Canada doesn’t have great track record reducing greenhouse gases: UBC

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The federal government has pledged to cut greenhouse gases by thirty per cent by 2030 but a political science professor says it’s easy to announce targets and hard to meet them.

Most of Canada’s projected emission growth comes from the extraction of tar sands say UBC’s Kathryn Harrison, and without regulating that industry, it’s hard to say how effective this latest announcement can be.

“First is whether governments will actually do it. So in the same way that we have seen lots of targets announced but never followed through on, we have also heard a lot of promises to adopt policies to reduce emissions that have not been followed through on including various regulations that this government itself has proposed.”

She says by her count, this is the eighth time since 1990 that Canada has promised to reduce greenhouse gases and fallen short every time. “We haven’t met any of them; our current target is to reduce our emissions 17 per cent below 2005 by 2020. The federal government itself projected that we will fall short of that by 50 per cent. We’ll only make half the reductions needed.”

The office of the Minister of the Environment responded with a statement noting they are investing in innovative technologies.

“Canada is a leader in clean-energy technologies and has made multiple investments to promote innovation and achieve long-term emissions reductions in key sectors. For example, emerging technologies and federal regulatory action have limited emissions in the transportation sector, despite growth in vehicle fleets. Similarly, emissions continue to fall in the electricity sector as a result of phasing out coal, switching to natural gas and growth in non-emitting electricity generation. To build on this success, Canada will focus climate-related investments in innovative technologies to drive further improvements in environmental performance in the oil sands and other growing sectors.”