The latest reports from the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and the Environment Commissioner highlight fiscal and environmental mismanagement by the federal government, say opposition environment critics.A recent report by NRTEE on the mounting costs of climate change estimates that the effects of global warming will cost the Canadian economy $5-billion annually by 2020, and between $20-billion and $40-billion by 2050.
Variations in NRTEE’s findings were based on modelling different rates of global emissions growth and economic and population growth within Canada. The report’s estimates took into account climate change related costs to health care, infrastructure, and industries.
Given current levels of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, the NRTEE highlights “cost-effective” adaptation strategies to combat climate change impacts, including prohibiting further construction in coastal areas at risk of flooding, and strategic forestry resource management.
The comprehensive report, Paying the Price: The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada, also states that Canada would “benefit environmentally and economically from a post-2012 international climate arrangement that systemically reduced emissions from all emitters.”
The National Round Table’s study was followed last week by the latest audit from Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan, which reported that two decades of a “start-and-stop pattern of federal program planning” to combat global warming have sent mixed signals to industry, government and the public.
Under the Copenhagen Accord, the feds’ latest climate change commitment is to reduce nationwide carbon emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. Environment Canada reports that federal efforts have to date accounted for 25 per cent of the target, but the report goes on to note that it’s uncertain how that target will be met without “clear objectives, timelines, interim targets, and expectations with key partners.”
The Environment Commissioner’s Fall 2011 report, required under the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, assesses federal efforts to meet the abandoned Kyoto Protocol target of six per cent below 1990 levels. Of the $9.2-billion in federal funds allocated to fight climate change between 2008 and 2012, the report found that $5.9-billion in program spending would achieve no emissions reductions by 2012.
The commissioner’s report reviewed 19 climate change programs implemented by Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs, Transport Canada, and the Department of Finance, and five programs with inter-departmental responsibilities for implementation.
“There are a lot of departments involved in federal approaches to climate change. There was a lack of clear coordination, and a need to get some kind of clear plan with coherent direction,” said Mr. Vaughan, who noted that problems with organization and fiscal transparency for climate change initiatives pre-dated his tenure as Environment Commissioner, which began in 2008. “There was a plan, but when we looked at it there were programs that I frankly just don’t know why they were in there. They had targets which were entirely outside of the Kyoto period, there were other programs that had money but didn’t have any greenhouse gas reduction targets.”
Moreover, of the $9.2-billion in federal funding that was up for review, Mr. Vaughan’s team of auditors could only identify $85.9-million that could be clearly identified as being earmarked for climate change adaptation.
NDP Environment Critic Megan Leslie (Halifax, N.S.) accused the government of creating a climate change plan that is “designed to fail.”
“There’s absolutely no reporting mechanism, we know nothing about where this money went,” Ms. Leslie told the Hill Times. “How is that good fiscal management? It makes no sense. If you look at the long-term implications, these reports say that climate change is going to cost us billions per year within 10 years.”
Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Ont.), her party’s environment critic, said that the government’s efforts showed a lack of “moral and intergenerational responsibility.”
Said Ms. Duncan: “I think this is a government that wants as little to do with climate change and I think it’s trying to download adaptation to the provinces and the municipalities. You need leadership at all levels of government.”
Environment Minister Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) welcomed the report from the environment commissioner, touting the government’s “sector-by-sector” approach to reducing emissions as a viable strategy for meeting Canada’s 2020 Copenhagen commitment. Mr. Kent also pointed out that the second half of the environment commissioner’s report gave a positive review of the government’s oil sands environmental monitoring system, which was announced earlier this year. The system is intended to collect data on the impacts of oil sands development on air, water and biodiversity, and inform future environmental impact assessments.
When the integrated program was announced in July, members of the opposition criticized it for lacking teeth, but Mr. Vaughan praised the measures.
“I think the federal government needs to be applauded for sending an absolutely clear signal of its commitment to put in place a credible, robust environmental monitoring system to gauge the combined impacts of the oil sands projects and look at it from a cumulative standpoint,” said the environment commissioner. He added that the monitoring system would provide clear evidence of the environmental and economic stakes in the oil sands. “It’s important to have a debate based on evidence. I think that the federal government is really to be congratulated.”
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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