Greenhouse Gas Emissions Misdirection
Today I’m going to take a stand on climate change which will not be popular with at least three quarters of the Conservative Party. Our position on climate change sucks.
Sigh. On television, radio, and in print all I’ve seen, heard and read lately is a comparison of US and Canada greenhouse gas emissions growth statistics with zero investigation as to why the numbers shake out as they do:
US: 13%, Canada: 24%+
The group-think goes like this: if the US has lower emissions growth (even though Bush tore up Clinton’s Kyoto pledge) than Canada (which supports Kyoto, we say) ought to have turned in a better performance – but hasn’t = the US leads the world on the climate change story.
That’s just dumb.
Yet Stephen Harper keeps parroting the same, dumb, line. Don’t we deserve better?
Diving In
First, lets remember that the goal is reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, not growth, so any number greater than zero is bad, bad bad. Second, let us also not forget that the US is the largest emitter of greenhouse gas on the planet. Third, lets not forget that a significant chunk of US greenhouse gas emissions are effectively outsourced to foreign producers of petro-energy, like Canada, which the US has depended upon since it became a net importer of oil in the 1970’s.
In yesterday’s discussion Election 2006 – Issue: Climate Change and the Petro Industry we looked at how the decrease in US domestic energy production has led to significant growth in foreign imports, and in particular, how Canada’s exports to the US have grown from 934 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in 1990 to over 2 million barrels by 2003. The last two years have both been record years as well.
During that same period of time oil sands production went from nothing to almost a million barrels per day. Its important to realize today that oil sands production, despite efforts to reduce greenhouse gas intensity, emit three times as much greenhouse gasses as conventional production. That itself is a worrying reality, made worse by the knowledge that most of the production growth from Canada will come from oil sands production increases over the next decade.
While work is being done to come up with a system to capture CO2 and use it for conventional oil production (CO2 injection), at this point we are still left with a big delta between where we are and will be over the next decade, and where we should be, with respect to CO2 / greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
Liberal Failures To Date
The government of the day has committed the country to reducing GHG emissions. I personally believe this is a worthy goal, but there is nothing in the government’s record since Kyoto was first signed to be impressed with.
A comprehensive Kyoto implementation plan has never been created, although a plan does exist. It took the Liberals years after the initial Kyoto Accord was signed before any tangible progress was made on the development of the plan.
Results speak: despite the rationalization I’ve provided, the fact remains that our emissions are up substantially, not down as they were to be by this point. What we’ve not seen is true leadership – not from government and not from industry, which by and large pretends that this issue does not exist.
Conservatives Wont Even Try
Nor can we expect the western-dominated Conservative party, my party, to take serious action on this file either. Indeed the Conservative Party Policy Declaration (PDF) is completely silent on the issue of climate change, although it does say point blank that, if elected, we can expect a radical shift ahead:
page 16, Policy Statement March 19, 2005, Conservative Party of Canada
- initiate a review of all environment and energy initiatives, including the Kyoto Accord;
- adopt a new approach for an environmental strategy at the international level
Interpretation? A policy statement 51 pages long that doesn’t even once mention climate change nor greenhouse gas, yet states it will take a new approach to international environmental issues, can only mean one thing: a Stephen Harper-led government will scrap the one significant international environmental strategy that Canada has laid out – the Kyoto Accord. That’s not exactly shocking news though – Harper is already on record more than once saying exactly that: Conservative government would scrap Kyoto: Harper – June 2004.
During this election, expect to see the following distortions or attempts to mislead the public, to soften the Conservative Party, my party, stance on climate change:
- “science is still evolving – Stephen Harper” – False. Climate change due to man’s activities on earth is beyond debate. Stephen Harper is siding with US Republican’s George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, when Bush’s own contemporaries, Republican Senator John McCain and Democrat Senator Joseph Lieberman have been working together to push a bi-partisan climate change control act for years.
- “Kyoto is never going to be passed and I think we’d be better to spend our time on realistic pollution control measures. Now is the time for federal leadership to ensure that targets for smog-causing pollutants are reached – Stephen Harper” – Misleading. Harper, using the same tactics employed by the Bush administration (Whitehouse waters down EPA environment report, June 2003), continues to totally ignore greenhouse gas emissions or attempt to refer to the issue as one of pollution control rather than global climate change.
While related, “pollution” and “global climate change” are not the same issue.
When politicians and industry try to fuse the two as one, its a transparent, and contemptible, ploy to avoid having a proper debate. Its a cheap trick to change the subject, deliver on a more easily achievable pollution reduction goal, and say “see, we did what we said we would”.
The people deserve to be treated with respect, with open and honest debate on both issues, not have cutsey word-smith tricks played upon them.
Conclusion
This is a difficult issue, made more so by society’s dependence on petro-energy. There are competing interests here which are hard to reconcile. The petro industry employs a lot of people and generates a ton of revenue, and produces products upon which the world is still utterly dependent on. But we need to attack this issue with vigor, not sweep it under the rug, which is exactly what Stephen Harper will do.
Make no mistake – the Liberals deserve to be roasted for years of inaction on this file, but that does not mean we can let industry or Conservatives at the national or provincial level off the hook either.
Climate change is an issue of global importance; yet our leaders shrink away from attacking it head on due to fears of reaction from Alberta and other oil producing regions of the country.
Why is it that here in Canada we can’t find the leadership required to take on this issue, when our northern lands are already among the first affected by climate change? This isn’t about pitting one region against another. If we are serious about the climate change issue, GHG reduction will affect all Canadians. If Stephen Harper were the leader he claims to be he’d have taken a strong stand on this issue years ago, but he has not. Instead, pressure from the western-dominated industry, and all the voters it employs or indirectly benefits (and I have been one of those people too), keeps the Conservative Party silent on an issue of significant importance.
This is the second major issue Stephen Harper has simply adopted the Bush party line on. Interestingly, both are related to energy/oil – Iraq, and climate change. Don’t we deserve better?
Bottom line: If you are looking to the Conservative Party for leadership on the climate change issue, you won’t find it. Harper has committed himself to tearing up the Kyoto Accord, and the record shows that Harper is perfectly willing to use the same junk science and scare tactics that the Bush administration, run by former oilmen Bush and Cheney, has so effectively used to stall the US Congress all these years.