http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/regulation/canada-falling-woefully-short-emissions-reduction-targets-141128/?utm_source=CTECH&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CTECH-EN10082014&e=30sslyW42vwv682rM2vx
Canada falling woefully short of emissions reduction targets
The Copenhagen Accord, which Canada signed in lieu of the Kyoto
Protocol, requires greenhouse gas emissions to be 17 per cent below 2005
levels by 2020
OTTAWA—Canada is all but certain to miss its Copenhagen Accord target to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, the country’s environmental
watchdog warned October 7.
And not only has the Harper government failed to introduce regulations
to limit the amount carbon dioxide produced by the oil and gas sector,
the fastest growing emitter, it “does not have an overall plan that maps
out how Canada will achieve this target,” Julie Gelfand said in her
first report as commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
Under the accord, which the government signed in lieu of participating
in the Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas production was to be cut to 17 per
cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
Gelfand’s predecessor warned in 2012 that the government was off course
and “two years later, the evidence is stronger that growth in emissions
will not be reversed in time and that the target will be missed,” said
the report.
The government has introduced regulations to govern the automotive and
transportation sector, the biggest source of emissions, as well as
electricity production.
But Gelfand’s report says that while regulations for coal-fired plants
are in place, emissions have yet to be reduced because “performance
standards take effect only in July 2015, and only apply to new plants or
to existing plants when they reach the end of their useful life.”
Using Environment Canada data, the commissioner estimated that by 2020,
greenhouse gas production in the oil and gas sector will be 27
megatonnes higher than it was in 2012. That’s the biggest increase of
any sector.
Gelfand also found that detailed, proposed regulations are sitting on
the environment minister’s desk, but the “federal government has
consulted on them only privately, mainly using a small working group of
one province and selected industry representatives.”
Federal officials told the commissioner implementation has been delayed
over “concern about whether regulations would make Canadian companies in
the sector less able to compete with their U.S. counterparts,” the
report said.
Timelines to put reduction measures in place have not been met and there
has been little in the way of consultation with the provinces on how to
achieve the national emissions target, Gelfand said.
The commissioner’s report also tore a strip off Environment Canada,
Transport Canada and Fisheries and Oceans, saying mapping and
icebreaking services in the Arctic are not what they should be at a time
of growing marine traffic in the Far North.
For almost a decade, the government has been talking up issues of
sovereignty and resource development in the Arctic, but many
high-traffic, high-risk areas remain inadequately surveyed and most of
the available charts may not be current or reliable, the report found.
“The Canadian Coast Guard cannot provide assurance to mariners that aids
to navigation meet their needs for safe and efficient navigation in
high-risk areas of the Arctic,” Gelfand concluded.
The government did receive good marks for how it is monitoring
development of Alberta’s oilsands, but Gelfand said more effort needs to
be made to consult First Nations and to incorporate traditional
ecological monitoring knowledge into Environment Canada’s monitoring
activities.
But she warned that plans to continue monitoring the project are unclear
after March 2015.
When it comes to deciding which projects are designated for
environmental assessment, the rationale is unclear, the commissioner
also noted.
In addition, federal departments need to do a better job of flagging
individual ministers about the environmental impact of their decisions
and strategic environmental assessments are often not stapled to
projects put before cabinet.
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