(Dec 11, 2010*) Cancun paves way for global climate treaty

Dec 11, 2010 - 18:28

by Jessica Dacey in Cancun, swissinfo.ch

Switzerland has welcomed a new United Nations deal thrashed out in Cancun, saying it heralds the birth of an international treaty on climate change.

Over 190 nations meeting in the Mexican resort adopted the two-part climate agreement on Saturday.

The deal, brokered by Mexico, includes the creation of a Green Climate Fund and steps to help share clean technologies such as wind and solar power, protect tropical forests and assist poor nations to adapt to impacts such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

The final result offers a “solid basis for development” on issues in the coming years and primarily, for next year’s climate summit in South Africa, Switzerland’s top negotiator Bruno Oberle told swissinfo.ch in Cancun.

A “fairly impressive” list of promises by developed and developing countries had been incorporated in the deal, said Oberle, who heads the Swiss Federal Environment Office.

The current climate treaty is now 20 years old, and no longer reflects today’s global emissions situation, he said. It was time to find a way of bringing developed and developing countries together to take responsibility for their share in the bigger climate picture.

Cancun has taken a step in that direction with a document that “provides one overarching framework for all countries".

The same sentiment was expressed by the president of conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, who announced the conclusion of the agreement saying the “historic” deal signaled “a new era in international cooperation in climate change”.

The European Union's climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, also commented that Cancun “proved that multilateralism can create results".

“Step backwards”

Draft texts were formally endorsed at a final session at 4am local time, after non-stop negotiations among delegations through Thursday and Friday. It passed despite solitary opposition from Bolivia.

The South American nation said it was opposed to the deal as it represented a “step backwards” and would result in a “weaker, less demanding, regime for developed countries which are responsible for global warming”.

Mexico said Bolivia’s objections were “duly reflected in the conference records”.

Bolivia was criticised during the week for its hardline approach, the toughest of any nation at the talks, demanding that rich nations halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2017 from 1990 levels - far beyond the demands of other nations.

A new fund

The Cancun agreement was the first time in three years that the 193-nation conference had adopted any climate action, restoring faith in the UN process after failed talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

The deal integrates the pledges for action made in the Copenhagen Accord into the UN climate process. But it does not require developed countries to adopt binding cuts beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

Delegates put off the Kyoto issue until next year’s conference in South Africa, but states party to the protocol will be obliged to intensify their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.(Switzerland’s commitment for a second Kyoto period from 2013- 2020 is currently before the Swiss parliament.)

In creating a new climate fund, richer nations have promised to contribute $100 billion a year by 2020, but the Cancun decision does not identify specific sources of financing. The fund will be used to help developing nations obtain clean technology and adapt to climate change.

Switzerland noted that it helped push through with the climate fund with a proposal on how it should be organised, and through its staging of the Geneva Dialogue on Climate Finance earlier this year.

Great challenge

Oberle said Cancun also helped answer a key question about the climate issue, namely, “who is responsible for what in the field of mitigation” of the effects of environmental changes.

He was referring to the planned framework of measures aimed at helping in particular the very vulnerable developing countries to adapt to climate change and to mitigate its impact on them. (See Cancun deal highlights).

The deal also takes a position on climate change, saying it is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and calling for a paradigm shift to enable the development of a climate-friendly economy and society.

Outside the plenary session, Patrick Hofstetter, spokesman for the Swiss Climate Alliance, told swissinfo.ch he was satisfied with the outcome, but noted it was “just one important step”.

On a positive note, no issues were left out of the Cancun agreement, but the deal was problematic as most of the processes decided had no clear end date nor was it obvious how they would evolve, he said.

“So it’s very open whether we will have something in one, three or five years. This is a big problem so it needs a lot of work next year in order to finalise everything in South Africa.”

Observing the Cancun summit from Switzerland, Oberle’s predecessor, Philippe Roch, now an environmental consultant, noted that trust between nations had been restored during the negotiations, which was in itself a “very positive factor”.

“After Copenhagen there were huge doubts about whether countries could work together. Trust is necessary,” he said, cautioning however that “we have not yet reached a paradigm shift in our consumer behaviour or attitudes about carbon usage.”

