The graph above comes from a page quietly posted on Environment Canada’s website last week, with the page titled “Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Target and Emissions Projections.” The graph shows the amount, in megatonnes (millions of tonnes), of greenhouse gases emitted by the entire country each year between 1990 and 2010, with projections forward to 2020.
There’s a small attempt to spin the real situation—it throws in the red herring of China’s GHG emissions (a real concern, but not relevant to this country meeting its own GHG goals), and this bit of misdirection:
Added together, all these existing government actions are expected to reduce GHG emissions by 65 Mt by 2020. This is about one quarter of the reductions in GHG emissions needed to meet Canada’s 2020 target. The regulation of other economic sectors and the further strengthening of existing regulations over time – along with complementary measures by provinces and territories – are expected to continue this momentum.
But, pretty words about “momentum” aside, the simple fact is that there is no concrete proposal whatsoever to “further strengthen” existing regulations, and Canada will utterly fail to meet targets it agreed to at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
As Clare Demerse of the Climate Change Network writes:
A few fun facts about the new data:
it shows that, even with currently announced federal and provincial climate policies going into effect, Canada’s emissions are projected to be higher in 2020 than they are today.
This means we would be 30% above our 2020 target (7% above 2005 in 2020 instead of 17% below)
government policies would close just a quarter of the gap between business as usual emissions in 2020 and the government’s target. If you’ve heard Peter Kent say that “we’re a quarter of the way there,” that’s what he’s referring to. What it really means is that we have no plans to cover three-quarters of the gap.
There’s more about the national situation here and here.
I’ll soon have a post up about Nova Scotia’s particular environmental goals.
This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2011.
Yawn.
China on the road to massive increase in GHG :
“High demand for oil and gas energy imports has led the government to set up the China Oil and Gas Ship Fleet. Experts estimate that by 2012, the main shipping companies in China will invest more than 171 billion USD to construct 65 VLCCs and 50 LNG vessels.”
source :… http://www.noppen.com.cn/events/vlcc/vlcc.…
VLCC – Very Large Crude carrier 250,000 tons
Canada had 2 – owned by Irving Oil until the ships were sold in 2007. Both were 300,000 tons.
and : ……”There have been several proposals to build bypasses to reduce tanker traffic through the Strait of Malacca. Construction began in 2009 to build a 240,000 bbl/d crude oil pipeline from Burma to China that could eventually be expanded.”
Wait for peak oil and let the market sort it out?
It would be nice to see some leadership on this, however asking for any kind of leadership out of Ottawa right now seems to be pointless. It’s really up to individuals to make a difference; buy efficient cars and try to use them less, switch away from oil heating and increase energy efficiency in the home, try to live near urban centers, use less water, etc etc…