Canada moving closer to 2020 target for GHG emissions reductions
‘Canada is Finally Moving in theRight Direction on Greenhouse Gas Policy” IISD
The
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
estimates new federal regulations combined with provincial actions
will achieve nearly half the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
reductions Canada has targeted under the Copenhagen
Accord.
“Many Canadian GHG emitters
are facing carbon costs consistent with emitters in the European
Union and at levels well above competitors in the United States,”
said
target=”_blank”>David Sawyer, IISD climate
change and energy director and author of
target=”_blank”>Mind the Gap: The State-of-Play in
Canadian Greenhouse Gas
Mitigation.
Based on
our assessment of the incremental impact of current provincial
mitigation policies, about 31 Mt of reductions are likely to be
achieved annually by 2020, representing attainment of about 14 per
cent of Canada’s 2020 mitigation target
The Canadian Government is
implementing policies that reduce GHG emissions by regulating new
and modified coal-fired power facilities and through vehicle
efficiency standards in order to meet its target of a 17 per cent
reduction in emissions from 2005 by 2020.
The Canadian government isn’t
acting alone to reduce GHG emissions. “The emerging federal GHG
emission mitigation policy builds on what is happening at a
provincial level,” Sawyer said.
“The federal and provincial
governments are delivering reductions that jointly put Canada on
track to achieve nearly half of its 2020 emissions reduction
target,” he said, adding that existing policies are already
delivering 30 per cent of the target and the new measures should
deliver a total of 46 per cent.
The challenge of a forward-looking
climate policy is to anticipate how the inevitable patchwork of
climate policies can be transitioned to deliver cost-effective
reductions, while keeping compliance costs aligned with major
trading partners.
“Closing the remaining 54
per cent gap in Canada’s target will be challenging and require a
rethink on how we approach policy design, which has until recently
focused on carbon pricing policies rather than performance-based
regulations preferred by the Canadian government.”
IISD’s Mind the Gap paper
provides new modelling to measure the impact of Canadian efforts to
reduce GHG emissions, outlines five principles to guide policy
development in a regulatory environment and offers three options
Canada can consider to help it reach its target.
The first option suggests
Canada can regulate all existing sources of carbon emissions,
rather than just new or modified sources. It can also look at
establishing a domestic offsets system and expand Canadian use of
international offsets that take advantage of the relatively
low-cost reductions available internationally.
“While it isn’t currently
politically feasible to implement a national carbon pricing policy,
it will eventually be necessary in order to the deliver
cost-effective reductions required to meet Canada’s longer-term
aspirations for GHG emission reductions,” Sawyer said.
The report concludes
that ”Canada’s move to regulate carbon under proposed
federal regulations for new and modified coal fired power
facilities will deliver GHG emissions reductions at a reasonable
cost.”
“While the emerging package of
regulations won’t achieve the deep targets the government has
aspired to, it does signal that Canada’s federal government is
finally establishing the policy architecture to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.”
The report,
target=”_blank”>Mind the Gap: The State-of-Play in
Canadian Greenhouse Gas Mitigation, is one in
a series of papers on the subject of Regulating Carbon Emissions in
Canada.
Source: www.iisd.org
