Coming full circle
Meg Hewings
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Waridel: Clock is ticking for planet Earth
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New climate change justice campaign launched at Journées québécoises de la solidarité internationale
A new ribbon campaign is being launched to raise awareness about the urgent need to implement global standards to halt climate change. Fittingly, the symbolic tag is a green circle.
Given the dire situation facing the planet and humanity, Laure Waridel, co-founder of Équiterre and spokesperson for the Journées québécoises de la solidarité internationale (JQSI), says citizens must make their voices heard. JQSI began Tuesday with a talk by Inuit environmentalist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, and other events include films, photo exhibitions and talks. All are meant to raise awareness in Quebec about the need to set widespread environmental standards at the upcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. "We are in a vicious cycle and have to act now to halt the destruction of the planet. The more we wait, the more difficult it will be to avoid huge catastrophe," says Waridel.
The Canadian government has "its head stuck in the tar sands," says Waridel. The theme of this year's event, which takes place Nov. 3-15 throughout Quebec, is global climate justice.
To date, the Canadian government has sabotaged global climate change talks, refusing to set new standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or move Canada towards a more sustainable economy. Canada's reputation on environmental issues in the international context is so bad, says Waridel, that on Oct. 12, the G77 (the developing nations of the world) left the room when our Canadian representative
spoke. No new development project will have as disastrous an impact on the environment and Canada's ability to set new emissions targets as the tar sands in Alberta. "The Conservative government wants to protect the tar sands project in Western Canada, where the party has voters and supporters. They don't see that the Canadian economy is not just the tar sands. If we don't take a green turn and move towards a more sustainable economy now, we won't be competitive at the global level in terms of jobs," says Waridel.
Externalizing the environmental costs of doing business in Canada has meant creating a crippling environmental and social debt, argues Waridel. "If we were to include the environmental and social costs of the tar sands, for example, we would pay a lot more [for our goods and services]. Add up the external and hidden costs of fuelling cars, or the subsidies given to the automobile industry, or the health and energy costs associated with urban sprawl, and they become significant. But these external costs aren't factored into GDP. It's been estimated that gas should really cost anywhere from $5.60 to $15.14 per gallon today. If citizens paid the true cost of gas, think of how it would change our approach and policy in regard to transportation and shipping."
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Green circle campaign
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A tireless advocate for fair trade and sustainable business practices, Waridel believes business in Canada wants to make changes, but needs policy guidance and strict environmental standards. "More and more private enterprise is making a shift. They see they have no choice. We've learned in various sectors of our economy that there is no economy without ecology. With fisheries, for example, we lose jobs, business and resources by not being sustainable in our practices. Same with forestry - by exploiting raw material rather than transforming and managing it sustainably, we've been wasting valuable resources. We no longer have a choice on these issues - either we become sustainable or we crash." Of course, environmentalists aren't the only ones sounding alarm bells about the pressing need to implement new green technologies and make economies more ecologically sustainable. The World Bank and the OCDE have both called for a green turn in the economy. "Europe is going that way, the U.S. too," adds Waridel.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz was recently mandated by French president Nicolas Sarkozy to analyze how we look at economic growth and to find alternatives. The Stiglitz report recommends that economic indicators stress well-being instead of production, and that non-market activities, such as domestic and charity work, be taken into account. He also insists environmental and social costs of economic growth be factored into new economic models, says Waridel.
"The economic crisis could have served as an opportunity to force the Canadian economy to place the emphasis on sustain[ability]. With all that money invested, we could easily have put conditions on grants... The government was so unprepared for this crisis that they panicked and launched programs with an old economic worldview of growth in mind."
Another factor setting back a global treatise on reducing the negative impacts of climate change is that developed nations like Canada aren't meeting their responsibilities, says Waridel. To change this would take ambitious emissions targets and a commitment to help the millions of people already affected by climate change. Currently, 20 million people are estimated to have been displaced because of draught, flooding and other problems directly related to environmental destruction.
"Developing countries are only responsible for 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, but scientists now know they assume 80 percent of the impact of climate change. One Canadian produces as much greenhouse gas as five Chinese. We have to do something quickly to stop wasting energy."
Waridel has asked that citizens who want to urge government and corporations to adopt ambitious new standards for emissions reduction, and implement environmental protection policy, wear the green circle as a symbolic gesture.
For more info on the green circle campaign or the Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale's 13th edition of JQSI, visit www.aqoci.qc.ca/jqsi2009.
