The Conservative government’s budget announcement has brought with it a decision to defund the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, which has been studying climate change in a Canadian context since 2000. Their office will now be closing by the end of the year.

New research often shifts the dialogue by showing the reality of the situation. A new report by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, for example, has shown Australians via the media that things are heating up in an already hot country, and that it’s not a good thing.

How does climate change stay afloat in the media without reporters finding stories from Canadian climate scientists? Media can’t find a friend in Environment Canada at the moment—well aside from staff leaks.

Canwest reported yesterday from a frustrated Environment Canada official with a document showing how the Federal government has been stifling senior climate scientists from speaking to the media. (This Magazine reported this, incidentally, way last summer.)

Media coverage of climate change science has dropped 80% in Canada, according to the source and a report by the Climate Action Network.

An email sent to Canwest from Environment Canada brass stated, “The new policy merely assures that communications with the media are co-ordinated, to achieve the goals set out above—namely, quick, accurate and consistent responses across Canada.”

But this information isn’t reaching the media. Journalists have been forced to submit written questions and wait for them to go through the chain. Story deadlines, however, don’t work like that, particularly in non-totalitarian countries where this isn’t the practice du jour. Media has grown tired and is being forced to turn away from federal research.

The government has created a two-fold mess of reducing the amount of quality research, and denying access to the rest of it. Media stories of the last week have focused on the overwhelming dry and warm winter experienced by much of the country. Thank higher beings there’s one man the Tories can’t silence, David Phillips, Environment Canada senior climatologist and perennial weather marketer. He called this Canadian winter “beyond shocking.” It may lead to “horrific water shortages, insect infestations and wildfires.”

But during a time of horrific effects from climate change, we need more than David Phillips. We need serious plans to drastically reduce emissions while planning to adapt to the effects all around us. The Conservatives aren’t coming close.

That ultimately poses the same question posed last week. Will the Liberal Party continue to support a budget and a government that does just the opposite?

We’ve marched, oh how we have marched.

The “get back to work” signs now find their place in the closet where dust has begun to flirt with the climate-themed “350” signs of October and December. The proroguing of Parliament has left the country with no ability to act on any sort of climate legislation (though that’s not so different than when it’s in session). We also now have the launch of a popular movement for democracy, based partly on a collective desire to deal with a whole raft of issues, the climate crisis being one.

A failure of international politics in Copenhagen and of democracy domestically has left a situation that is indeed bleak, though also provides time for activists, and all active citizens, to regroup. Journalist Murray Dobbin wrote last week: “These politically opportune moments do not arrive very often and it is incumbent upon existing organizations to rise to the occasion, support the nascent movement and begin gearing up their own machinery to take the fight to Stephen Harper and his government.”

We now have an election coming up—if not April, then at some point soon. But are we really that serious about firing Steve, as many rally signs had proclaimed?

Dobbin continues to ask if this democracy movement is about reform in itself or will it include the specific goal of ridding Canada of its current Prime Minister?

The big elephant in the movement is the political siloing of the non-Conservative activists. Diversity of voice often brings strength, but a split of support because of the partisanship of most of us in the movement continues to pose a problem within Canada’s electoral system.

The Conservatives’ drop in the polls due to shutting down Parliament and the prisoner abuse scandal has been sharp and pronounced. While without much in the way of advertised policy, the Liberals have managed an upswing in support, with the NDP, Greens and Bloc all down slightly in the New Year. The now two-party race for government is something to keep more than an eye on.

While progressives are split within many parties, the weakness in civil society institutions and movement organizations is also harming the cause. The environmental movement itself within Canada seems to have more and more organizations working on similar climate ends, and there even exists more than one coalition/umbrella type group that focuses on federal climate lobbying: Power Up Canada, Climate Action Network, Power Shift, and so on.

Perhaps this can be used to advantage. Three main strategies present themselves to guide us to the ultimate aim of reducing climate change emissions immediately and in the long-run.

• Some organizations may wish to stick it out, putting continued pressure and policy work on the international negotiating system leading to Copenhagen 2: Mexico City.
• Others must work on focused action that directs the removal of high-carbon sources to our atmosphere like coal plants, tar sands projects and industrial projects, which could reduce emissions quickly and may influence positive actions in other countries.
• The remaining organizations can concentrate on lobbying and coalition-building that focuses MPs and political parties to bring the climate agenda far forward in preparation for legislative debate and the next election.

Organizations working on these three objectives should be ready to support each others’ goals, each with a focus that could bring results – a multi-pronged strategy that may well bring success in at least one area.

We have a unique opportunity.It is largely up to the size and tact of citizens movements whether we let the government keep pushing the climate around or we push the agenda over the top.

Follow Stop Everything’s climate, political and action updates at: http://twitter.com/stop_everything

Naomi Klein giving the opening keynote at KlimaForum09, the alternative climate change conference underway in Copenhagen. Photo courtesy KlimaForum.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — The thread is being pulled on the climate talks here in Copenhagen, and the whole show is beginning to unravel. There are really several different conferences happening, and the cracks are showing.