Jessica Dacey in Cancun, swissinfo.ch

Retrieved from http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/climate_change/news/Cancun_paves_way_for_global_climate_treaty.html?cid=29005802

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(June 24*) Uncertainty hinders Kyoto successor

June 24, 2011 - 14:16

by Pierre-François Besson, swissinfo.ch

With no agreement on a new time frame, a gap is looming after the end of the first commitment period (2008-2012) to reduce emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto risks collapse due to lack of support beyond 2012 from rich nations, which are meant to take the lead in fighting climate change.

"This process is dead in the water," said Yvo de Boer, the former head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.

"It's not going anywhere," he said during the United Nations June 6-17 talks in Bonn, which yet again failed to resolve disputes between rich and poor about extending the Kyoto Protocol.

On one side Japan, Russia and Canada say they will not sign up for deeper cuts in emissions under Kyoto beyond 2012, arguing that a global deal, backed by all big emitters including China and India, is a fair next step.

But developing nations say Kyoto is a test of developed countries' past promises to lead in slowing global warming, which is set to cause more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels that are likely to hit the poorest hardest.

Another preparatory meeting is expected to be scheduled before the next big Conference of Parties (COP) meeting in Durban, South Africa five months away.

Added to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol legally obliges a minority of states, known as Annex I countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 per cent from the 1990 level. One year before the end of the first commitment period these states have failed to deliver, some falling far short of their reduction target.

The Annex I countries were deemed “industrialised” when Kyoto was initially adopted in 1997. However, they produce a small share of the global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Jorge E. Viñuales, chair of international environmental law at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

“At the time the industrialisation of China had not been foreseen and the vision of the future was still marked by the Cold War,” Viñuales said. “Kyoto does not tie the United States [which has signed but not ratified] or China or the emerging economies who produce most of the emissions.”

Kyoto’s value

“The actual contribution of Kyoto to the reduction of emissions is very limited. The value of the protocol is in having been a first experience in how to make a treaty limiting emissions,” said Viñuales.

Judged strictly on its climate impact, Kyoto performs poorly. The emissions reductions to which the states are committed are minimal, according to Viñuales.

“And even if we arrived at zero emission, that would not be enough. The average temperature will increase anyway by two degrees or more by the end of the century. The stock of greenhouse gases in the troposphere is already too high. Which is why geo-engineering is so important [reforestation, injection of particules into the atmosphere etc].”

Kyoto does have some merit both as a negotiation instrument and for the impetus it creates. Its very existence has encouraged the private sector to be more efficient and it can be used by governments to justify unpopular decisions.

The Protocol is also a diplomatic instrument. China and the emerging economies support it to push the industrialised countries to commit before asking the same effort of them. And Canada and the European Union (with Switzerland) refuse to be tied and to unilaterally reduce their competitiveness if the big emitters do not commit. That largely explains the current impasse.

No clear signal

The legal void expected after 2012 will mean the absence of a clear signal allowing the business world to make good energy and industrial investment choices.

For Viñuales this absence of international commitment will spur companies to “deploy every possible lobbying effort to limit as much as possible the weight of the national regulation on emission reduction”.

Annex I countries whose emissions exceed 1990 levels by the end of next year will in theory breach their commitments. But Kyoto has built-in flexibility mechanisms. The best known is the trading of emission rights. It allows countries to buy emission credits from countries which emit less than their quotas.

This mechanism – like other instruments set up by the protocol – will survive thanks to the well-established European trading system, Viñuales predicts. The Geneva professor already envisages three post-Kyoto scenarios without Kyoto II in place.

Three scenarios

“The first, quite likely, scenario is a return to the framework convention, where the non-binding obligations would be set by the COP. That would give a substantial, non-obligatory framework, which would send a strong, international and largely harmonised signal to the private sector.”

Another possibility would be to go down the human rights route, in other words employing the mechanisms and instruments in this domain to obtain damages and compensation from the big emitters. This route is currently being explored by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, according to Viñuales.

The third scenario is that of atomisation: “A mosaic of national regulations without coordination of common obligations”. Viñuales can also easily imagine a combination of the three. The Durban meeting could make things clearer.

Pierre-François Besson, swissinfo.ch
(Adapted from French by Clare O'Dea)

Retrieved from http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/climate_change/news/Uncertainty_hinders_Kyoto_successor_.html?cid=30540042

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(June 17*) Bolivia’s Indigenous social movements call for urgent action at UNFCCC talks in Bonn, Germany

JUNE 17, 2011 · 1:52 AM

Instead of trying to agree on a global deal that will actually stop climate change, governments are more worried about privatising Mother Earth.

