CLIMATE ACTION CHARTER NOT MUCH MORE THAN HOT AIR
(OSOYOOS TIMES — October 3, 2007) —
At the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) conference in Vancouver last week, 62 of the province's municipal and regional governments signed a document known as the British Columbia Climate Action Charter.
Good. After all, global warming is an increasingly devastating problem that, if left untended, could well destroy our planet.
And while it's nice that governments at the federal, provincial and municipal levels are finally taking steps to address the fact that two centuries of industrialization have seriously damaged our atmosphere, these steps are far too slow.
They are a saunter, and should be a sprint.
The problem with the B.C. Climate Action Charter is, like many documents of its kind (the federal Clean Air and Climate Change Act, for instance), it is essentially useless; designed to make the signatories feel warm and fuzzy, but providing few tangible solutions.
For example, the first section of the charter states: The Parties share the common understanding that: a) Scientific consensus has developed that increasing emissions of human-caused greenhouse gases (GHG) … that are released into the atmosphere are affecting the Earth's climate.
This is followed by several other clauses, all agreeing that global warming is real, and that it's bad. Grade 3 students know this.
The rest of the document goes into detail about what municipalities should be doing to deal with global warming, without providing much detail.
The fourth section reads:
The Parties share the common goals of: a) Fostering co-operative inter-governmental relations; b) aiming to reduce GHG emissions, including both their own and those created by others.
Again, several similar clauses follow.
It all sounds nice, but what does it really mean?
Sadly, nothing much.
The document does say that municipalities should strive to become carbon-neutral by 2012, and examples of programs they could start are given.
However, the Charter demands no specific action. It's a bunch of vague, bureaucratic language designed to sound like environmental leaps and bounds are being taken, when that's not necessarily the case.
Why not have a Charter with specific goals “ like awarding tax cuts to those who drive hybrid or electric vehicles, making municipal anti-idling bylaws mandatory, or putting limits on the amount of chemical pesticides and fertilizers farmers can use?
As a crowning touch, the ninth and final section of the document states: This Charter is not to be legally binding or impose legal obligations on any Party and will have no legal effect.
So, the municipalities don't even have to carry out the Charter's vague promises.
The British Columbia Climate Action Charter is to global warming what a band-aid is to a gaping chest wound.
The time for agreeing to do something about climate change has long passed. It's time to actually do it. This document is just a bunch of hot air.
