Jim Prentice Really Screws Up This Time

If you thought he bungled Indian Affairs and the Industry portfolio, hold on to your hats, because now that Prentice is in charge of the environment, we're in serious trouble.

Following his predessors, the environment portfolio has become more about protecting oil industry profits, and less about protecting Canadains and indeed the planet.

A lump of coal for Environment Minister Jim Prentice
December 10, 2008
By Matthew Burrows

Are Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s environment ministers cursed?

No sooner has Calgary-based environment minister Jim Prentice taken over from John Baird than Canada is paraded around the globe (again) as an environmental laggard by European NGOs as ministers gather in Poznan, Poland, for climate-change talks.

The two NGOs, Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe, published a report today (December 10), and it won’t make pretty reading for Prentice as he attends the United Nations Climate Conference that ends December 12. The bad press will last longer than the event.

The top climate-change performers are announced in the report’s conclusion: Sweden, Germany, France, India, Brazil, the U.K., and Denmark.

“The other end of the index is to be taken note of as well,” the report states. “Especially Russia, the USA, Canada, and Austria have worrisome results. Crucially, they performed poorly in their current emissions level, emissions trend, and in the evaluation of their climate policy.”

Only Saudi Arabia, in 60th place, finished below 59th-ranked Canada.

A year ago in Bali, then-environment minister John Baird was at it himself, when he refused to commit to specific greenhouse-gas-emission reduction targets when the current Kyoto targets expire in 2012. He was lambasted for this in many quarters, adding to the evidence that Harper’s environment ministers either are set up to fail and move on by an uncaring prime minister, or they are bizarrely incompetent.

The ebullient Baird was ostensibly inserted into the position due to the abject failure of Harper’s first environment minister, Rona Ambrose. Can all this be mere coincidence?

Echoes of Bali were present in Ambrose’s sorry tenure too, this time in Bonn in 2006. Canada was due to take a leading role in the talks until Ambrose talked down the Kyoto targets and almost talked Canada out of the talks altogether.

Our reward? U.K. environmentalist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot was so incensed that he boarded a plane for the first time in 18 months, flew to Ottawa and then travelled to Toronto and Vancouver. The Straight interviewed him about the whole trip and Canada’s role on the world stage.

In January 2007, Ambrose was removed from the file.
How long will Prentice last?

At Climate change conference, Jim Prentice faces widespread criticism against Canada
December 11, 2008

PEJ News - Joan Russow - Global Compliance Research Project - During the Conference of the Parties (COP) 14 on Climate change, the Canadian negotiating team, which is espousing the Harper Conservative minority government perspective on climate change, has had to face a barrage of well-placed criticisms against Canada. These criticisms are emanating from different states, from environmental groups, and from indigenous peoples. On December 11, the Hon Jim Prentice, the Minister of the Environment, addressed the conference of the parties and held a media Conference and conference call. Like Harper, he seems oblivious to criticism.

At the Media conference, he was asked about Canada’s position on the language related to the rights of indigenous peoples. The question arose because of press releases distributed and press conferences organized by the Indigenous groups. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz Executive Director, TEBTEBBA (Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education) Chair, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues had issued a statement on December 10, 2008:“It is with great sadness that today, the 60th Anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, some States have denied indigenous peoples of their rights at the 14th Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC.

This morning indigenous peoples were shocked to see the final version of the Draft Conclusions on Agenda Item 5: Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action, of the 29th Session of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). This Document (FCCC/SBSTA/2008/L.23) removed any references to rights of indigenous peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

This move was spearheaded by the same States (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA) which voted against the adoption of the UNDRIP by the UN General Assembly last 13 Sept. 2008.”Minister Prentice responded that there was no relationship between the negotiations on indigenous issues at the Conference on Climate Change in Poland, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) .

He added that the “UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was not universally agreed to. “Before asking my question, I pointed out that his comment was misleading because there were only three countries at the United Nations that refused to adopt the Declaration.

I pointed out that many organizations were criticizing Canada and I referred to Canada’s receiving the fossil awards for obstructing the progress of the negotiations, and specifically for refusing to accept the 1990 baseline for C0 2 emissions.

I added that Canada had also been criticized for advocating that Nuclear Activities” should be included in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) , and of course for refusing to support the inclusion of “indigenous rights” language in the document.

I then asked him if he felt uncomfortable claiming to represent Canada when his government essentially had lost the confidence of the house, when his party represents less than 40% of the electorate, and when the other three parties, representing over 60% of the electorate, voted in the 2007 parliament to support Kyoto and stronger measures to address climate change.

He responded that he did not feel uncomfortable and he had spoken with numerous groups, and he was abiding by the principle of constructive engagement and balance, and listed a number of other principles. In my follow-up question, I noted that he had ignored other principles related to the environment and to compliance, and I pointed out that Canada had signed and ratified the Framework Convention on Climate Change and that in Convention, 1990 was deemed to be the baseline.

He responded that the environment principles were included in the principle of Balance. It had been reported earlier that, in an interview, Prentice had indicated that the economy would trump the environment.

He was dismissive of a number of the NGO reports such as Germanwatch that ranked Canada second to last in climate change policies:Prentice said that he would caution people to acknowledge that just because one environmental group characterizes the record of the government of Canada in one way, doesn't mean that is the reality, and he suggested that the Germanwatch group does not rank policies according to objective standards.... When asked if Canada might be persuaded to modify some of its polices such as moving closer to the 1990 baseline, he was evasive.