Press Conference Webcast:

http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/110606_SB34/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=3622&theme=unfccc

“Our Mother Earth is ill. The development model of unlimited economic growth and overconsumption has broken the balance between human beings and the environment” said indigenous leader Rafael Quispe.

“The countries negotiating in Bonn for the last two weeks are out of touch with reality. Climate change is affecting us now with more floods and draughts. As indigenous peoples we are one of the groups most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change”.

“Unless the peoples of the world unite the consequences of climate change will be much worse”, said indigenous leader Lauriano Pari.

“We call on Annex 1 parties to sign a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in Durban that is legally binding, coercive and with the capacity to penalise Parties. We reject the attempt by developed countries to prolong the life of the Protocol to then replace it in 2020 by a treaty that merges the Kyoto Protocol with the Long-Term Group on Cooperative Action.”, underlined Lauriano Pari.

The Developed countries and their allies are not serious about reducing their emissions. They want to use existing markets and create new ones to pay others so that they take no action to confront the climate crisis. And now they want to put a price on “blue carbon” in the oceans.

All outcomes of the Kyoto Protocol must recognize and respect the rights of native indigenous peoples, consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and with the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent.

“In order to achieve a net reduction of carbon emissions REDD plus cannot be financed by market-based mechanisms or used in carbon offsetting. Instead funds should come from developed countries and innovative funding sources should be explored. For example, by establishing a new mechanism for a tax on financial transactions that would generate funds without any conditionality”, added Lauriano Pari.

Forests are not providers of environmental services as some United Nations agencies and NGOs see them. Forests have multiple values, uses and functions and shall not be considered only as carbon sinks. There needs to be a study on the potential impact of issuing emission-reduction certificates on the rights of indigenous peoples, in particular the impact on land rights, collective rights, and traditional livelihoods.

“It is clear the current proposals on the table in the climate change negotiations are not enough to stop climate change. We propose the model of living well in harmony with Mother Earth as the way forward to re-establish the balance between humans and nature. We believe Mother Earth has rights. She owns us. We do not own her. This is why we have developed a proposal for a Law of Mother Earth that will be approved soon in Bolivia”, said Rafael Quispe.

Notes to editors: A webcast of the full press conference at Bonn UN climate change talks is available here

Retrieved from http://climate-connections.org/2011/06/17/bolivias-indigenous-social-movements-call-for-urgent-action-at-unfccc-talks-in-bonn-germany/

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*(June 10*) CLIMATE JUSTICE FOR SUSTAINABLE PEACE IN AFRICA - A message from African faith leaders to the COP17

by We Have Faith - Act Now for Climate Justice on Friday, June 10, 2011 at 2:17am

A message from African faith leaders to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), from 29 November – 9 December 2011 in Durban, South Africa.

You must treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It is loaned to you by your children. – Kikuyu proverb

Introduction

Africa is a continent of the faithful. We gathered as African faith leaders at UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya on 7th and 8th June 2011, to discuss climate change and how it will be addressed at COP17.

Scientific reports indicate that climate change may well be the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced, with, on current targets, probable increased global warming of 2.5⁰C to 4⁰C by 2100[i] – widely agreed to be disastrous. Yet progress in international negotiations has not matched the scale of the crisis. There appears to be a deadlock between competing political and economic interests from various power blocs. We believe that to break this deadlock, new perspectives are required.

Firstly, economic and political processes have to be based on ecological principles, and not vice versa. There can be no infinite economic or population growth on a finite planet.

Secondly, there is a profound need for a renewed moral vision for the future of humanity and indeed of all life. We debase human beings by seeing them only as economic instruments, and debase the sanctity of life by commodifying it.

We must realise that well-being cannot be equated with material wealth. The quality of life is not dependent on the quantity of material things or growth measured by GDP. Instead, our standard of living depends on our standard of loving and sharing. We cannot sustain a world dominated by profit-seeking, rampant consumerism and gross inequalities, and an atmosphere of competition where the powerful take advantage of the weak without caring for the well-being of every form of life. Development cannot be sustained if the affluent project themselves as examples to be copied by everyone else, and if the poor model their lifestyles on such examples.

These insights draw from the rich moral and spiritual traditions on our continent and elsewhere in the world. Despite the historical violence and disorganisation that Africa has suffered and inflicted on itself, these insights have been transmitted to us by our ancestors who believed in the harmony of vital forces, between human beings and the rest of creation.

