But the incentive for the federal government to launch additional measures to tackle climate change should be strong because the cost of cutting carbon from the atmosphere will only rise after 2020.
That’s the conclusion of the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy, an arms-length advisory panel, in a report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government before the agency is abolished at the end of the year.
The report looked at the combined effects of provincial and federal climate change plans and the emissions reductions they will yield by the end of the decade. It found that policies and programs already in place can be expected to cut carbon dioxide levels by 104 megatonnes in 2020.
That forecast is 117 megatonnes short of a commitment made by the Tories to reduce emissions to 607 megatonnes, or 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
“The federal government need not fundamentally alter its current regulatory … approach. But it will need to accelerate and complement it,” the report says.
“To be sure it meets the 2020 target it needs to supplement current policy with a more coordinated federal, provincial and territorial approach to drive additional near-term reductions.”
The most optimistic scenario, which includes the benefits of more modest climate change measures and the difficult-to-predict effects of an Alberta polluter’s fund that will be used to invest in emissions cuts, would see Canada come a little more than half way toward its end-of-decade goal.
But a worst-case situation also exists. It would see a planned cap-and-trade system between some Canadian provinces and American states fizzle out, Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants continue to pollute and Alberta’s plans to pump carbon dioxide underground turn into a costly pipe dream.
“Instead of being halfway to the target in 2020, Canada would be about one-third of the way there,” the report says.
The decision by energy giant Transalta earlier this year to shut down a planned $1.4-billion carbon capture and storage facility in Alberta suggests the worst-case scenario is a real threat.
“The risk on the pessimistic scenario is probably greater than the hope on the optimistic scenario,” said David McLaughlin, president of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy.
Getting skyrocketing emissions under control in Alberta, the economic engine of the country, is key to Canada’s overall success, but it’s not the only problem area.
Only two provinces, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, are on track to meet their own emissions targets for 2020.
Ontario is assessed as being three quarters of the way toward meeting its own targets. But the province’s population, energy consumption and high emissions from transportation and the manufacturing sector means it will also have to do more.
With only eight years left until 2020, the costs of making high-impact reductions will be great. Only investments in large-scale technologies like carbon capture and storage facilities, switching to cleaner fuel sources and making major energy efficiency upgrades will do the trick.
Miss the 2020 target and the costs will only grow, the report warns in a section that looks ahead to the situation in 2030.
By then, industry will have had more time to replace its facilities and equipment with low-emission stock, but carbon dioxide levels will have continued to grow along with the economy. A further delay in federal low-carbon policies will exacerbate the problem as industry and provincial governments wait to see which path Ottawa intends to follow.
McLaughlin said the request by Environment Minister Peter Kent for the information contained in the report is a “good first step.”
“The will is going to be the big next step and that’s beyond us,” he said.
“At the end of the day, if we don’t materialize the political will, that 2020 target — if that’s what we want — every year makes it harder and harder to reach.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Allan Woods
No comments:
Post a Comment