Cutting Emissions "Not in the Cards"

By BJ

In a move that should surprise nobody with a pulse, Canada’s Conservatives aren’t looking to make any serious effort regarding CO2 emissions.

Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice says he will not commit to what he calls unrealistic targets when he attends climate change talks in Poland this week.

The newly-minted minister, who took over the job from John Baird after October's federal election, told CBC News he will not agree to the deep greenhouse gas emission cuts some are pushing for.

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Canada is just one of 190 countries attending the United Nations climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, which started Dec. 2 and runs until Dec. 12.

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Canada has already been singled out at the conference as a country that is obstructing negotiations, said Mike Buckthought, the Sierra Club of Canada's national climate change campaigner.

Granted that today is one of those days where the idea of things being somewhat warmer is highly tempting, this is a highly irresponsible attitude for a nation where the effects of Climate Change are already being felt. Though again, not really a surprise for a government that has made it clear that their only interest in the Arctic is what new and impractical toys they can buy for the military and what infrastructure the mining companies might need to better exploit its resources.

And Prentice’s claim that if he uses 2006 as the baseline year, his plan more closely resembles that of incoming US President Obama’s, ignores the fact that for the last decade, even labouring under the less-than-environmentally-friendly Bush Administration, the US has done a far better job at controlling their emissions than Canada has. (A more shameful climate legacy than being unable to match George W. Bush on carbon emissions is hard to think of.) The US’s 2006 baseline would be far lower than ours as a result.

So we continue down the cycle of setting ridiculously inadequate targets, doing nothing to encourage industry to actually meet them, or, even worse, actively support polluting industries quest to expand emissions, and then set further inadequate targets based on the “new” baselines.

And the continual framing of, “we can’t afford to harm the economy right now”, is doubly damning. First of all because such a frame virtually guarantees inaction; I mean, when would be a good time to purposely harm the economy? And second because it is untrue. Investment in new and alternative energy sources and infrastructure would be an excellent way to stimulate economic growth and provide new manufacturing, construction, and service job opportunities to help replace the jobs being lost in the older industries.

The only part of the economy that would suffer under such a plan are those industries that most enthusiastically fund the Conservative Party, which is why we’re unlikely to see any real movement on this issue so long as they are in power.