Nova Scotia has failed to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2010. The province has made pretty good progress on setting policies to meet the 2020 targets, but those policies must actually be implemented and extended if they are to become a reality. That is the take-away message from a series of “report cards” issued by the Ecology Action Centre recently.
In 2001, the group of six New England governors and five eastern Canadian premiers agreed to a regional Climate Action Plan, which called for reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to 75-85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Nova Scotia is this year about 26 percent above 1990 levels, but the agreement did not specify that each state or province meet the targets (none did).
Still, in 2007 the Nova Scotia legislature passed the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act, which mandated specific environmental targets for the province, including that GHG emissions will be 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
The EAC report cards praise the progress that has been made in planning for reductions in electricity-related GHG emissions, including tough renewable energy targets, but say that much work will have to be done in the transportation sector as well.
“While there has been significant progress in the past nine years in developing provincial policies and practices aimed at reducing GHGs in Nova Scotia,” reads a EAC summary, “the reality is that provincial GHGs have not yet begun to fall.”
There are two report cards. The first rates the province’s progress on meeting the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act; read it here. The second rates the progress made in meeting NEG/ECP Climate Action Plan goals; read it here
This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2010.
