Canada will probably not meet its already-diminished greenhouse gas reduction targets, the country’s environment commissioner warned on Tuesday in a report to Parliament. The commissioner, Scott Vaughan, blamed a lack of government oversight, particularly for the oil and natural gas industry, which is Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas related emissions.
The current Conservative government withdrew Canada from its reduction commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and adopted the more limited goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. That matches the approach taken by the United States, which did not sign the Kyoto Protocol.
“Canada has made a variety of commitments and set a number of targets to reduce greenhouse gas (G.H.G.) emissions since 1992,” Mr. Vaughan wrote in his audit. “These targets have become significantly less ambitious over time.”
Rather than declining, Mr. Vaughan projected, emissions will be 7.4 percent higher in 2020 than they were in 2005.
“Environment Canada has no overall implementation plan that indicates how different regulations and federal departments and agencies will work together to achieve the reductions required to meet the 2020 target,” his report said.
Part of the Conservative Party’s plan involved setting targets for specific business sectors. But so far the government has yet to create any regulations for the oil and natural gas industry.
It has only written two sets of regulations for transportation, the largest source of emissions, and a third set for the electrical generation industry, although it will not come into effect until 2015, the study said.
The report said the only action to date on rules for the oil and gas industry had been an “early consultation with industry and provinces.” The report added that it could take up to five years to develop regulations.
The report notes that although the Canadian government has decided to regulate greenhouse gas emission sector by sector, “there is no sector-by-sector analysis to support it.” That includes a lack of any research to determine how much each sector should, or could, contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it said.
While the Conservatives argued that the country needed to withdraw from Kyoto because its reduction targets were unaffordable, the commissioner noted that the government appeared to have no cost estimates for putting its alternative plan into effect.
As environment commissioner, a post that lies within the framework of the Auditor General of Canada, Mr. Vaughan reports directly to Parliament rather than to the government. His reports carry no penalty for the government other than political embarrassment.
Peter Kent, the government’s environment minister, issued a statement that did not directly address many of the commissioner’s concerns. But he did appear to take issue with the report’s finding that the government would widely miss its target.
“We are making significant progress on reducing Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 through a sector-by-sector plan,” the minister said.