No federal plan yet to cut greenhouse gas
Posted May 8, 2012 11:23 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA, ON (NEWS1130) – Canada’s environment commissioner has released a scathing report saying Canada likely won’t meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The Harper government made a commitment two years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, to reduce our emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The government had claimed it would use a sector-by-sector approach to reduce emissions and meet its target. But two years later, there is no implementation plan, and there isn’t even an analysis to find out how much it will cost the Canadian economy.
Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan says so far, only the transport sector has introduced new regulations but there has been nothing for oil and gas and changes for electricity aren’t expected until 2015. Due to this, the government will not only miss its emissions target, but will actually be seven per cent above 2005 levels — a difference of 24 per cent.
One chapter states the government will definitely not meet its goal under the Kyoto Accord, but this is just a formality since the Tories have long said they aren’t following Kyoto.
The report also applauds the government for making great strides in cleaning up contaminated sites, although it points out there are thousands of other sites that still need to be cleaned up. So far, half of them haven’t been assessed and the government hasn’t done a full cost analysis to determine the impact on the public purse.