The developing world has been so outraged by the proceedings in Copenhagen that the G77 leader, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, walked out of the conference last Friday in protest. “Things are not going well,” he said in the Politiken newspaper. “This conference will probably be wrecked by the bad intentions of some people.”

The eruption and divisions began last Tuesday when the Guardian leaked a document, called the “Danish Text,” that virtually back-rooms the climate summit to the rich and powerful. The document, that is perceived to have been a draft floated strictly to G8 countries by the Danish government, takes two steps backwards on the industrialized nations’ obligations to the developing world, and sidelines the entire UN climate negotiation process.

In response to this, The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) also on Friday protested inside the conference demanding their own draft treaty—a survival pact instead of what they called a “suicide pact.” They say that the 2°C being agreed upon by the Industrialized world would submerge many of the world’s Small Island States this century, and that instead 1.5°C needs to be the target.

“We are facing an emergency, a planetary emergency that affects everyone but first and foremost affects AOSIS,” said Dessima Williams, Chair of the AOSIS from Grenada.

Even if the Danish Text were ignored, there is an underlining sense in the conference halls that the summit is behaving more like a G8 meeting than an international negotiation.

Reasonability is the core of this issue: Responsibility to include the marginalized, responsibility to lower our emissions, responsibility to the people who will be most affected and who have contributed the least, the responsibility of politicians to recognize scientific realities.

But lack of responsibility is hindering this Copenhagen deal, potentially sabotaging the entire negotiation. Naomi Klein says that we are facing is a “climate debt,” a debt the Industrialized world needs to pay up to the developing world, as the Western World has created most of the problem with our climate and needs to take responsibility for it.

“It is after all Industrialized countries that have emitted 75% of the world’s greenhouse gases, yet 75% of the affects will be faced by the developing world,” said Klein in her opening statement at the alternative people’s conference in Copenhagen, KlimaForum09.

Some argue that the West is beginning to take responsibility. The announcement just before the climate conference began by the Obama administration gave some life to this debate, as the States offered a $10 billion dollar annual aid fund between the rich nations to the ones in need as of 2012. But is this really enough?

The World Bank says that developing states are facing costs of US$100 billion a year just to adapt to the current climate change situation we have created, while Climate Action Network US argues for $600 billion.

Somehow we found the money to bail banks out of a crisis they created, with the US mustering $700 billion and Canada $75 billion. So the question must be asked: where are our priorities? Averting the greatest man-made crisis? Or propping up the elites in a “disaster-capitalist” system?

No, the Developing world is not blameless. Many, like China and India, do not want to be restricted in the climate treaty with absolute reduction targets nor to curb emissions by 2020, which is part of the hindrance to these negotiations. But you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Though the west must be accountable to the countries that will face the brunt of the pains of climate change, it is now all of our problem so we all need to take responsibility for it. Until we do, we will not be ready to make a real climate treaty.

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and This Magazine’s resident eco-blogger. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors, and is the eco-correspondent to MTV News Canada.

I was sitting in my meditation practice working on quieting my thoughts when it hit me—religion could stop climate change.

Well perhaps it wasn’t such a stroke of enlightenment, as it was keeping my ears open.  In this style of Buddhism led by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thích Nhất Hạnh, the practice contains the reading of five trainings which guide meaningful living.  In a revised set of these precepts developed by the community of participants, the second of the five calls for personal action to solve a global problem: “I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and reverse the process of global warming.”

So explicit. No messing around. Why can’t our political leaders be so clear in their action? But it’s not just the Buddhists—let’s turn to the far right.

Evangelicals are making a stand on climate. And although there is not consensus within the community south of the border, youth from Christian colleges who met in Seattle three years ago released their own Declaration on climate change.

Back home the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada saw the environment as one of its top issues in the last election and implored people of faith to ask their candidates questions on global environmental protection.

“We were created by God along with all the other things and living creatures, and God created humankind to be stewards of His creation,” read their election kit.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops at the same time showed the same concern about our responsibility for the planet, and took the insight a step further, stating that the political choice between saving the environment and saving jobs “is a symptom of a profound imbalance between economic activities and the place of the human being in nature.”

In 2007 I attended a conference on world religions organized by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community that brought representatives from major religions together to ask what religion can do.

The examples within organized religion could clearly go on and on.

So if all of this support for climate action in the religious community, and of course much from science-loving atheists and humanists, why the lack of government action?

The climate movement has thus far failed to build coalitions that work.

Make no mistake, we’re doing a lot better than we used to.  The Climate Action Network Canada now counts labour, youth and feminist organizationss and quasi-religious/social justice groups like KAIROS as members and supporters.  But just “representing” millions on Canadians won’t cut it.

