Canada Pledges To Increase GHG Emissions, But Will Do So "Slowly" - G&M

[hatrack]

Super. The Titanic will continue to take on water, but it will rise at 3 inches/minute, rather than 6.

OTTAWA -- Greenhouse gas emissions will be allowed to grow under the Conservative environmental plan, but at a slower pace, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose asserted yesterday. Canada's position as a growing energy exporter means emissions will also be on the rise for the short term, she said, but the government's long-term plan is to reduce them through new technology and the use of "intensity-based" targets.

"If you look at any that are large energy exporters . . . you'll see people looking at energy intensity. What energy intensity in the short term recognizes is there will be an increase in development, or that there is a development in the energy sector. What we want to look at long term, is mitigating that kind of development," she told CTV News yesterday from Yellowknife. In effect, the government is betting that a combination of technological change and economic growth will meet Ottawa's goals of greenhouse gas reduction.

Opponents were not convinced. Environmentalist Matthew Bramley, an expert on the Kyoto accord and climate change with the Pembina Institute, said the plan won't meet Canada's Kyoto targets: "It's been clear for a long time that the government has abandoned the Kyoto Protocol," he said yesterday. "The recent talk about intensity targets is another piece of evidence that the government has no intention of meeting its international legal obligations."

Ms. Ambrose's comments come as a new report shows that coal-fired power plants are a major source of Canadian greenhouse gas emissions, even though the oil sands and auto sectors have been taking the recent political heat. The oil and gas sector prefers intensity-based targets as a way to achieve both environmental improvements and economic growth. Intensity limits are a proportional measure, while traditional reduction schemes are usually expressed in absolute numbers of tonnes. The Conservative plan would put Canada even further from its Kyoto commitments to reduce greenhouse gas levels to 6 per cent below 1990 levels in the period from 2008 to 2012, a goal almost universally recognized as unachievable.

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.200610...

[YankeyMCC]

1. Wow

Well on the bright side at least we can say our political leadership in the US do not have a corner on the market of climate stupidity.