Economy or Environment?

Grant Bachand
Team Member

here is an age old question: how do we

balance our economic needs with the
needs of the environment? This will be the
question asked at the Paris conference in
December this year. Newly elected Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau will be going with
Rona Ambrose from the Conservative Party,
Thomas Mulcair from the New Democratic
Party, Elizabeth May from the Green Party,
and all the premiers from the provinces.
What will be discussed; lowering carbon
emissions and bringing human influenced
global climate change under control? This
could be a lofty challenge for Canada, for
all of our talk, the country, as a whole has
not made significant progress on this issue.
Canada is the only country to have pulled out
of the Kyoto protocol agreement of 1997.

Creating a binding agreement which all the
countries must follow is a truly herculean
task. There are two conflicting groups, global
South and global North. Global North consists
of western countries like Canada, United
States and many European States. The global
South consists of the BRIC countries, Brazil,
Russia, India, China, with other countries
sympathizing with them. Global South is our
developing world who feels that limitations
on carbon emissions will hold back their
economic growth
possibilities, and it
is unfair to hold
countries
who have

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emerging economies, and growing

middle classes, to conform to the same

set of rules and limitations implement on
developed countries. The “time under the
sun” argument is what is the best way to
understand this. China’s middle class is on
the rise, and it is thanks to the aggressive
growth of the Chinese economy, for them

to slow down their economic engine due

to climate change could hold thousands of
Chinese citizens from moving from poverty
to working or middle class lifestyles. The
global north has for many generations
enjoyed the spoils of a strong economy while
emitting heavy amounts of carbon as an
expense. Therefore it is unfair to ask that of
China, because people there have not had
the opportunity yet to be middle class.

China’s need to grow is a major problem
because the Chinese economy is one of the
biggest polluters in the world, along side
with the American economy. According to
the Observatory of Economic Complexity

at M.I1.T., Chinese exports in 2013 were 2.25
trillion USD and the United States was in the
same year 1.42 trillion USD. Data from the
World Bank shows us in 2011 the total carbon
emissions by China was leading the way at 9
million kilotons of carbon, and United States
is at 5 million kilotons, Canada was at 485,563
kilotons. These two giants are far outpacing
the rest of the world in carbon emissions

and bringing them under control will not be
easy. China has made efforts to move away
from coal power, with coal being one of the
biggest reasons for high emissions in the
country, though many rural areas in China
do not have access to other forms of power.

The global community will be hard to
convince, and also may be the communities
back at home. The economic malaise in
Canada may make it hard for Trudeau to
push a strong environmental agenda.
Job growth will be one of the main goals
for the coming couple years, and there
may not be enough opportunity in the
green sector to stimulate the economy
in the way that will get Canada back
on track. The price of oil right now
make negotiations in Paris favorable,
and makes it a great time to talk about
substitutes to petroleum; however if
the oil price was to rebound in the

next couple years any progress
made in the green sector
may be undone by the
reemergence of the
oil and gas sector
and the raise

in emissions.

The problem
becomes a lot
more complex
as we look

at Canada,
and who has
power to make
changes. In
our system

of government the provinces are the ones
who set environmental policy and though
many provinces have policies on reducing
carbon emissions, cap and trade and carbon
tax, some provinces don’t and getting all of
the provinces on the same page might be
more challenging than expected. Various
provinces may be at odds with Trudeau

on this issue, Saskatchewan’s conservative
premier Brad Wall, and British Columbia’s
premier Christy Clark. Brad Wall has already
been bumping heads with Trudeau over
Syrian Refugees and this summit may
increase the divide between the two men.

The issue may be hard to fix but the potential
consequences of inaction are potentially
devastating. NASA has stated that since

1880 the world has warmed 1.4 degrees
Fahrenheit. This heat rise has had major
impacts on the world, sea ice in the Arctic
has shrunk from in 8 million square km

of ice in 1980, to 5.02 million square km

of ice in 2015. The rate of change in this
region is around 13.3% per decade. Sea ice
isn’t the biggest worry though, land ice is.
Greenland and Antarctica are both regions
where massive amounts of ice are sitting

on top of land. When this ice melts it raises
the sea level of the oceans because unlike
the Arctic the ice is not in the water already.
Greenland, according to NASA, showed in
November 2014, 1911.78 billion metric tonnes
of ice loss, at a rate of 134 billion metric
tonnes of ice per year. That is just Greenland,
Antarctica had 1009.80 billion metric tonnes
of ice loss, with a rate of 287 billion metric
tonnes of ice. This means that 421 billion

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metric tonnes of ice are being added to our
oceans every year, which will have major
effects on coastal cities. If you live in areas
like Richmond, Surrey, or Abbotsford,
make sure you know how to swim.

You have probably heard of the Syrian
refugee crisis, so consider this: they might
the first refugees caused by extreme
environmental changes. Droughts in

Syria created massive food shortages and
unemployment that stimulated the Arab
Spring, which was the spark of the hostilities.
Areas all over the world will feel the impacts
of climate change, and could create more
refugees that will need places to go. Canada
could face more international pressure in
the future to bring refugees to Canada, and
it could make the 25,000 already coming to
the country look like a drop in the bucket.

What does this all mean for Paris? The
leaders will be faced with some massive
hurdles to get over. It is very possibly that
nothing substantive will come out of the
talks. There are a lot of countries that want
to have a high level of living standard. If
environmental limitations are put in place,
it will most likely slow down growth in
theses countries. Without some sort of
international body to force these countries
to conform, the member countries can
easily break these treaties. Paris could have
a huge impact on the future of our world,
and one thing is clear that it will be Justin
Trudeau’s biggest challenge to date.