Linda Duncan, who was also in the briefing, tried to offer them some words of encouragement and affirmed that they were asking the right questions.

Now, the youth have turned to direct action. As I write this they are organizing a “lie-in” to take place inside the Bella Center. The point is to “express that the Canadian government has LIED to us, and we are unsatisfied with current emissions reductions target.”

This post has been scheduled to go live at the moment the lie-in begins (updated at 10am EST with the photo of the lie-in). Photos by me and my iPhone. Opinions expressed are my own and not those of any other organization or group.

You might expect that a planning failure of that magnitude would be greeted with frustration, but so far I’ve witnessed very little. Instead, everyone I’ve met seems determined to contribute as positively to the process as they can, whether within the official conference or without. We’ll see how long that lasts, however. We’re talking about people from well-established NGOs who have traveled from all over the world to be here and who have gone through the proper registration process only to be turned away. Fewer observers will be admitted every day this week. According to one report by Friday only 90 people from NGOs will be let in. 90. Out of tens of thousands. It could get tense.

Climate change you can believe in

The context of the conversation that’s taking place in Copenhagen is entirely different from that in North America. Instead of arguing about if climate change is a real and serious concern or predicting future consequences if we don’t act, the narrative here is that dangerous climate change is already a reality.

At a powerful ecumenical service yesterday led by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, three choirs from three corners of the Earth brought with them symbols of how climate change is affecting their lives: rocks uncovered from melting glaciers in Greenland, dead, bleached coral from the Pacific ocean, and dried up maize from Africa.

Today I listened to a man from the island nation of Tuvalu, which is emerging at this meeting as a symbol of why we must act. The highest point in Tuvalu is 4.5 meters above sea level. In other words, unless we aggressively reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this nation will slip beneath the waves. Negotiators from Tuvalu have been strongly pushing for tough, binding targets in plenary, and the tiny state has captured the imagination of many of the NGO delegates, particularly the youth.

Through this lens, the Canadian government’s pathetic non-participation in the negotiations is seen as not just embarrassing, but cruel. The world’s poorer countries believe they are already suffering, and that people are already dying, because of the actions of the world’s richer countries. For them it is as if the United States, Canada, and Europe are turning a giant tap that slowly drowns them while they cry out in vain. The immorality becomes blatant and blaring. And yet they continue to chose hope over anger; it’s remarkable.

Explaining Canada

One thing that does unite representatives from European countries and the countries of the south is their complete shock, dismay, and confusion at the role that Canada is playing. Whereas most developed countries are promising emissions reductions in the range of 20-40% below 1990 levels, Canada is offering a 3% reduction. Whenever I’ve told that to someone they’ve assumed they’ve misheard me; it’s unbelievably poor.

So then I get into conversations about the fact that the majority of Canadians support action, that the vast majority of Canadians voted for parties that support taking action, etc. Not that that’s much consolation. Still, I feel like it’s one of my more important roles to help people understand how Canada’s gone so wrong, and how so many of us are working to make it better.

Waiting for Obama

According to Bill McKibben of 350.org, who spoke earlier today at Klimaforum, the parallel “people’s summit,” there is a team from MIT here in Copenhagen with powerful computers. Their job, at the end of each day, is to look at all of the commitments that countries have offered that day and calculate how many parts per million of carbon that would mean for the atmosphere. Before the industrial revolution that number was around 280ppm, anything above 350ppm is unsafe, and today we’re at approximately 380ppm. According to the MIT projections, if an agreement were signed today as-is we’d be on our way above 700ppm. “If that isn’t literally hell,” McKibben said, “it would look a lot like it.”

In other words, we’ve got a long way to go. And so, a lot of hope rests on the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday. At lunch yesterday we quipped, “when he walks into a room everything just gets fixed, right?” The statement was 70% joke and 30% willful delusion.  “Oh, you’re Canadian,” our American friend said. “You still believe that. We know better.”

Back at Klimaforum, McKibben predicted that Obama would likely make a beautiful speech, but that no speech was beautiful enough to alter the scientific and moral imperative to begin reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 at the latest. “The laws of nature will not be swayed by Barack Obama’s oratory,” he said, “but they would be swayed by his action.”

All pictures by me and my iPhone

Wow wow wow - this photo is of historical masses. Biggest climate change demonstration in history. - @ZoeCaron on Twitter

I arrived in Copenhagen this morning after an all night flight with a connection in Frankfurt. We went straight from the airport to the Bella Center [sic] to register for the conference, which involved standing in the cold for what felt like hours and then going through airport-style security. (Success, I now have my photo ID delegate badge.) From there to the hotel and a resturant for food, and that’s all I’ve done today.

At first, Copenhagen struck me not as a city but as a United Nations theme park. From the moment you get off the plane everything is related to this 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. All the ad spaces have been purchased (many featuring aged renderings of our leaders in 2020 looking regretful that they didn’t reach a deal) and there is a gauntlet of people wishing to welcome you with conference-related flyers, not unlike walking down the strip in Los Vegas (though decidedly more family-friendly). The warm welcome/assault continues all the way from the airport, via transit, to the Bella Center.

However, once we got away from the Bella Center and into the city core (where our hotel is) I saw reassuring glimpses of Copenhagen carrying on as usual, biking around in sub-zero temperatures and generally being charming.

