A new report from the government of Canada, on Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2013, is making news. And as usual, the bad news leads.
The media focus is on the probability that Canada will miss its Copenhagen emission-reduction targets from 2009. (Canada agreed to cut emissions by 17 per cent from a 2005 base-year by 2020). In reality, however, this is less about Canada being an environmental laggard, and more a problem with agreeing to politically-derived targets you have no idea how to hit. But, fair enough, a miss is a miss -whether you think we should have accepted that target or not.
So that’s the bad news. Now let’s look at the good news. Emissions are indeed up 18 per cent since 1990. But real GDP went up by 71 per cent, meaning there was a 31 per cent decrease in the amount of emissions per unit of economic production over that same time period. That’s actually a great trend in emissions intensity. And before people pooh-pooh emissions intensity, remember that China and India were lauded not that long ago for agreeing to eventually improve their emissions intensity back in 2009.
Kenneth P. Green , Troy Media – Battlefords News-Optimist – April 28, 2015.
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