The whole world is looking for lead­er­ship on climate change. Canada is being very clear on this subject: it ain’t us.

Climate change laws years away: Prentice — Nov 17^th, CBC

Harper will only go to climate con­fer­ence if other leaders do: aides — Nov 15^th, Canwest News

Canada can’t cut emis­sions in iso­la­tion from U.S.: Prentice — Nov 13^th, Edmonton Journal

What Prentice and Harper have to say in the above articles is what every politi­cian wants to be able to get away with saying: we don’t want to be the first ones to move. We want to wait and see how things shake out before we commit our­selves. Lately Canada has been impres­sively vocal about our insis­tence on being on the wait-​​and-​​see team.

If everyone plays the game that way there will be no suf­fi­cient action taken, ever. What is needed is for a few players to decide that since there must even­tu­ally be a col­lec­tive response, they might as well just act as if it was hap­pening, and do some­thing brave with the con­fi­dence that they will even­tu­ally be backed up. To lead, as it were. Once some coun­tries are out front, then those that have been waiting to see what will happen can fall in behind. Presumably that leading action is going to come from rel­a­tively demo­c­ratic, uncor­rupt nations whose policy is meant to reflect the long-​​term will of the populace, and who by-​​the-​​way bare the greatest physical respon­si­bility for strip­ping everyone of a pre­dictable climate.

In other words, Canada should be leading. I guess we get points for being trans­parent about our complete failure to step up to that position. At least other coun­tries can plan ahead around our pending failure.