Compromised by weak target and dirty tar sands

[Oscar]

Compromised by weak target and dirty tar sands

[ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... CMP=ema-60 ]

Suzanne Goldenberg October 16, 2015

Canada put forward one of the weakest climate targets of any major industrialised economy, which experts said was a direct result of the Stephen Harper government’s promotion of the highly polluting tar sands industry.

The Canadian government proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.
[ http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/INDC ... nglish.pdf ]

It was the first time Canada had departed significantly from the US on its climate targets – and the result was much for the worse, experts said.

Climate Action Tracker analysis, produced by four independent research organisations, dismissed Canada’s proposal as “inadequate”. [ http://climateactiontracker.org/news/20 ... gets-.html ]

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For the past several years, however, it was all-systems-go for the tar sands. Harper ramped up production, and lobbied hard to find new markets, pushing for exports to Europe and pipelines to the US.

Crude from the tar sands is an especially dirty fossil fuel, and its extraction has led to the destruction of vast swathes of northern forest and peatland – releasing even more greenhouse gas emissions. Tar sands crude produces up to 4.5 times as much carbon pollution as conventional sources, according to the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental thinktank. [ http://www.pembina.org/oil-sands/os101/climate ]

Harper’s promotion of the tar sands damaged Canada’s reputation in negotiations for a global climate change deal.

The tar sands are now the country’s fastest-rising source of carbon pollution, increasing 79% over the last decade. [ http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/canada.html ]

Canada is now the world’s biggest per capita carbon emitter, according to WRI.
[ http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/6-graph ... 0-emitters ]

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In any event, Canada is unlikely to meet even its own very low bar for 2030, Climate Action Tracker said. It predicted Canada’s carbon pollution would actually grow 8% on 2005 levels by 2030.

Canada has no chance of hitting its 2020 goal of a 17% cut in emissions on 2005 levels either, the environment ministry conceded in a report late last year. [ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... e21998423/ ]

And even in the highly unlikely event that Canada does come within striking range of the target, most of Canada’s emissions cuts will come from outside the country, through the purchases of international offsets.

“We don’t see a serious agenda,” Fransen said. “The upcoming Paris negotiations are a chance for the world to get very clear about what needs to happen, and for countries to signal they understand where the world is going ... Canada’s INDC doesn’t signal this big picture, transformative change that needs to happen which is to phase out greenhouse gas emissions during this century.”