The Canadian government was hit by a leak of the truth Tuesday as the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. exposed a plan by the government to abandon its own greenhouse reduction goals. A key part of the plan is to allow projected growth in greenhouse gas emissions from the huge oil sands project in northern Alberta to increase 165 percent by 2020 (oil sands is Earth that could be processed to produce crude oil). The government would ask industry to cut the growth of pollution not the quantity of emissions by just 10 percent. The Alberta tar sands are the world's biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions.
CBC's “The National” revealed an internal draft proposal prepared for submission to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet. The proposal suggests that the government is scaling back on its already-modest goals.
“The proposal raises questions about how the (government) could cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 - a target they insist they can reach - while weakening the targets in the oil and gas sector,” the CBC reported.
The proposal suggests that the oil and gas industry will have to cut emissions by only one third of what was proposed in the Harper government's 2007 green plan, called Turning the Corner. “Canada is 'red-faced',” headlined the Globe and Mail.
Meanwhile, Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice said special breaks for Canada's key industrial sectors, including the oilsands, are possible as Canada moves forward to develop the details of reducing emissions by 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020.
No decisions have been made yet, but Prentice says he wants Canadian industries to remain competitive with the U.S. South of the border, the Waxman-Markey bill allows for special breaks for industries considered trade-sensitive under a proposed carbon cap-and-trade system.
“This is something that we will need to consider on the Canadian side of the border,” Prentice said. “I think any industry that is a trade-exposed industry in the same sense would be an industry that has to be considered in terms of its comparability to the U.S. framework.”
Prentice also said the government is considering a national technology fund into which greenhouse gas emitters which exceed their targets could pay to fund research, instead of buying offsets under a cap-and-trade scheme.
“Certainly we have a perspective as a Canadian government relative to the importance of technology and accumulating investment dollars to make those major technological changes,” Prentice said, noting no final decisions have been made.
Prentice was responding to the CBC report on leaked cabinet briefing documents which had said earlier that Canada was considering weakening the emission reduction targets for the country's oil and gas sector as it continues to grow.
Connected to this, last Wednesday, in an event organized by Climate Action Network Canada, about 50 young Canadian activists rallied at the COP15 summit for a moratorium on the tar sands work, both for its environmental and human rights impacts. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), one of the event coordinators, Daniel T'seleie, said he believes the tar sands development infringes on aboriginal treaty rights. "There has been a distinct lack of proper consultation with the First Nations in the tar sands area, such as the Mikisew Cree," T'seleie said, referring to the Mikisew Cree First Nation in northern Alberta.
Doctoral Scholar, Carnegie Mellon; Also, Knowledge Editor, FC, India.
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