Under the previous Liberal government, Canada played an international leadership role in the fight against climate change.  How did Canada fall to its current status as international climate change pariah in such a short period of time?  Here’s how:

January 2006. Canada’s Conservative government is elected.  Stephen Harper becomes Prime Minister.  The Harper government cuts or freezes up to $6 billion in environmental programming upon coming into office.

May 2006. Canada becomes the only Kyoto signatory to publicly renounce its Kyoto targets and reject emissions trading when Environment Minister Rona Ambrose claims Canada would have to ground every train, plane and car in the country to meet its target. 

May 2006. Conservatives vote against a motion in Parliament to commit Canada to honour its Kyoto commitments.  The motion passes.

May 2006. Leaked documents confirm Canadian negotiators at the COP conference in Bonn, Germany, are instructed not to support attempts by other countries to set deeper emission-reduction targets for the post-2012 Kyoto period.  Instead, Canada wants voluntary targets to replace the legally binding targets in the climate change accord.

October 5, 2006. Environment Minister Rona Ambrose says Canada will not participate in an international carbon market nor will it use public money to buy carbon credits in lieu of meeting its Kyoto targets. 

October 19, 2006. Minister Ambrose introduces the Clean Air Act, which sets intensity based targets for greenhouse gas reduction of 45-65 percent of 2003 levels by 2050.

December 2006. Prime Minister Harper fires Allan Amey, a special environmental advisor appointed by the former Liberal government to kick-start Canada's attempts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto accord.

February 8, 2007. New Conservative Environment Minister John Baird reiterates the government’s position to a Parliamentary committee that Canada will not participate in a foreign carbon market.

March 2007. A Special Parliamentary Committee finishes revamping the Clean Air Act. The amended legislation includes a domestic cap and trade plan with hard caps that sets a price of $20 to $30 per tonne, with targets for greenhouse gas reductions in line with Canada’s Kyoto obligations. The act also sets out new fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. The Bill dies when the Harper government refuses to bring it back, as amended, to the House of Commons.

April 2007. Environment Minister John Baird tables “Turning the Corner,” the Harper government’s second environmental plan in six months.  This plan calls for emission reductions of 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020, and between 50-65 percent by 2050. Every independent analyses of the plan finds that it lacks the  capacity to meet its own targets.

June 2007. Prime Minister Harper supports President Bush’s unexpected proposal to host talks involving the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases to discuss long-term strategies for combating climate change. Bush’s plan, announced on the eve of the G8 conference that year, was met with mixed reviews among European leaders, some of whom saw Bush's move as an attempt to sidestep Chancellor Merkel's  call for an international agreement on tough new emissions-reduction targets.

June 2007. Prime Minister Harper says, “Canada has an ambitious plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, over the next 13 years, our targets are more ambitious than those of the European Union.” This statement fails to impress world leaders, including Chancellor Merkel who criticizes Harper for abandoning Canada's commitment to Kyoto.

June 2007. At the G8 Summit, environmentalists accuse Prime Minister Harper of running interference for the United States as Canada joins President Bush in refusing to sign on to binding GHG reduction targets, unless large developing nations like China do the same.

September 2007. Prime Minister Harper seeks to distance Canada from a UN-lead effort to reach successor deal to the Kyoto Protocol by announcing Canada’s invitation to attend the next meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership, where Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and United States would set their own climate change goals, but with no binding targets or enforcement mechanism.

December 2007. At the Bali Climate Change Conference, the Harper government is again accused of blocking Kyoto countries from reaching a renewed agreement on binding targets. Environment Minister John Baird bails on crucial negotiations, while Canadian negotiators erect obstacles to stop the rest of the world from acknowledging the importance of binding targets.

April 2008.  Minister Baird announces that climate change regulations will be published in late 2008 and will come into force on Jan. 1, 2010. This commitment is later abandoned; to date not a single GHG regulation has been passed by the Harper government.

May 2008. The UN Climate Change Secretariat reportedly says Canada has been notified that it would be investigated for allegedly violating a Kyoto reporting requirement. 

October 2008.  Jim Prentice becomes Canada’s third Minister of the Environment in three years.

December 2008. The Harper government bans Don MacIver, Director of the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division at Environment Canada, from organizing a gathering of prominent world experts on global warming. He is forced to resign when the government tells him to cancel a key appearance and presentation at the UN climate change summit in Poland, where Canada is named the most obstructive country by Climate Action Network International.

May 2009. By conference call with reporters, Conservative Environment Minister Jim Prentice effectively announces the Harper government’s third climate change plan in three years by indicating that climate change regulations will not be developed until 2010 and may not take effect until 2016, to match a proposed U.S. timetable.  Minister Prentice says it’s “a fair question” how the new, delayed timetable will impact the 2020 target, but says “that continues to be our objective.”

July 2009. With new emission-reduction targets set to be agreed upon in Copenhagen later in the year, the United Kingdom’s former Chief Scientific Adviser sounds the alarm about Canada blocking the process.

At the same time, the World Wildlife Fund’s 2009 Climate Scorecard ranks Canada last in terms of greenhouse gas emission growth and planned measures to reduce them. 

Canada’s Environmental Commissioner concludes that that the Conservative climate change plan will not come anywhere close to meeting its greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Finally, despite recognizing the “broad scientific view” that global temperatures must not rise two degrees above pre-industrial levels, Conservative Environment Minister Jim Prentice says the goals are merely “aspirational” and do not necessitate a change in government policy.

September 2009. Prime Minister Stephen Harper fails to show for a special meeting of world leaders at the United Nations to discuss climate change, opting instead to conduct a doughnut factory tour. 

November 2009. Caving to public pressure, Prime Minister Harper agrees to attend the Copenhagen climate change conference, but only after President Obama announces his attendance.

December 2009. At Copenhagen, a series of public relations disasters embarrasses Canada on the world stage:

• A leaked Cabinet document reveals how the Conservatives plan to exempt the oilsands from GHG reduction targets, and how emissions would actually increase, not decrease.
• Instead of engaging in real action on climate change, the Harper Conservatives receive four consecutive "Fossil of the Day" awards as the nation leading the obstruction of a deal on climate change.
• The Prime Minister’s spokesperson attacks one of Canada’s most respected environmental leaders, Steven Guilbeault, wrongly accusing him of being responsible for an elaborate hoax news release and press conference announcing tough new emissions targets for Canada.
• The U.S. Secretary of Energy snubs Canada by refusing to participate in a hastily arranged photo-op that Canadian officials hope will “change the channel.”

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