UBC forestry prof George Hoberg blogged that “Efforts thus far to use science-based arguments to motivate adults and the politicians responsible to them have generally not been successful in producing strong climate policies,” and that a wake-up call from youth to their parents may be the groundswell needed to succeed.

The youth movement, in concert with their older counterparts, must be a big, dynamic tent. If results are to happen in Canada through the democratic system, the challenge will be to connect and message the climate crisis (or its necessary strategies and outcomes) as a political issue that will resonate at the ballot box in a way that is has not yet done. We need millions of everyday folks writing in for action.

How do we mobilize the meditators and the church-goers and the workers and the bankers to care?  Maybe start with this: 1) think of the best way to talk about it and connect with coalition partners and 2) go out and talk. 3) Listen to what you hear back, and repeat until it’s done right.

Thousands of protesters convened on Parliament hill last Sunday as part of the 350.org International Day of Action on climate change. Photo via Paul Dewar's Flickr feed.

It was the largest lobbying event on climate change in Canadian history: thousands of Canadians from across the country united on Parliament Hill last Saturday as part of the 350 International Day of Climate Action to demand leadership on the issue. Yet our government will hold off on making its decision to prevent catastrophic global warming until after the Copenhagen Climate negotiations has already started.

“We’re going to Copenhagen with nothing,” said Hannah McKinnon of the Climate Action Network.

Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act, could be Canada’s most significant bill this decade. It is a private member’s bill that would ensure that Canada assumes its responsibility in preventing dangerous climate change. And instead of striking a strong position on climate change, we are sitting on the fence waiting for others to lead first. Until mid-Copenhagen where world leaders decide the next UN climate pact that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

But some say the bill has little chance of passing in Canada during Copenhagen. Partly this is because private members’ bills bear little weight in parliament. But more importantly it’s because Canada is not leading on the issue.  If anything, in global climate talks, we are increasingly gaining a reputation for sabotage and delay. Most recently, Canada publicly mulled the idea of scrapping the whole Kyoto-Protocol in Bangkok earlier this month and subsequently motivating the Group of 77 developing nations to walk out in protest.

Canada’s inaction is embarrassing, activist Lauryn Drainie says:

“Maybe Harper should just stay home for Copenhagen. It’s not our voice he is representing. We don’t need him there.” (To be clear: while Prime Minister Harper declared he is not attending Copenhagen, representatives from his government will be there, affecting the outcome of the negotiations.)

Currently, Canada’s plan on battling climate change falls short on what basic climate science calls for and the commitments made by some of the G8 countries in Italy last July: a peak in emissions by 2020 and 50-80 per cent emissions reductions by 2050. Our plan would actually put us above 2 per cent in GHG by the year 2020 and below 38-48 per cent by 2050, when compared to the 1990 levels needed (the time in history of stable carbon in the atmosphere). And somehow Canada will do this while increasing emissions with the carbon-intensive tar sands project. Which makes us a laggard, not a leader.

Despite Canada, there are signs of climate leadership: the Obama administration has spent US$75 billion to build a clean-energy economy – that’s six times more than Canada. The European Union is joining forces to reduce the most by 2020. Even China, who has been constantly tagged as a barrier to climate progress, announced policy measures to curb emissions at the New York climate talk last September.

Beyond the political arenas, strong global mobilization is taking place in civic life demanding a different direction for our planet. Last Saturday, the 350 campaign took place as a global demonstration in 181 countries with 5,200 events to unite the world around a solution — lowering our carbon emissions to 350 parts per million (that is 1990 levels, while currently we are near 390 ppm).

“[It was] the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history. People gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis,” a 350 statement said.

In Canada, despite media downplaying the numbers, there were nearly 3,000 Canadians united in Ottawa for the 350 event. Bringing together a diversity of people, faith-based groups, and numerous environmental campaigns including Power Shift Canada, the largest youth gathering on climate change in Canadian history.

But while many call for action, our government hides behind our relatively well-to-do economy and geographic size as a reason for holding Canada back in the most important issue of our time.

“The Canadian approach [to battling climate change] has to reflect the diversity of the country and the sheer size of the country, and the very different economic characteristics and industrial structure across the country,” Environmental Minister Jim Prentice, told the Globe and Mail.

“I have to take a realistic view that, given the amount of work that remains to be done, we’re running out of time,” he said, arguing that their should be climate commitments later, post-Copenhagen, by national leaders.

It is true, we are running out of time, possibly because of Canada’s shameful blocking in international climate affairs. But does this mean that we need more talking?. It’s time for less talk and more strides away from “thermageddon.”

“It’s not to late to seal the deal at Copenhagen for Canada,” said Geoff Green, a speakers at Power Shift Canada, who has seen the polar ice caps melting firsthand with his expedition group Students on Ice.

The House will reconvene on Bill C-311 on December 12, seven days before Copenhagen ends. There is still time for change.

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and This Magazine’s resident eco-blogger. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors, and is the eco-correspondent to MTV News Canada.