Victoria, Wednesday December 14th

Well, it is five days since the big COP-11 climate conference ended, and the world's media has moved onto other things. The overall conclusion is that it was a surprising success, and that the USA, which had hoped to kill Kyoto, was completely sidelined by the rest of the world's nations.

When the US delegation pulled out of the talks in a fit of pique, they miscalculated badly. Their walk-out ran to bad media in the US, and then along came Bill Clinton saying that they were "flat wrong" to claim that Kyoto would harm the American economy.

Meanwhile, every aspect of the conference ended up as good as anyone had hoped for, so now we can progress, and start making serious plans.

I went to Montreal as someone who is very knowledgeable about the science of climate change and sustainable energy solutions, and as author of the book Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change (New Society Publishers, 2001). When it came to the legal clauses of the Kyoto Protocol, however, I was a stranger in a strange land, where I did not know the language. In the early days, when the NGO leaders asked, "Shall we combine the 3.9 group with the 9.2 group?", I had to scramble to know what they meant.

The NGO Community is Super-Organized
The global Climate Action Network (www.climatenetwork.org) has over 340 NGO members, offices in 13 countries in the world, and its leaders are really well organized. They know each other, and many have been to COP conferences before. They know the ropes, they know how to work together, and they know what they want. Canada's participation in the Network (www.climateactionnetwork.ca/e/) is equally well organized.

But just how well they were organized did not become apparent until after the COP was ended, when Canada's Louise Comeau circulated a confidential strategy chart which listed seven areas where results were needed. For each area, there were four columns headed: "Totally Unacceptable" - "Unacceptable" - "Tolerable" - "Ideal". This is exactly how leadership should proceed. You do your homework in advance, and become totally clear what you want. Then you go out and get it. The NGO leaders had smaller groups of people working on each of the core areas, gathering intelligence from the progress of the talks, and lobbying when they found a way in.

The main talks on the 5th floor of the Palais were closed to all except the official national delegations, but the Canadian government went out of its way to include 26 people from the NGO community in its official delegation (as well as 26 people from the business community), and other countries (except the USA) probably did the same.

It was interesting to observe how the science of climate change has really sunk in, compared to, say, three years ago. There seemed to be a widespread understanding that the prospects of future climate change were alarming and scary, except among the American government delegation and the right wing US business organizations that with them. It is this grasp of the danger that we are in that is driving acceptance of the need for targets such as 30% by 2020, and 80% by 2050.

It also became really apparent that we all have to embrace these goals: individuals, schools, colleges, businesses, cities, states, and provinces, as well as national governments. Our provincial government here in BC has produced a climate change plan (see www.env.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/cc_plan/actions.html), but it has no goals, no targets, and very little substance. It could quite happily drift in the basement of some building and not re-appear for fifty years, for all that the government seems to care. (With apologies to the two or three civil servants who are very keen to see more happen).

But Where is BC?
It was because BC has not set any short-term or long-term targets that Barry Penner, BC's Minister of the Environment, refused to sign the Declaration of the Federated States and Regional Governments on Climate Change that was signed by the governments of Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Bavaria, Brussels, California, Catalonia (Spain), Maine, New South Wales, Scotland, South Australia, Upper Austria, Vermont, Wallonia (Belgium), and Western Cape (South Africa).

The Declaration (see www.mddep.gouv.qc.ca/air/leaders/Declaration_en.pdf) has a list of blank spaces where there was supposed to be a signature, which includes British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Victoria (Australia), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Connecticut.

But wait: it gets worse.

What are BC's Cities Doing?
Here in Canada, the FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities) has a great program called Partners for Climate Protection. It has been going for probably at least ten years, and 129 cities have signed on. For the details, see http://kn.fcm.ca, and click on Partners for Climate Protection.

The program has five milestones that each community has agreed to pursue:

1. Create a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and forecast
2. Set an emissions reductions plan
3. Develop a local action plan
4. Implement the local action plan or a set of activities
5. Monitor progress and report results.

Here in BC, there are 39 participant communities:
24 have passed Milestone 1
8 have passed Milestone 2
4 have passed Milestone 3
2 have passed Milestone 4
0 have passed Milestone 5.

What is Victoria Doing?
The City of Victoria, which joined the program at least 8 years ago, has not even reached Milestone One. Nor has the District of Saanich, which joined around 5 years ago. The only communities we can be proud of are the City of Vancouver, the GVRD, North Vancouver, Whistler, Langley, and Prince George. In Alberta, both Edmonton and Calgary have proceeded past Milestone 5. This is embarrassing!

Even with these commitments, most are only for their own internal municipal operations: not for the community as a whole. Only seven of the 39 community have begun to tackle their community-wide goals, and of these, only Vancouver has made it to Stage Three, with its Cool Vancouver process (see www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/sustainability/coolvancouver).

This presents a real challenge, especially to the Victoria Chapter of the BCSEA: we've got to get Victoria on board. We've got to get the City to pull the documents out of whatever basement they have gotten lost in, where they are slowly gathering mould. There's a new council, and Mayor Alan Lowe wants Victoria to be one of the world's most livable cities, that takes sustainable development seriously. So we've got to do it.

30% reduction by 2020 and 80% reduction by 2050 for the whole community. That's the new game in town. We've really got to get onto it. Watch for more from the BCSEA on this, soon!

What is London Doing?
The City of London, which joined the new C20 Climate Group of big cities at the World Cities Leadership Summit this October, has set the goal of 20% below 1990 for greenhouse gases by 2010; and 60% below by 2050.

At COP-11, they participated in a side-event where Nicky Gavron, the Deputy Mayor, explained that they have set a further goal of obtaining 10% of their energy from renewables by 2010, 30% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. Their new independent, for-profit, part community-owned Climate Change Agency wants to see one Zero Carbon Development like Dockside Green built in every London borough by 2010. By establishing the daily Congestion Charge of $8 for cars entering the city centre (except hybrid and alternative fuelled vehicles), they have reduced the number of cars entering the centre by 30%, seen an 18% drop in traffic, a 40% increase in the use of transit, and reduced their transport CO2 emissions by 19% since 2000. The income from the Congestion Charge goes into transit and alternative travel modes. It just makes sense, and 2/3rds of Londoners support it.

In Closing
The world has just taken a giant step forward. We have left the era of denial and foot-dragging, and entered the fast lane. From now on, and for the next 25 to 50 years, we will need to make a huge, dynamic, exciting energy transformation, as we leave the Age of Oil, and enter the Solar Age. The game is finally on, to see if we can move fast enough to slow down the pace of our emissions, and then reverse them, in time to step the worst of the coming disasters.

We're in action! If you are not already a member of the BC Sustainable Energy Association, please join us. We are helping to lead the charge, and we need all the help we can get. For details, see www.bcsea.org/getinvolved

Many thanks for your feedback while I've been writing this blog. I'll take a short break, and then return to it as I feel inspired; you may see other BCSEA Directors taking their turn here too.

Best wishes,

Guy Dauncey
President, BC Sustainable Energy Association
Back at home is cozy Victoria
www.bcsea.org