It seems people are lining up to dump on the Federal Conservatives plan for dealing with Climate Change. At a time when the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is convening to discuss and evaluate proposed measures to deal with the problem, Yves de Boer, the UN's Executive Secretary for the Framework Convention on Climate Change took time to criticise the Tories plans. For starters, he echoed many concerns that intensity targets do not offer any real guarantee of reducing emissions since they do not place any restrictions on production.
Secondly, de Boer stopped short of calling Environmental Minister John Baird a liar when Baird claimed his plan was the most aggressive in the world.
“The Europeans have put a proposal on the table to reduce their emissions by 20 to 30 per cent vis-a-vis 1990 levels, this new proposal is certainly less ambitious than that,” de Boer said.
“California has made a proposal to reduce its emissions by 25 per cent from where it is at the moment. This is also less ambitious than that.”
For more, click here.
We are curious to hear what the IPCC decides and how it compares to both the Alberta and Federal proposals. For more on that, click here.
Showing posts with label conservatives climate change policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conservatives climate change policy. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Our two cents
We're still looking for a copy of the actual bill proposal, so our opinions may change, but here is a quick synopsis of The Daily Wenzel take on the Conservative Federal Government's proposed climate change bill.
Firstly, we are hearing things that the auto industry is treated lightly if at all. To us, this raises questions about the government's willingness to make foreign industries comply with their climate change policies. Certainly our inability or our unwillingess to create stricter emissions control on an industry dominated by the United States raises some serious questions.
Secondly, while the bill represents a vast philosophic improvement over the Clean Air Bill, it actually does very little to guarantee a reduction in emissions as it still speaks the language of "intensity targets". What we want to see is whether,in any of the projections for emissions reductions, the government posits a stable or increasing rate of production. For example, if the amount of emissions related to the production of a barrell of oil in the oil sands is reduced, but the actual number of barrells produced is allowed to increase dratically, then their will be no net decline in emissions. Instead emissions will actually increases as the oil produced increases.
Firstly, we are hearing things that the auto industry is treated lightly if at all. To us, this raises questions about the government's willingness to make foreign industries comply with their climate change policies. Certainly our inability or our unwillingess to create stricter emissions control on an industry dominated by the United States raises some serious questions.
Secondly, while the bill represents a vast philosophic improvement over the Clean Air Bill, it actually does very little to guarantee a reduction in emissions as it still speaks the language of "intensity targets". What we want to see is whether,in any of the projections for emissions reductions, the government posits a stable or increasing rate of production. For example, if the amount of emissions related to the production of a barrell of oil in the oil sands is reduced, but the actual number of barrells produced is allowed to increase dratically, then their will be no net decline in emissions. Instead emissions will actually increases as the oil produced increases.
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