OTTAWA – Canada is drifting further away from meeting Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s international climate change target, mainly because of rising greenhouse gases from oil and gas companies, says a new federal report released by Environment Canada Thursday with little fanfare.
The report, an annual assessment of emissions trends, estimates that Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are projected to total 734 megatonnes, which is about 14 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions above what was estimated last year – an increase of two per cent. One megatonne is equal to one million tonnes.
But the report also shows that emissions are projected to drop in areas such as road vehicles and electricity generation, where the government has introduced regulations and standards to reduce tailpipe pollution as well as emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Some other key numbers from the report:
– Oilsands emissions, the fastest growing source of carbon pollution in Canada, are projected to rise from an estimated 34 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions in 2005 to 101 million tonnes in 2020. Apart from Alberta (295 megatonnes) and Ontario (177 megatonnes), no province or territory is projected to have a higher level of emissions than the oilsands sector in 2020, with Quebec coming the closest at 81 megatonnes for that year, followed by Saskatchewan at 74 megatonnes and British Columbia at 64 megatonnes.
– Greenhouse gas emissions from personal cars, trucks and motorbikes are projected to drop from 87 million tonnes in 2005 to about 81 million tonnes in 2020.
– Emissions from buildings in Canada will rise from 84 megatonnes in 2005 to 95 million tonnes in 2020.
– Emissions from the electricity sector are projected to drop from 121 megatonnes in 2005 to 82 megatonnes in 2020.
– The report increases the estimated level of Harper’s 2020 target from 607 megatonnes to 612 megatonnes.
In its summary, the report – which described climate change as “one of the most important environmental issues of our time” – suggested the Harper government was still on track to meet the prime minister’s target, from international negotiations at a 2009 conference in Copenhagen, to lower annual emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
“Effective climate change mitigation requires that all countries act to reduce emissions, and, accordingly, Canada will continue to make progress towards its Copenhagen target,” said the report.
Since its election in 2006, The Harper government has repeatedly pledged to introduce new regulations to crack down on pollution from the oil and gas sector, but those rules were subsequently delayed by successive Conservative environment ministers.
The report, which is usually released in the middle of summer with a technical briefing from bureaucrats, and a news conference from the environment minister, was quietly posted on the department’s website this time.
A few hours before it was published, a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she didn’t know if it was about to be released.
Aglukkaq, who declined requests for an interview, later told the House of Commons that the government was “taking action to address climate change.”
Green Party leader Elizabeth May said the government is deliberately trying to hide information about what she described as weak efforts to address a global crisis.
“They know they have nothing but bad news on the climate file so they run away from it. They hide it,” said May. “Certainly there was an opportunity to provide some information to Canadians and they’ve chosen to release it by stealth.”
NDP deputy leader Megan Leslie noted that the report has language that appears to downplay the role of human activity in global warming by highlighting natural factors that contribute to climate change.
“Our own government falls short of its own target,” said Leslie. “It’s just more evidence that the Conservatives aren’t taking climate change seriously. … The only climate change achievement of this government has been to delay regulating emissions as long as possible. Obstructing climate change negotiations, pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol and appointing a minister of the environment who doubts climate change science.”
Aglukkaq, in her first major interview as environment minister, told CTV that evidence of melting ice in the Arctic was “debatable,” but a few weeks later told the House of Commons that scientific evidence of climate change was clear.
A recent international assessment of scientific evidence, published in September and endorsed by the Harper government, has concluded it’s “extremely likely” that humans have caused recent warming observed over the past century through emissions produced from consuming fossil fuels such as gasoline and coal as well as deforestation and other land-use changes.
Environment Canada’s own modelling scenarios have predicted global temperatures would rise more than 2 C above pre-industrial levels by 2050, considered to be a dangerous tipping point that would cause significant damage to ecosystems and billions of dollars in economic losses.
The report mentions “natural processes” influencing changes in the climate, while also noting the conclusions of the September assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
