US Angered By Martin's Comments

Call by PM for US to listen to ‘global conscience’ riles US delegation, Bush

Yesterday at the UN Climate Conference in Montreal the PM said:

“To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say there is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it.” Prime Minister Paul Martin

Apparently Bush considers this the biggest slight against him since… the dawn of time.

An official with close contacts in the U.S. delegation said any hopes of drawing Washington into the process were killed when Martin pointed a finger of blame at the United States in a news briefing at the conference. “That was a big mistake,” said the delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity Thursday. He said the U.S. delegation, which is directed from Washington by Vice-President Dick Cheney, was deeply angered by Martin’s comments. Toronto Star

Given that the US position is being driven by Cheney, was there ever any hope that the US would have taken a meaningful step further on this file? Not a chance.

Outrage from the Bush administration is all for show; my only beef with Martin, on this issue, is not what he said as his comments were perfectly valid, but that he allowed himself to be set up as the scapegoat to take the blame for continued US intransigence on the climate change file.

In the context of an election, Martin likely knew exactly what he was doing and in that context his statement should be viewed as cynical and self-serving. Stirring the Canadian nationalism pot with a little anger from Bush can’t hurt Martin, on balance.

Canada’s performance on the climate change file is laughable too, and you won’t find Martin or anyone go too close to that issue during this election. Neither the Liberals nor we Conservatives have a decent story to tell on climate change; we Conservatives in particular are afraid to touch the subject, because the oil patch is so important to us in terms of moral and financial support from industry and employees of the industry, most of whom reside in Western Canada but also in Atlantic Canada.

Facts:

• In 2002, 20% of Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions came from the oil and gas industry, up from 16% in 1990.
• Upstream oil and gas production and natural gas transmission, which now account for 16% of Canada’s GHG emissions, saw their emissions increase by 56% between 1990 and 2002.
• Petroleum refining and natural gas distribution, which now account for 4% of Canada’s GHG emissions, saw their emissions increase by a more modest 17% over the same period.
• Total GHG emissions from Canada’s oil and gas industry rose by 47% between 1990 and 2002.

These are dated figures from the Pembina Institute—when the data is available for 2004 and 2005 we’ll see the trend and totals point to an even more dramatic increase. Over the next two decades many hundreds of billions of dollars are / will be spent to increase oil sands production from many hundreds of thousands of barrels per day to several million barrels per day, and there is no magic pill the industry can swallow to stop dead in its tracks the related rise in CO2 emissions.

Canada is the largest supplier of crude oil and petroleum products to the US bar none, and their dependence on Canada is only going to rise.

So when you look at US climate change statistics being bad but relatively better than ours, keep this in mind: their stats are only better because they are in effect “outsourcing” CO2 emissions to Canada and other petroleum exporting nations, as US domestic oil production continues to drop year by year.