It’s Getting Hot In Here

Let’s face it, Stephen Harper’s government isn’t recognized for being green. Since its arrival at the head of the country, many of its members made infamous declarations that undermined the little credibility it had to start with in the environmental domain.

Last week, the annoucement of a new regulatory framework called Taking Action to Fight Climate Change, that was described by the Conservative Party as containing “though regulation” for different industrial activities includins the tar sands industry, left most people wondering how severe the plan actually is. 

Why isn’t the regulation strict enough? First of all, the Government isn’t backing down on its target: the goal is to reduce GHG emissions by 20% below the 2006 level by 2020. That target will keep Canada away from its Kyoto target, with an excess of 1160 Mt of GHG for the 2008-2012 period.

Secondly, the measure that will affect the bituminous sands industry [editors note: commonly referred to as "oil sands" or "tar sands" ] isn’t going to be effective before many years from now. The measure is going to “require oil sands starting operations in 2012 to implement carbon capture and storage“, and that obligation won’t be effective before 2018. So what the Minister of the Environment tells us, it that the measure won’t affect the giant number of current bituminous sand operations effectively, and that we will have to wait for another 10 years before before we see the regulation being applied!

To illustrate how “though” the future regulation is, let’s mention that Alberta’s Premier approves it! Luckily, he’s a discordant voice in the generalized protest against the plan: The Pembina Institute critics the regulation because by the time we reach the year 2012, most of the development projected by oil companies will be over, therefore they will only have to face “modest emission targets”. The Liberal Party says there is no good reason to keep existing oil sand operations out ot the plan; the NDP and Greenpeace disapprove of the fact that the Conservative Party uses reduction targets calculated by intensity, rather than using the overall quantity, which lets Canada’s emission grow year after year.

What is really interesting though, is that negative reactions aren’t just coming from environmental groups or political parties: After last week’s announcement, Ontario and Québec decided to team up to negotiate their own GHG reduction plan, and Manitoba and British-Columbia might join them! Visibly, we’ll have to wait more before we see a real environmentally-friendly plan coming from the Federal Government, because the new regulation isn’t aiming for Kyoto and isn’t though enough. But it’s quite encouraging to see that some provinces have decided to move forward despite the fact that Ottawa still stays behing by postponing again and again real action.