It took me awhile to calculate how many hours I’ve now been without sleep. The answer is 30. I blame the delayed calculation partly on the time change, and partly on the answer to the equation itself.

I have one more event to make an appearance at tonight, then I’ll go to sleep and wake up tomorrow perfectly synced with Central European Time, aka GMT+1.

Meanwhile, as I sit here in my hotel room trying to regroup, the above photo is what’s happening outside. It’s the largest climate demonstration ever, and through my window all I hear is every church bell in the city ringing like crazy.

KAIROS members at a climate rally at Queen's Park in Toronto on October 24, 2009

KAIROS is a Canadian NGO which, among other things, provides international assistance and does human rights work in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central America. It is internationally recognized and respected and, either directly or through its predecessors, has been receiving federal funding since 1973. On Monday, KAIROS found out via a brief phone call from CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) that their long-standing and effective partnership with the federal government had come to a sudden end. No specific reason was given.

The lack of official explanation from the government has forced others to speculate. News reports point out that some recent activities of church-based KAIROS aren’t exactly great ways to get onto Stephen Harper’s Christmas list:

Later this week, a KAIROS delegation is to travel to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen to help lobby for an agreement that would include substantial cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

Last May, a KAIROS delegation toured Alberta’s oil sands region to see how massive projects are affecting aboriginal people and to determine if the operations are environmentally sustainable.

The group met separately with officials from the four main federal parties in Ottawa last week and called for greater action on climate change and for a halt to new oil sands projects.

“We basically told our concerns about climate change and we thought it would be important for Canada to be represented [in Copenhagen],” Ms. Corkery said.

“In terms of the oil sands, we asked for a halt for new approvals – not to stop anything that is happening, but that there would be a halt to new approvals.”

Last year, KAIROS published a position paper that questioned the amount of taxes Ottawa allows the oil sands industry to defer on the capital cost of projects.

Is there a connection? It seems clear that the decision was made at the political level:

The KAIROS contract that just expired received a positive audit and excellent CIDA evaluation this year. KAIROS submitted its new program proposal for 2009-2013 to CIDA in March 2009. It went through a lengthy approval process within CIDA up until the Minister’s level and has been waiting for approval from the Minister since July 2009.

Maude Barlow, who points out that KAIROS has a long history of promoting human rights and sustainable environmental policies in developing countries, says “I believe that Kairos is being punished for taking a position on the eve of Copenhagen and on the tar sands. I think this is a declaration that they are not welcoming any criticism. They offended the agenda of the Harper government.”

In other words, this could be a shot across the bow for other NGOs as well: Canada only has one party line now, and it must be toed.

Similarly, others speculate that the funding may have been cut to make way for another international project that Le Devoir calls Harper’s “héritage politique.”

Whatever the reason, it’s a tragically damaging decision. “KAIROS has a long and rich history of advocacy and has been doing incredible work on behalf of those in need for decades,” says NDP MP John Rafferty. “There is simply no justification for bankrupting such a respected organization whose work should be supported and promoted by our government.”

In my opinion it would be a good use of your time to contact Bev Oda (full contact info, or send her an email) to ask her why this decision was made with such little ceremony (KAIROS Executive Director Mary Corkery writes, “I know of no precedent for the Canadian International Development Agency ending a decades-long funding relationship with a major Canadian organization without notice in writing, with no reason and no transition plan“) and, if you oppose the decision, tell her so. It wouldn’t hurt to write or email your MP as well. The folks at KAIROS would appreciate it if you would CC your correspondence to them as well. Thanks so much.

Chris Tindal and Mardi Tindal with George Monbiot in Toronto. To the left of the frame, John Ralston Saul and R.H. Thompson may have gotten a bit shoved out of the way.

I went to hear George Monbiot speak on Saturday in Toronto, and was excited to see that he was there in person. Monbiot is one of the best (and best-known) climate change journalists in the world. A few years ago he swore off flying because of its impact on our planet, and since then has made most of his appearances via video conference. He is physically in Canada this week, however, because our “government’s behaviour in the (UN climate) talks is so destructive and the development of the oil sands is so damaging to global efforts to prevent climate breakdown” that he felt compelled to pay us a visit.

Monbiot’s message for us is blunt. He emphasizes that he really likes the Canadians he’s met and that he finds us to be very sensible, but that “the distance between ordinary Canadians and those who define your reputation on an international stage is an enormous gulf.” Our government’s actions are causing so much “shock and revulsion” internationally that “Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice threaten to do as much damage to your international standing as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to that of the United States.”

His concern is both regarding our behaviour at UN climate talks and our increasing production of dirty oil. The “oil curse” is not only bad for our ecology, he says, but our democracy. International examples show that dependence on oil “brutalizes a nation…it creates a political class that owes its existence to a primitive and destructive industry.” The process has already started, Monbiot says. “No one can quite believe that this prosperous country is treating its aboriginal peoples like Nigeria treats the Ogoni of the Niger Delta.”

Read his plea to Canadians in today’s Globe and Mail: Please, Canada, clean up your act

ps. I will add that all of this has a flip side. If we do clean up our act and provide leadership, we can, as Stephen Lewis says, quickly restore our reputation on the international stage while simultaneously strengthening our domestic economy by becoming more efficient and competitive. That’s our choice: lead of follow, help or hurt, become renowned or repudiated.