Canada’s Kyoto Commitment Must be Honoured

No Need for the so called Clean Air Act
       
If the Harper government really wants to reduce air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions, it does not need to pass new legislation. The government already has full authority to control these air emissions with regulations of toxic emissions under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The previous Liberal government, at the urging of environmental groups, had already classified greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide as toxic emissions.
       
What is happening with the Clean Air Act?
       
Although there was no real need for the Clean Air Act (Bill C-30), with a minority government the Act was referred to a special Legislative Committee for reconsideration and amendment (January 29 – March 30, 2007). Greenpeace made a key submission to this committee entitled, Targeting Climate Change in Canada, urging that the government must start in the short-term by honouring Canada’s Kyoto commitment, and then move on to much deeper reductions.  However, with another federal election expected sometime in 2007, it is unlikely that the Act will be passed.
       
What would the Clean Air Act do about the Climate Crisis?
       
As originally proposed, the Act would make no greenhouse gas reductions before 2020, and only sets a distant and inadequate target of between 45 and 65 per cent reduction from 2003 levels by 2050.¹ Emission reduction targets set by the Kyoto Protocol are based on 1990 levels, so the government’s target of 45 to 65 per cent reduction from 2003 levels by 2050, is actually a much smaller percentage of the 1990 level.
       
Greenpeace has called on Canada and other industrial nations to aim for big reductions of emissions from 1990 levels - 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. These are science-based targets intended to prevent catastrophic global warming impacts by keeping the increase in the average global temperature as far below two degrees Celsius as possible.
       
What Is Canada’s Current Climate Crisis?
       
Despite making a commitment to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Canada has only had three climate plans all of which relied primarily on voluntary actions instead of effective regulation and incentive programs. Thus, greenhouse gas emissions have not been reduced. Quite the opposite: In 2004, emissions rose 27 per cent above 1990 levels and 35 per cent above the target set by Kyoto.²
       
This places Canada among the worst countries in the world in terms of reducing emissions.  Canada ranks fourth from the bottom among the 41 industrialized nations which are signatories to Kyoto. Only Turkey, Spain and Portugal had higher increases of greenhouse gas emissions. Even the United States of America, which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, has had a lower increase of emissions at 16 per cent.³ Moreover, Canada's ranking has worsened since 2005 when it was sixth from the bottom.
       
While the former Liberal government did a dismal job of fighting climate change, its 2005 Climate Change Plan at least laid the foundation for positive action and would have allowed Canada to meet its Kyoto commitment. Harper’s Clean Air Act and its failure to follow the former government’s plan, takes Canada backwards in the fight against the climate crisis.
                               
What is the Harper Government’s Record on the Climate Crisis?
       
While the Harper government has not formally withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, its lack of action means that it has effectively abandoned Canada’s commitment to a six per cent reduction below 1990 emission levels by 2012, which, the Harper government has falsely characterized as unachievable.
       
The Conservative government’s first budget in May 2005 slashed funding to address global warming from $4 billion to $2 billion over the following five years. They shut down effective programs such as the EnerGuide for Homes retrofit program, the Wind Power Production Incentive and the Renewable Power Production Incentive.
       
When it became clear that public concern about the environment and global warming had increased significantly during 2006, the Harper government initiated several global warming programs that are copycat versions of earlier Liberal government programs.           

• The ecoENERGY Technology Initiative (January 2007) provided $230 million for research projects, several of which do not deserve support, including carbon capture and storage, so-called ‘clean’ coal and oil sands technology, hydrogen fuel cells, as well as next-generation nuclear power. Scarce research funds should be directed exclusively to conservation and renewable energy technologies. 
  
 
• The ecoENERGY Renewable Initiative (January 2007) was funded with $1.5 billion over ten years – effectively restarting the Wind Power Production Incentive and the Renewable Power Production Incentive that had been halted following the election of the Harper government in January 2006.
   

• The ecoENERGY Efficiency Initiative (January 2007) provided $300 million over four years, roughly duplicating the former EnerGuide for Homes retrofit program, but reducing the number of targeted home retrofits from 270,000 to 140,000.
   

• The ecoTrust program provides $1.5 billion for transfer to provinces and territories. This program duplicated the former government’s Partnership Fund.

In 2006, the Harper government also put forward two expensive programs that achieve only small reductions of greenhouse gas emissions: the promotion of ethanol fuel and tax credits for transit passes. In March 2007, $900 million was also announced for the funding of public transit in the Greater Toronto Area.

The government has so far failed to quantify, or put a timeline on the greenhouse gas reductions associated with these programs. The government has also continued to assert that the short-term  Kyoto target is unachievable. In her September 2006 report to the House of Commons, former Environment Commission Johanne Gélinas called for a “massive scale up” of efforts against global warming, and she in particular flagged the fast-increasing emissions from the Alberta tars sands as a particular concern. The Harper government has largely ignored this recommendation and Gelinas was dismissed from her position in January 2007.

What about Canada’s Kyoto Commitment?

Opponents of action on climate change make a number of excuses for Canada’s failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The government points to a cold climate, a large geographical area, a resource-based economy, and economic growth.⁴ However, many other countries share similar problems and have overcome them.  For example, Germany reduced its emissions by 17 per cent between 1990 and 2004, while the United Kingdom reduced emissions by 14 per cent.⁵

Canada can still meet its Kyoto commitment. However, it will require aggressive action, including incentive programs, stiff regulation in a variety of areas, and an accelerated implementation of emissions trading. An effective emissions trading system must have strict caps on emissions (based on short, medium and long term targets for emission reductions). The emissions trading system must allow the purchase and sale of emission credits outside of Canada. Industry should also not be allowed to avoid purchasing credits by contributing to a ‘Technology Fund’ as proposed in the Notice of Intent for the Clean  Air Act.

What are Intensity-based Emission Reductions?

The government intends to set targets based on the intensity of emissions of greenhouse gases per unit of economic activity. Unfortunately, intensity-based targets can be used to take credit for improvements largely due to better energy efficiency and not as a result of climate policies. According to this measure, Canada’s greenhouse gas intensity decreased by 14 per cent between 1990 and 2004 while in absolute terms, greenhouse gas emission have increased 27 per cent.⁶

Emissions intensity targets were used by the Alberta government in its 2002 position on climate change, underlining the fact that intensity-based targets are simply a way of deflecting attention from the real absolute increases in emission levels. So while Alberta’s intensity targets are a reduction of 16 per cent by 2010 and 28 per cent by 2020, these targets would actually allow absolute increases of 34 per cent in 2010 and 38 per cent in 2020.⁷

It is also clear that if tar sands production increases by three or five times, absolute levels of emissions will increase, even if for example, emissions intensity were to decline by 50 per cent.

What about the Transportation Sector?

The Harper government proposes leaving in place an existing voluntary agreement with the automobile industry to improve efficiency.⁸ Under this agreement, the expected business-as-usual level for automobiles and light duty trucks would be reduced modestly by six per cent. However that would translate roughly into a 15 per cent increase from 1990 levels and a six per cent increase from actual 2000 levels. The government proposes adopting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards in 2011, but does not propose matching more stringent standards set by the state off California.

Overall vehicle efficiency in Canada has stagnated since the 1980s, making road transportation a major source of greenhouse gas emissions – about 19 per cent of total emissions of 2004. Emissions from light duty gasoline trucks, including SUVs and pickups, roughly doubled from 1990 to 2004. Similarly, emissions from heavy duty diesel vehicles’ almost doubled.