The cultural politics of Kyoto: lessons from the Canadian semi-periphery*

^*I would like to thank Josée Johnston and Andrew Biro for their helpful suggestions and practical assistance in revising an earlier draft of this paper.

Abstract

^*I would like to thank Josée Johnston and Andrew Biro for their helpful suggestions and practical assistance in revising an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

^*I would like to thank Josée Johnston and Andrew Biro for their helpful suggestions and practical assistance in revising an earlier draft of this paper.

¹“Government of Canada Ratifies Kyoto Protocol,” Government of Canada Press Release, December 17, 2002. Published online at: http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/english/whats_new/20021217.htm.

²My strategic focus here on the federal government – as the tier of government most directly responsible for negotiating Canada's international environmental commitments and presenting the country's ostensibly unified position to the world stage – is not meant to downplay the complicated ways in which climate change policy has cut across and sharpened jurisdictional conflicts between federal, provincial and municipal levels of governance in Canada. While my particular focus lies elsewhere, such conflicts must be acknowledged to avoid simply playing into a reified notion of the “national interest” as represented by the federal government, and ignoring the efficacy of climate change initiatives coming from other levels. Indeed, a great deal of real political “leadership” on developing practical strategies for combating climate change has come from the municipal level – particularly from the laudable efforts of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) under the leadership of Jack Layton.

³See, for instance: G. Gereffi and P.B. Evans, “Transnational Corporations, Dependent Development, and State Policy in the Semiperiphery: A Comparison of Brazil and Mexico,” Latin American Research Review, 16, 3, 1981; G. Arrighi, Semiperipheral Development (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985).

⁴For an effective rebuttal of the claim that Kyoto and other international environmental measures have “unfairly” advantaged developing countries over metropolitan industrial economies, see: Anil Agarwal, “A Southern Perspective on Curbing Global Climate Change,” in Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz and John O. Niles, eds., Climate Change Policy: A Survey (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002).

⁵Editorial, “Kyoto, Internationalism and Sovereignty,” Canadian Dimension, 36, 6, November/December, 2002, p. 5.

⁶ Ibid., p. 5.

⁷Lee-Anne Broadhead, “Canada as a Rogue State: Its Shameful Performance on Climate Change,” International Journal, LVI, 3, Summer 2001.

⁸Larry Dufay, “Bush Fiddles While the Climate Burns,” Canadian Dimension, 35, 5, Sept-Oct 2001. For comparable predictions, also see: Analysis and Modelling Group, Canada's Emissions Outlook: An Update (Ottawa: National Climate Change Process, 1999).

⁹Broadhead, op. cit., p. 472.

¹⁰Steven Bernstein and Christopher Gore, “Policy Implications of the Kyoto Protocol for Canada,” Canadian Journal of Policy Research, 2, 4, Winter 2001, p. 34.

¹¹Sierra Club Press Release, “PM Receives John Fraser Award for Environmental Achievement,” published online at: http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/media/jf-award-02-12-12.htm.

¹²David Suzuki, Elizabeth May, and Monte Hummel, “Kyoto Protocol: Where is our Conscience?,” Globe and Mail, June 25, 2001, p. A15.

^{13 70}Dennis Bueckert, “Canada Moves to Making Kyoto Work,” CNews, December 12, 2002, published online at: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/special/2002/2002/12/28/8513-cp.html.

¹⁴Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, Making the Links: A Citizen's Guide to the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (Ottawa: Council of Canadians, 2003), p. 35.

¹⁵Joseph K. Roberts, In the Shadow of Empire: Canada for Americans (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998), p. 35.

¹⁶Martin Mittelstaedt, “Canada Woos U.S. to Rejoin Climate Talks,” Globe and Mail, July 11, 2001, p. A5.

¹⁷Heather Scoffield, “Thanks to Luck, Alliances and Concessions, Canada left Kyoto with more than Expected,” Globe and Mail, July 25, 2001, p. A6.

¹⁸Martin Mittelstaedt and Paul Koring, “Ministers Take Aim at Bush on Kyoto,” Globe and Mail, June 12, 2001, p. A1.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰Bueckert, op. cit.

²¹Quoted in James Laxer, “Wake Up Time,” Canadian Dimension, 36, 6, Nov–Dec. 2002, p. 19.

²² Ibid.

²³Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, “Pain Without Gain: Canada and the Kyoto Protocol,” February, 2002, published online at: http://www.cme-mec.ca/kyoto/documents/kyoto_release.pdf.

²⁴Kevin Potvin, “Clouds Converge Over Kyoto,” The Republic, October 3, 2002, p. 1.

²⁵Steven Chase, “‘A Great Day’ for Chrétien as Kyoto Approved,” Globe and Mail, December 11, 2002, p. A1.

²⁶Editorial, Canadian Dimension, op. cit., p. 5.

