Blogpost by Keith Stewart - June 9, 2011 at 11:38
Canada’s representatives at the UN climate meeting in Bonn got raked over the coals today for failing to meet our Kyoto target, offloading the burden of dealing with climate change to developing countries and only having in place measures that would achieve one quarter of the reductions required to meet our own (inadequate) target. You can watch the webcast here; Canada does the first presentation and Q&A starts at 1:24 with Canadian answers at 1:42.
Canada’s response was to not really answer any of the questions, but did make two clarifications. First, he clarified that, contrary to Australia's understanding that federal measures would achieve 25 per cent of the 2020 target and provincial measures would achieve the remaining 75 per cent, the reality was that all existing federal and provincial measures would achieve only 25 per cent of the target. And with respect to the EU’s asking about media reports that Canada hadn’t properly accounted for emissions from the tar sands, Canada's representative said that those media reports were "erroneous" (more on that below).
You do have to pity the poor civil servants trying to square all these circles. For example, Postmedia is reporting today that Environment Canada told the UN that federal programs were about 10 times as effective as reducing greenhouse gas emissions as what they told Parliament – with the reports being published just days apart.
This comes on the heels of missing and then contradictory information on greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands. Normally, we’d clear this up by talking to the people who write the reports (and who are, in my experience, admirably honest and forthright about data). But they aren’t allowed to speak to anyone directly.
Here’s what I do know. Back on May 17, I wrote Environment Canada to say “Last year's GHG Inventory helpfully included a summary of GHG emission from the oil sands (it was Table 2-18). I can't find the equivalent in this year's inventory, but Table 3-18 attributes 36.9 MT to the 2,233 PJ of unconventional oil that is exported, which implies that the 970 PJ that are consumed domestically would be responsible for 16 MT, resulting in a total of a 52.9 MT from the oil sands (or 7.6% of total GHG emissions in Canada).... Could you confirm these numbers for me?”
The answer I got back on May 27 (after reporter Mike de Souza had been pestering them for the same information) said that when calculating the GHGs from the oil sands related to exports (i.e. emissions we’re trying to blame on the Americans), the government includes things like transporting the oil and emissions from the electricity used in the facilities. They don’t include these when calculating emissions from the sector domestically, so emissions were only 6.5% of total GHG emissions in Canada in 2009 (which works out to ~45 megatonnes).
We could argue over which methodology is more appropriate, but at minimum I think the government should pick one and stick with it rather than tailoring the number for the argument they are trying to make.
However, the numbers I got in the May 27 response still didn’t add up and while I’ve never received a reply to my subsequent queries, it is clear based on what they told Mike de Souza that they have now re-stated the emissions for 2008 (raising them by ~10%) and increased their estimate of greenhouse gas intensity (emissions per barrel) from all oil sands production.
All of this would be little more than a tempest in a data teapot, except for the fact that the federal Environment Minister, Peter Kent, has promised to introduce regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands by the end of the year.
If you're wondering why the feds would do this over Alberta's objections, you need look no further than the plea from the US ambassador for someone to do something about it so that the Obama administration can justify increasing their imports of the stuff.
But it should matter what they do. My concern is that we could be seeing another instance in the long and not-terribly-honourable tradition of boosting estimates of emissions from an industrial sector just prior to setting regulating reductions (i.e. you set a higher baseline, so reductions are easier to achieve).
Hence in my latest e-mail (June 1) to Environment Canada, I wrote: “I believe it is important to have greater transparency on the numbers and methodology given (a) the Minister's stated intention of issuing greenhouse gas regulations for the oil sands by the end of the year and (b) the role this data will play in setting baselines for regulated reductions from oil sands companies. It would be a shame if we were to replicate the experience of the EU Emissions Trading System where baseline emissions were inflated, undermining the efficacy of the system and resulting in windfall profits for some firms.”
I’m still waiting for a reply. Maybe the folks at the UN will get one for me.
Retrieved from http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/canadas-diplomatic-spanking-at-un-hides-deepe/blog/35214
* color and emphasis added by the blogger
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