In our African spiritual heritage and our diverse faith traditions, trees, flowers, water, soil and animals have always been essential companions of human beings, without which life and being are inconceivable. We express this in different ways through our understanding of the world as God’s own beloved creation, and our sense of place and vocation within it.

Our ways of thinking and feeling deeply influence the world around us. As we find compassion, peace and harmony within ourselves, we will begin to treat the Earth with respect, resist disorder and live in peace with each other, including embracing a binding climate treaty. We pray that compassion will guide these negotiations.

1. 2. Our commitments as faith leaders

Our African people and nations have to overcome the temptation of seeing ourselves as victims, who have no role and responsibility to play in reversing the current situation – we are part of the solution.

As African faith leaders, our responsibilities will be to:

• Set a good example for our faith communities by examining our personal needs and reducing unsustainable consumption.
• Lead local communities to understand the threat of climate change and the need to build economies and societies based on a revitalised moral vision.
• Draw on our spiritual resources to foster crucial ecological virtues such as wisdom, justice, courage and temperance, and to confront vices such as greed in our own midst.
• Acknowledge that climate change has greatly affected already vulnerable people (such as women, children, the elderly, the poor and the disabled), that it worsens existing inequalities and that this places an obligation on faith groups to stand in solidarity with the victims of climate change disasters, showing care, compassion and love.
• Plant indigenous trees and promote ecological restoration.

1. 3. Our message to all world leaders

As citizens, we are asked to put our trust in representatives at COP17 to decide upon our common future. We have no doubt that the Durban COP must decide on a treaty – and second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol – that is fair, ambitious and legally binding, to ensure the survival of coming generations.

We therefore call on you to:

• Commit to the principle of inter-generational equity, the rights of our children for generations to come, and to the rights of Mother Earth as outlined in the Cochabamba declaration.
• Refute the myth that action to cut emissions is too expensive, when it is far cheaper than the long-term costs of inaction.
• Acknowledge that investments in sustainability are a better guarantor of peace than military spending.
• Abandon Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator of prosperity in favour of indicators that include human wellbeing, equality and the external environmental costs of human economies.
• Set clear final targets for phasing out the use of all fossil fuels, and deep interim reductions in carbon emissions that support the target of no more than one degree of global warming.
• Ensure that there is sufficient climate finance for adaptation in Africa, additional to existing development aid and that it is governed inclusively and equitably under the United Nations.
• Channel sufficient and predictable climate finance and technology from the historic polluting nations, in recognition of their ecological debt, to enable Africa to leapfrog into an age of clean energy technology.
• Close the gap between wealthy countries’ pledges to cut warming emissions and what science and equity require.
• Assign for wealthy countries emission quotas that are consistent with the full measure of their historical responsibility.

1. 4. Our message to Africa’s political leaders

We further urge African political leaders, as many of you are members of our faith communities, to take these particular measures:

• · To regain a united voice and abandon expedient allegiances with blocs that are scrambling to appropriate Africa’s natural resources.
• · Recognise in all policy statements that our long-term social and economic interests require the stability of our biophysical environment today.
• · Prioritise measures and adopt policies to resolve environmental degradation in our nations.

• Acknowledge and pre-empt the violence at all levels that climate change and environmental degradation is already fueling on the continent.
• Adopt and enact land policies that ensure equity and justice for all.
• Resist the approval of transactions with exploitative corporations that would cause serious environmental damage.
• Promote indigenous tree planting and protection of existing forests, lakes and rivers.
• Build much greater capacity within long-standing teams of climate negotiators.
• Greatly improve communications within and between African governments, and consultation with civil society, including faith communities, on issues of climate change.

1. Conclusion

Every human generation is faced by particular challenges and opportunities. If we do not secure a stable climate for the sake of future generations, we will be held accountable by them and judged by history.

On this very critical issue of climate change, we must not fail. Every lost moment increases an irreversible threat to life on Earth.

8 June 2011:– This communique was compiled jointly by 130 faith leaders representing Muslim, Christian, Hindu, African traditional, Bahá'í and Buddhist communities from 30 countries across Africa.

For more information, please contact:

Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI):

Bishop Geoff Davies (Cape Town): +27 83 754 5275, geoff.davies@safcei.org.za,www.safcei.org.za

All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC):

Rev. Dr. Andre Karamaga (Nairobi): (254-20) 4441483, k.andre@aacc-ceta.org

www.aacc-ceta.org

Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA):

Rev Dr Johnson Mbillah (Nairobi): generaladviser@procmura.org

www.procmura.org

[i] Joeri Rogel, Claudine Chen, Julia Nabel and others, “Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord pledges and its global climatic impacts— a snapshot of dissonant ambitions”, Environmental Research Letters 5 (2010).

