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GHG reductions: are we getting better?

The federal government has quietly admitted that its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction efforts are having little effect.

The Harper Conservatives won’t comply with the action plan portion of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, 2007

, but they do  file the reports to Parliament that the KPIA requires. As a result, they have been forced to admit that GHG reductions in 2010-2012  will be less than 10% of their earlier projections.[i],[ii]

The new  projections were published in a report titled, A Climate Change Plan for the Purposes of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, on June 2, 2010 by the Environment Ministry.  In 2007, the year the KPIA was passed, the federal government optimistically  promised that “greenhouse gas emissions would decline by 2012 at the latest”.[iii],[iv] Cynics have now been vindicated: it’s not  going to happen. Instead, the government now expects tiny reductions of just 5 megatonnes (Mt) in 2010, 8 Mt in 2011 and 10 Mt in 2012.[v] Just last year,  the Conservatives  sunnily  predicted that emissions would be reduced by 52 Mt in 2010, followed by 63 Mt and 74 Mt in 2011 and 2012, respectively.[vi] Other than the recession, we have no particular reason to believe that even the new projections will be accurate.

Footnotes


[i] Danny Bradbury. (June 8, 2010). Canada slashes emissions reduction ambitions. Business Green, At http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2264326/sierra-club-slams-canada

[ii] Susan Lunn. (June 3, 2010). Greenhouse gas emissions down, but microscopically. CBC News, At http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/06/greenhouse-gas-emissions-down-but-microscopically.html

[iii] Sierra Club Canada. “Sierra Club Canada condemns government inaction on climate,” At http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/climate-change/media/release/sierra-club-canada-condemns-government-inaction-climate

[iv] Environment Canada. (May 2010). A Climate Change Plan for the Purposes of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, At http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/Content/4/0/4/4044AEA7-3ED0-4897-A73E-D11C62D954FD/KPIA_2010.pdf

[v] Environment Canada. (May 2010). A Climate Change Plan for the Purposes of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, page 68, At http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/Content/4/0/4/4044AEA7-3ED0-4897-A73E-D11C62D954FD/KPIA_2010.pdf

[vi] Environment Canada. (May 2009). A Climate Change Plan for the Purposes of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, page 59, At http://climatechange.gc.ca/Content/4/0/4/4044AEA7-3ED0-4897-A73E-D11C62D954FD/2009%20Climate%20Change%20Plan%20for%20the%20Purposes%20of%20the%20Kyoto%20Protocol%20Implementation%20Act%20.pdf

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