Canadian Environmental Policy gets an American Flair
An infestation of the mountain pine beetle is killing entire forests of Canadian pine trees. Pacific salmon populations are declining and migrating to cooler waters. Polar bears are falling through thinning ice in the Arctic. Throughout Canada, habitats are changing due to global climate change.
If the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences predictions are correct, Canada will face extreme environmental changes by the middle of this century. Through CFCAS, 90 climatologists and oceanographers sent a letter on April 18 to the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. The letter urged Harper’s administration to develop an effective national strategy on climate change.
The letter listed the observed and predicted climate related effects on the environment. The foundation letter emphasized humans’ harmful role in global warming but acknowledged that humans still have time to adapt to changing conditions. The authors of the letter also urged the Canadian government to increase funding for climate change research in order to develop more adaptive strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Harper has not made climate change a national priority. A recent British Broadcasting Corporation news release said Harper is expected to take an ideological stance on climate change, similar to that of President George W. Bush, and is likely to end Canadian compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.
David Rossiter, assistant professor of human geography at Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment and the Center for Canadian-American Studies, said he would be surprised if Harper pulled Canada out of the Kyoto agreement, but thinks the prime minister will avoid meeting Kyoto emission reduction goals.
Don Alper, director of the Center for Canadian-American Studies, said the checks and balances of the Canadian government will not allow Harper to do anything too drastic. Opposing parties will pressure Harper’s minority government in Parliament not to ignore the environment entirely, Alper said. New concerns about political action on climate change are surfacing after weather patterns changed noticeably in the past year, bringing discussions on climate change to the political forefront.
Canada endured its warmest winter ever recorded last year, 3.9 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average temperature, according to Environment Canada. Climatologists remain inconclusive as to whether this is another effect of global climate change.
"A record high and future highs are consistent with the forecast for global warming. But you can’t attribute any particular pattern to global warming," said John McLaughlin, population biologist and associate professor at Huxley. "It’s a long-term trend. There is always variation within the trend."
Jack Hardy, a Huxley faculty member and expert on global climate change, said linking any one-year’s weather records to climate change is not scientifically sound.
"There are anomalies," he said, but added that the sharp increase in temperature is consistent with the general upward trend climate models continue to predict.
"This trend is unprecedented in its rapidity," he said.
Historically, it took thousands of years for global temperatures to increase 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Whitewood said now scientists predict it may only take a matter of decades to warm the globe the same amount. This warming is causing major ecological changes and environmental damage on a global scale, according to the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental advocacy organization.
The epidemic of the mountain pine beetle is spreading rapidly through forested parts of the country, resulting in massive economic and ecological damage. The spread of the mountain pine beetle has links to warmer temperatures, Whitewood said. More beetles survive to flourish in the summer when winter temperatures do not drop below a certain threshold. The warmer temperatures also make trees more vulnerable to the beetles, weakening their defense against disease and infestation, he said.
British Columbia’s Premier Gordon Campbell said the pine beetle epidemic is the worst natural disaster to ever hit Canadian forests, according to a 2005 news release from the Office of the Premier.
The warmer temperatures are also forcing Pacific salmon further upstream to spawn, reducing their chances for survival, according to CFCAS. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada declared four Canadian salmon species endangered due to significant population declines. Competition and predation are expected to increase as a result of a northward shift of various marine water species the salmon rely on for food. Possible migration delays are also anticipated due to reduced flows and increased temperatures.
The observed and predicted effects of climate change in the Arctic also have climate experts worried. Melting permafrost in the Arctic leads to an environmentally-damaging positive feedback loop, Hardy said. He said permafrost is like a rich organic soil, and as it melts, bacteria start to grow, breaking down the organic material and producing carbon dioxide. The increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in global warming, he said.
According to the letter to Harper, the continual melting of the permafrost could have both dire economic and ecological effects in the Arctic region. The authors predict that continued thawing of permafrost will damage infrastructure, roads, pipelines and buildings in the region, as well as to northern ecosystems and indigenous cultures.
Whitewood said climate models help explain why temperatures have been increasing. They show at least some of the warming is due to anthropogenic influences. According to the CFCAS letter, these influences exacerbate the effects of climate change. The authors emphasized the urgency to act on the threat of climate change and called for the Canadian government to develop future emission reduction strategies accordingly by furthering scientific research and implementing more effective national policies.
According to the David Suzuki Foundation, the Canadian government has allocated more than $5 billion Canadian during the past five years for climate change related programs. Despite these efforts, Canada is not meeting Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets. Oil and gas emissions have increased by 41 percent, electricity emissions have increased by 41 percent and road transportation emissions have increased by 31 percent since 1990, according to the foundation.
According to a speech given on March 31 by Rona Ambrose, minister of the environment of Canada, Harper intends to "move beyond the limitations" of the Kyoto Protocol. He plans to implement more effective environmental policies that will not have drastic repercussions for the nation’s industrialized economy, she said.
"In order to address climate change, it will take a great deal of innovation and technological development," McLaughlin said. "U.S. and Canada have a great capacity to be leaders in this advancement of technology."
But Harper openly opposes the Kyoto Protocol, saying Canada will not be able to cut its emissions to reach Kyoto targets, according to an article in the National Post, a Canadian newspaper. He advocates for a made-in-Canada approach that will more effectively reduce emissions. According to the press release, Harper recently cut 15 programs dedicated to Kyoto research.
According to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news release, Harper’s administration cut 40 percent of funding for climate change programs from the 2006 budget. Included in the cuts is the One Tonne Challenge, a program that advertises how individuals can make small lifestyle changes to conserve energy. The administration also cut financial support for 40 public information offices throughout the country and several scientific and research programs on climate change from the budget.
"We should become climate literate, and learn about how our individual activities affect the climate system," McLaughlin said. "We should ask ourselves how we can change our activities to benefit ourselves and future generations."