Is Canada Abandoning the Kyoto Accord?

On any given day in Canada, Canadians open up their daily newspapers and see editorials such as this one with comments like:

It was clear before budget day that the Harper government wasn't keen on the Kyoto Accord or the Kelowna Agreement on improving the lot of First Nations.

That's fine. There are legitimate concerns about each initiative.

But it was disappointing to see the new government abandon both commitments without offering alternate plans to deal with the real problems.

What does Canada have to do to meet it's Kyoto commitments?

Canada is required to have emission levels of greenhouse gases during the years 2008-2012 at an average of 94% of 2012 levels.

How well is Canada meeting this Kyoto committment?

Not well at all. Environment Canada reports that:

Total GHG emissions in Canada in 2004, expressed as "CO2 equivalent," (CO2e) were 758 Mt which represents a 0.6 percent increase over the 2003 total of 754 Mt and a 26.6 percent increase over the 1990 total of 599 Mt and 34.6% above the Kyoto target of 563 Mt.

If we use an even weaker target that Canada only needs to meet this 94% level in 2012, all that would have been needed is a 0.26% reduction per year in emissions from the period 1991-2012. That sounds easy enough, but Canada has managed to do it only twice in the past 14 years, as shown by the figures provided by Environment Canada on the bottom of this page. Note that greenhouse gas emissions rose more than 2.5% per year during the period 1994-1996, and more than 1.0% per year during the period 1994-2000. That's a far cry from the 0.26% per year reduction required by Kyoto.

If we again consider our even weaker target that Canada only needs to meet this 94% level in 2012, Canada must reduce it's emissions from 758 Mt in 2004 to 563 Mt in 2012. This represents an average reduction of 3.6% per year. To say this is a near-impossible task would be an understatement. In the Kyoto period, Canada has never managed to reduce greenhouse gases during two consecutive years. During the year in which it reduced greenhouse gases the most, 1991, it managed to only do 1/3rd of the new target. During 1991 Canada was also in the midst of a painful recession, and real GDP declined 2.1%; the contracted economic output was responsible for the reduced emissions. Now Canada is now required to have reductions three times larger than the one in 1991 and do it for 8 consecutive years! I do not see how this is even remotely possible without causing an economic contraction the likes of which we have not experienced since the 1930s.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government is not killing the Kyoto Accord. Kyoto has been dead before Canada even signed the accord in 1998. The huge growth in greenhouse gases during the mid 1990s ensured that there was no way that Canada could possibly ever reach the targets. To blame what happened 10 years ago on the current administration is foolhardy at best.

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