²⁷Jim Stanford, “Hot Air Over Kyoto,” This Magazine, 36, 1, July, 2002, pp. 12–13.

²⁸Editorial, Canadian Dimension, op. cit., p. 5.

²⁹Mark MacKinnon, “Kyoto Pact Would Destroy Economy, Alberta says,” Globe and Mail, July 21, 2001, p. A1.

³⁰John Bellamy Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002), pp. 19–20.

³¹Christoph Bohringer, “Climate Politics from Kyoto to Bonn: From Little to Nothing?” The Energy Journal, 23, 2, 2002, p. 53.

³²Ian Urquhart, Making it Work: Kyoto, Trade and Politics (Edmonton: Parkland Institute, 2002), p. 14.

³³Stanford, op. cit., p. 13.

³⁴Clearly, there is something to be said for this strategic emphasis upon small-scale and immediate ways of tackling climate change – not least, the desire to translate progressive environmental goals into practical, everyday terms and to challenge fatalistic resignation to global warming as a problem beyond all temporal remedy. The problem arises when, in the effort to quell public fears and make environmental reform seem more palatable among elite circles, such useful conservationist measures, are emphasized to the exclusion of the structural economic and political reforms needed to address the root causes of environmental degradation.

³⁵For a clear example of this approach, see: Sylvie Boustie, Marlo Raynolds and Matthew Bramley, How Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol Will Benefit Canada's Competitiveness (Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, 2002).

³⁶Urquhart, op. cit., p. 17.

³⁷See, for instance: Daniel Glenday, “Rich But Semiperipheral: Canada's Ambiguous Position in the World Economy,” Review, 12, 2, Spring, 1989; Philip Resnick, “From Semiperiphery to Perimeter of the Core: Canada's Place in the Capitalist World-Economy,” Review, 12, 2, Spring 1989.

³⁸C. P. Terlouw, “The Elusive Semi-Periphery: A Critical Examination of the Concept Semperiphery,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 34, 1–2, 1993.

³⁹Stephen Clarkson, “The Semi-Periphery as Rule-Maker and Rule Taker: Canada's External Constitution under Global Trade Governance,” paper presented at the Globalism Project conference, Mexico City, February, 20–22, 2002, p. 3.

⁴⁰Josée Johnston and Gordon Laxer, “Neoliberal Globalism and its Challengers: Sustainability on the Semi-Periphery,” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada project proposal, available online at: http://www.ualberta.ca/GLOBALISM/pdf/origproposal.pdf.

⁴¹Stephen McBride, Paul Bowles, Ray Broomhill, and Maria Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, “Globalism in the Semi-Periphery: A Comparative Study of Australia, Canada, Mexico and Norway,” Unpublished book prospectus, November, 30, 2001.

⁴²Christopher Chase-Dunn, “Resistance to Imperialism: Semiperipheral Actors,” Review, 13, 1, 1990, p. 7.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 1.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 25.

⁴⁵Resnick, op. cit., p. 291.

⁴⁶Leo Panitch, Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy, and Imagination (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), p. 149.

⁴⁷McBride, Bowles, et al, op. cit.

⁴⁸Roberts, op. cit., pp. 9–10.

⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 35.

⁵⁰See Stuart Rosewarne, “The Kyoto Protocol and the Australian State's Commitment to Capital Accumulation,” CNS, 12, 1, 2003.

⁵¹McBride, Bowles, et al, op. cit.

⁵²Bernstein and Gore, op. cit., p. 34.

⁵³Potvin, op. cit., p. 1.

⁵⁴Panitch, op. cit., p. 143.

⁵⁵Clarkson, op. cit.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷Panitch, op. cit., p. 145.

⁵⁸Larry Pratt, Energy: Free Trade and the Price We Paid (Edmonton: The Parkland Institute, 2001), p. 20.

⁵⁹See Matt Price and John Bennett, America's Gas Tank: the High Cost of Canada's Oil and Gas Export Strategy (Sierra Club of Canada, October 2002).

⁶⁰Pratt, op. cit., p. 37.

⁶¹Rosewarne, op. cit., p. 35.

⁶²Larry Lohmann, “The Carbon Shop: Planting New Problems,” WRM Plantations Campaign Briefing No. 3, published online at: http://www.thecornerhouse. org.uk/document/carbshop.html. Quoted in Chris Wilbert, “No to Kyoto,” Radical Philosophy, 110, November/December, 2001, p. 5.

⁶³Wilbert, op. cit., p. 5.

⁶⁴Foster, op. cit., p. 31.

⁶⁵John Bellamy Foster, “A Planetary Defeat: The Failure of Global Environmental Reform,” Monthly Review, 54, 8, 2003, p. 6.

⁶⁶Roberts, op. cit., p. 39.

⁶⁷Panitch, op. cit., p. 160.

⁶⁸Quoted in Wilbert, op. cit., p. 2.

⁶⁹Foster, 2002, op. cit., p. 133.