Retrieved form http://www.facebook.com/notes/we-have-faith-act-now-for-climate-justice/climate-justice-for-sustainable-peace-in-africa-a-message-from-african-faith-lea/203795679664740

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(June 14*) Stuck in the slow lane in Bonn

Stephen Minas |

Published 6:29 AM, 14 Jun 2011

The world’s climate change negotiators have spent another week marred by procedural wrangling, as the International Energy Agency warned that the window for keeping the global temperature increase below the targeted 2ºC is rapidly closing.

National officials meeting in Bonn, Germany, for two weeks of United Nations climate talks spent much of last week unable to agree on agendas for key negotiating tracks. There has been no movement on divisions over the shape and ambition of a global climate deal. No further sessions have been scheduled to prepare for the end of year meeting in Durban, South Africa.

‘No time’ left to avoid regulatory gap

On day one of the meeting, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres flagged International Energy Agency findings that emissions in 2010 were the highest in history and that an estimated 80 per cent of projected power sector emissions to 2020 are already "locked in." IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol has warned that "the world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2ºC target is to be attained."

Figueres conceded that there is probably "no time" left to avoid a gap in the Kyoto Protocol – the first period of which expires in 2012 – even if a second commitment period is agreed to in December. Governments realised that a "regulatory gap" was a prospect and were working on how to deal with it, she told reporters. As to "exactly what that’s going to look like," she said, "I bought several crystal balls but not that one."

On the question of what comes next, the European Union’s Artur Runge-Metzger said that the bloc is "flexible" and would consider a second Kyoto period. But Runge-Metzger dismissed the "foregone conclusion" of some parties that the EU will automatically sign up for a second period of the Protocol, which requires only developed countries to cut emissions. He renewed his call for a "broader framework’ including all ‘major economies."

Agenda fight

A common basis for the Durban negotiation, however, has remained elusive. Referring to April’s deadlocked Bangkok meeting, chief US delegate Jonathan Pershing warned against having "another debate over whether to move the agenda forward." But from Monday morning that’s exactly what unfolded.

Disputes over a host of agenda items kept negotiators from beginning work on substantive issues in the climate change convention’s two subsidiary bodies. Issues included the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of emissions reductions, the funding of reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation by market mechanisms, and Saudi Arabia’s insistence that compensation for the effects of mitigation measures on its oil-based economy be considered.

Three days of "haggling" (as Runge-Metzger put it) resulted in compromise agendas with hard decisions deferred. Contentious items were variously amended, deleted, held in abeyance or referred to further consultations. The final hurdle was cleared when an offending footnote in each of the tracks was dealt with to Bolivia’s satisfaction.

Many delegates expressed frustration with the delays. Nigeria’s representative admitted that "it is becoming embarrassing to tell our headquarters that on the fourth day of this session we are still dealing with the agenda."

Australian climate ambassador Louise Hand complained that "we’ve again had such unconscionable humbug over a simple agenda." Others said that the agenda arguments were not merely procedural but reflected fundamental differences over what the Durban meeting should achieve.

Calls for progress, transparency

Civil society groups have called for more access to negotiating sessions and have lamented the scant progress. "Some rich countries aren't serious about negotiating climate change internationally and they're using procedural tricks to get their way," claimed Meena Raman from Friends of the Earth Malaysia.

The EU was criticised for not raising its 2020 emissions reduction target to a long-foreshadowed 30 per cent. Matthias Duwe from Climate Action Network Europe told Climate Spectator that not increasing the target from 20 per cent could put the EU Emissions Trading Scheme "at risk." This is because the overall target informs the sectoral emissions caps under the ETS. Not raising the target would make it "almost impossible to also increase the tightness of the [emissions] cap," potentially dropping the price of tradable credits to "close to zero." This, Duwe said, would deprive the EU of the carbon price signal needed to spur a low-carbon transition.

Kyoto Protocol talks continue

Negotiators met on Saturday and Monday in a contact group to consider developed country commitments under a second Kyoto period. Canada indicated last week that it will not accept commitments under a second Kyoto period, joining Russia and Japan.

Jorge Argüello, chair of the G77 and China bloc of developing countries, called for a second Kyoto period with "strong terms" and accused rich nations of "insisting that the poorest of the poor should suffer the burden so they can maintain privileges and levels of consumption that are unsustainable."

