After ducking out of an earlier public session, Canada’s Environment Minister announced Canada’s climate change program at Bali yesterday. His big news? Canada will collect some more information about how many greenhouse gases we emit.
It’s hard to get excited about this announcement. Canada was required to assess its emissions years ago, to fulfill our Kyoto Protocol commitment. In fact, we are already collecting much of the same information, under the National Pollutant Release Inventory (Notice of February 25, 2006, in the Canada Gazette, Part I, Vol. 140, No. 8, at page 365) and the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Program (Notice published under subsection 46(1) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act on July 15, 2006, in the Canada Gazette, Part I, Vol. 140, No. 28, at page 2098.)
Nevertheless, on December 8, John Baird proudly issued a Notice expanding the information that major industries must submit, in what is essentially an expansion of the National Pollutant Release Inventory. The list includes the major greenhouse gases as well as toxic air pollutants, fine particles, and precursors of smog. Data must be submitted by May 31, 2008, for the 2006 calendar year. Industries required to report are the usual suspects, many of whom already reported for 2006 under the previous programs, but will now include some smaller facilities:
5 Alumina and Aluminium6 Base Metal Smelting7 Cement8 Chemicals Manufacturing9 Electricity10 Iron, Steel and Ilmenite Smelting11 Iron Ore Pellets12 Lime13 Natural Gas Transmission, Distribution and Storage14 Oil Sands15 Petroleum Product Terminals16 Petroleum Refining17 Potash18 Pulp and Paper19 Upstream Oil and Gas