Conservatives Announce Weaker Environmental Commitments

During a weekend hockey game, the Conservatives announced that they’d do even less to move Canada in a positive direction on the environment (reducing GHG emissions by 17 percent instead of 20). A Vancouver Sun¹ article (1 February 2010) reported on Conservative Environment Minister, Jim Prentice’s news

“At a low-key news conference in Calgary, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Canada’s new goal is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below its 2005 levels by 2020. He said this puts Canada’s target in step with what is planned in the U.S.”

In April 2007, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government had promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 2006 levels (GHG plan from 2007²). While this sounds admirable at first glance, it’s actually quite weak. It puts Canada far short of the amount we agreed to in our original Kyoto commitment (6% below 1990 levels by 2012). An IPS article³ from 26 April 2007 noted that “…Canada’s emissions have shot up 30 to 35 percent since 1990…”

While continuing to trounce Kyoto, the Conservatives also pull a fast one in terms of our Copenhagen commitment. The aforementioned Vancouver Sun article states that Canada’s emissions in 2005 were actually higher than in 2006. So the Conservatives have decreased the commitment both by percentage and in total.

The Toronto Star⁴ (01 February 2010) wrote

“Prentice told an audience at the University of Calgary Monday that business needs to work closely with the provincial and federal governments to ensure a greener exploitation of the sandy bitumen stores in northern Alberta and achieve the goal of making the country a clean energy superpower.”

Jim Prentice is beginning to sound like he’s co-opting NDP messaging about “green-collar” jobs. The NDP and other parties have certainly pushed the notion of creating jobs by boosting new green industries in the face of looming environmental disaster. How else can you read Prentice’s desire to make the country “a clean energy superpower”? The problem is this attitude is not one that the Conservatives actually hold. In fact, it’s the opposite of Harper’s opinion: “…the ‘battle of Kyoto’ — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord…”. To date, the Conservatives’ inaction, stalling, and failure when it comes to environmental concerns testify to the fact that they don’t truly hold the position Prentice suggested.

Prentice mixes two ideas in the same statement, on the one hand he simply says greener in reference to the tar sands (which doesn’t mean much considering the weak GHG emissions targets). On the other he’s talking about clean energy, which the tar sands are not.

The Star article also quotes Prentice repeating the standard Conservative don’t-lead & do-nothing, defeatist approach saying

“It’s absolutely counterproductive and utterly pointless for Canada and Canadian businesses to strike out on their own, to set and to pursue targets that will ultimately create barriers to trade and put us at a competitive disadvantage…”

But he doesn’t justify why it’s counterproductive or pointless. While implying it, he doesn’t justify why rational targets like Kyoto would create barriers. He didn’t justify why Canadian policy should follow the United States. Even if we assume all of his statements are true, he still needs to justify why some barriers on trade are more important than environmental conservation and the future well-being of our species.

Prentice seems to mock his own government when he says

“Absent this kind of Canadian leadership, we will be cast as a global poster child for environmentally unsound resource development. Canadians expect and deserve more than that…”

Because of the Conservatives’ inaction and lack of leadership on the environment, we’ve already been cast as the global poster child for environmentally unsound resource development.

Let’s return to the Vancouver Sun article for one more quote; Prentice said of the latest Conservative plan:

“The unfulfilled promise of Kyoto we leave behind us. This is an approach that will work. It will only work if everyone who emits carbon puts forward their reduction obligations and does so in the way Canada has today…”

Kyoto is unfulfilled because the Conservatives trashed it. Let’s hope the rest of the world doesn’t approach its obligations the way the Conservatives’ version of Canada has.

Update 01 Feb 2010 8pm: The Globe and Mail⁵ is reporting that Jim Prentice attacked Québec’s progressive, modern environmental policy. Québec is a leader, forging ahead with moderately aggressive new environmental conservation action, which also happens to be in-line with policies many US states are considering, Prentice calls it “absolutely counter-productive and utterly pointless” continuing by describing the move as “folly.” Strange position for an environment minister to take.