On Monday, Bolivia rejected the notion that Durban could produce a "political commitment" to a second period, in lieu of actually amending the Protocol to provide for a second period. "A very bad scenario," Ambassador Pablo Solón told reporters, "because that means that again, when that is going to be concluded, who knows?"

With fundamental disagreements – including over the Kyoto Protocol’s future – unresolved between national governments at the political level, the diplomats in Bonn remain stuck in the slow lane.

Stephen Minas is a journalist. He researched international climate negotiations at the London School of Economics and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

Retrieved from http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/stuck-slow-lane-bonn

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(May 30*) Canada leaves oilsands pollution rise from UN report

BY MIKE DE SOUZA, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 30, 2011

The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada's oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.

Photograph by: Chris Schwarz, EDMONTON JOURNAL

OTTAWA — The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.

The numbers, uncovered by Postmedia News, were left out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. It revealed a six per cent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, but does not directly show the extent of pollution from the oilsands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.

The data also indicated that emissions per barrel of oil produced by the sector is increasing, despite claims made by the industry in an advertising campaign.

“The oilsands remain Canada’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution, and they’re the subject of a huge amount of attention and scrutiny in Canada and internationally,” said Clare Demerse, director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group. “So it’s very disappointing to see Environment Canada publish a 500-page report that leaves out these critical numbers — especially when last year’s edition included them.”

Overall, Environment Canada said that the oilsands industry was responsible for about 6.5 per cent of Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, up from five per cent in 2008. This also indicates a growth in emissions that is close to about 300 per cent since 1990, which cancel out many reductions in pollution from other economic sectors.

The report attributes the six per cent decrease in Canada’s overall emissions to the economic slowdown, but it also credits efforts by the Ontario government to reduce production of coal-fired electricity as a significant factor.

Environment Canada provided the oilsands numbers in response to questions from Postmedia News about why it had omitted the information from its report after publishing more detailed data in previous years. A department spokesman explained that “some” of the information was still available in the latest report, which still meets Canada’s reporting obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“The information is presented in this way to be consistent with UNFCCC reporting requirements, which are divided into broad, international sectors,” wrote Mark Johnson in an email.

He was not immediately able to answer questions about who made the decision in government to exclude the numbers from the oilsands or provide a detailed explanation about changes in emissions.

An industry spokesman said it favoured more transparency from the government, suggesting that some of the figures may be misleading because of changes in methods used to identify and calculate emissions.

“It’s just too bad you weren’t able to get a hold of (Environment Canada) on this one, because here I am telling you my understanding of what’s going on, but really it’s best to hear directly from them,” said Greg Stringham, vice-president of oilsands and markets at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “We report the information to them, and they choose to pass it on — they must pass it on the UN. But then they choose how to disclose it and put it out there.”

Although Stringham said that the industry figures did not show any significant growth in emissions per barrel of oil produced, the full report noted an intensity increase of 14.5 per cent from 2008 to 2009, “mainly the result of a new integrated mining and upgrading facility as well as a new integrated in-situ bitumen extraction and upgrading facility,” that were not operating at “peak efficiencies.”

Emissions from a mining category, which includes oilsands extraction, saw a 371 per cent increase in greenhouse gas pollution, according to the report. But other categories showed significant decreases due, in part, to the recession, but also because of changes in use of fuel and manufacturing operations.

Environment Canada’s report recognizes that climate change is occurring, mainly due to an increase in heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize these emissions in order to prevent dangerous changes to the climate.

Critics have suggested the Harper government is deliberately trying to delay international action to fight climate change, following revelations, reported last fall by Postmedia News, that it had set up a partnership with the Alberta government, industry and several federal departments to fight pollution-reduction policies from other countries that target the oilsands through lobbying and public relations.

Environment Minister Peter Kent has said the federal government is committed to reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions and will introduce its plan to regulate pollution from the oilsands within months. But he has also acknowledged that existing federal and provincial policies would still result in an increase in emissions over the next decade.

Although the report was due in April, during the last election campaign, Canada was the last country to file its submission. Environment Canada even filed its submission after earthquake-stricken Japan, and was unable to explain in detail why its report was late.

mdesouza@postmedia.com

twitter.com/mikedesouza

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Retrieved from http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Canada+leaves+rise+oilsands+pollution+from+climate+report/

4859956/story.html

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