In case you haven’t heard, the Canadian federal government officially informed the United Nations on January 30th that it has set a 17% reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels in the next 10 years. It is Ottawa's commitment to the Copenhagen deal on climate change.
Countries that attended the climate change conference in December were supposed to outline their own emission-reduction targets before the UN's final deadline of Jan. 31. The Copenhagen Accord, which isn't legally binding, offers money to developing nations to help them fight global warming, but it doesn't set new greenhouse gas reduction targets. Instead, countries are to set their own targets, without mandatory limits.
Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice pointed out that Canada’s target is similar to those set by the United States, which Ottawa had indicated it would follow during the Copenhagen conference. The United States, on January 28 officially stated a goal to cut carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 off 2005 levels and said it “anticipated” that Congress would approve legislation to meet the target.
Canada and the US are unique in setting their targets against 2005 levels, as most nations, for instance, have set their reductions to be measured by the common UN standard of 1990 levels - the European Union has agreed to 20% carbon reductions from 1990 levels by 2020. US & Canada are in favour of a 2005 baseline as their carbon emissions have ballooned steadily since 1990. In fact, the US target is only 3.4% below 1990 levels. In Canada, the target actually increases emissions, not decreases them as the new target is 2.5 percent higher than the 3 percent cut over 1990 levels announced by Ottawa in 2006.
There hasn’t been much buzz about the target announcement, partly because it’s rather uninspiring and lacking in detail. Some say the low-key target is needed to harmonize regulations with the US to protect Canadian industries that are subject to competitive trade with US firms, while others say it seeks to protect the oil and gas industry in Alberta – where the oilsands contain the second-largest petroleum reserve in the world after Saudi Arabia with an estimated 174 billion barrels.
Despite the timid target, there is a greater recognition from industry and government of the climate change risk from environmentalists and ‘regular’ consumers who call oilsands’ crude “dirty oil" because of the amount of greenhouse gases that are produced when it's refined. In fact, environment Minister Jim Prentice recently told a Calgary business audience that while the Harper government supports continued expansion of the oilsands, large energy companies need to do more as Canada seeks to reach its targets under the Copenhagen climate change accord. He also acknowledged that “Canada risks becoming the international poster child of unsound resource development if it doesn't do a better job of developing the oilsands”.
Timid target or not, industry and government get the picture - a lower carbon economy is real and here to stay.
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