Doomed panel sends Harper 'reality check' on global warming - National Post

OTTAWA â€" Members of a federal advisory panel, who recently learned their organization was on the chopping block, are sending Prime Minister Stephen Harper a “reality check” on the economic dangers of his global warming policies.

In a new report released Wednesday, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy said Canada’s provinces were doing the heavy-lifting toward the country’s efforts to fight global warming while delays would drive the federal government to pay a “high-cost” to meet Harper’s targets.

“Because 2020 is only eight years away, many of the emission reductions required to meet the target are high-cost reductions,” said the report. “Delays to a co-ordinated approach with abatement coming from all provinces and all sectors, will only increase the final costs of achieving Canadian climate goals and targets.”

The report, entitled Reality Check: The state of climate progress in Canada, was actually requested last year by Environment Minister Peter Kent, who recently decided to eliminate the round table and its annual budget of $5 million.

The panel, with a staff of about 30 people, was created in 1988 by the government of former prime minister Brian Mulroney to bring together advice on conservation and business policies.

The “Reality Check” report was the first of its kind to collectively examine climate change policies and billions of dollars in spending at different levels of government and estimate who was on track to meet their targets.

The prime minister pledged, under an international climate change agreement reached in 2009 in Copenhagen, to reduce Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, but the report suggested Canada would be less than halfway there, based on existing federal and provincial policies that are failing to stop overall pollution growth.

A spokesman for Kent said the government has started to take action to regulate pollution from sectors such as transportation and electricity, but recognizes that “more has to be done,” to meet its targets in sectors such as the oil and gas industry.

David McLaughlin, the president and chief executive officer of the round table, said he chose to call the report a “reality check” because he believed it “rang true” to what the country really needs to deal with climate change.

“There’s been a lot of (people saying) ‘you do this’ and ‘you do that,’ (but) they’re not (divided in the atmosphere into) federal or provincial emissions,” said McLaughlin, appointed to the panel after serving as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.

“They’re Canadian emissions, and if it’s Canada’s target, you have to figure out how we move Canada down the path (and) with that fragmented, uneven approach, it’s probably not surprising, therefore, that we’re not on track. So we needed a reality check.”

The round table, which did the first comprehensive analysis of economic impacts of climate change on Canada, concluded last year changing weather patterns could cost the Canadian economy up to $43 billion per year by 2050.

An analysis of provincial policies led by Beth Hardy, a research associate at the panel, suggested the provinces of Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan were the only ones in Canada with adequate government policies to meet their own targets for greenhouse gas emissions levels in 2020.

It also demonstrated provincial climate change policies were estimated to be responsible for 75 per cent of anticipated emissions reductions in the coming years, but the provinces and the federal government would need to introduce many new policies to meet their own targets.

Overall, the report estimated existing government policies would result in reductions equivalent to 104 million annual tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, with provincial policies accounting for 73 million tonnes of this total.

It also noted a significant portion of emissions reductions could be achieved in the oil-and-gas sector at low or medium costs if governments introduce policies as soon as possible.

“The analysis clearly suggests the oil-and-gas sector and Alberta in particular have a significant role to play,” said the report. “Yet the results also suggest that no one sector, region, or action is a silver bullet for achieving targets.”

Kent has suggested the government needed to free up federal funding previously given to the panel for other policies to protect the economy and the environment.

He also suggested the government could replace its advice through the Internet and other sources of information. His predecessor, John Baird, who is now foreign affairs minister, suggested the government didn’t need to pay for the panel since it didn’t approve of its recommendations.

Analysis by province

• British Columbia: Fifth highest total emissions in Canada and fourth lowest emissions per capita. Existing and proposed policies expected to close 35 per cent of gap toward 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 33 per cent below 2007 levels.

• Alberta: Highest total emissions in Canada and second highest emissions per capita. Existing and proposed policies expected to close 41 per cent of gap toward 2020 target of 50 million tonnes below annual business as usual emissions.

• Saskatchewan: Fourth highest total emissions in Canada and highest per capita emissions. Existing and proposed policies are expected to achieve the province’s 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 20 per cent below 2006 levels.

• Manitoba: Fourth lowest total emissions in Canada and fifth lowest emissions per capita. 2020 target is still under development, but existing and proposed policies are expected to close 62 per cent of gap toward an assumed target of reducing annual emissions by 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

• Ontario: Second highest total emissions in Canada and second lowest emissions per capita. Existing and proposed policies are expected to close 77 per cent of the gap toward the province’s 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 15 per cent below 1990 levels.

• Quebec: Third highest total emissions and lowest emissions per capita in Canada. Existing and proposed policies are expected to close 46 per cent of gap toward 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels.

• New Brunswick: Third lowest total emissions in Canada and third highest emissions per capita. Existing and proposed policies are expected to close 56 per cent of the gap toward the province’s 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 10 per cent below 1990 levels

• Nova Scotia: Fifth lowest total emissions and fourth highest emissions per capita. Existing and proposed policies are expected to achieve the province’s 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 10 per cent below 1990 levels.

• Prince Edward Island: Lowest total emissions in Canada and third lowest emissions per capita. Existing and proposed policies are expected to close 30 per cent of gap toward the province’s 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 10 per cent below 1990 levels.

• Newfoundland and Labrador: Second lowest total emissions and fifth highest emissions per capita in Canada. Existing and proposed policies are expected to close 35 per cent of gap toward the province’s 2020 target of reducing annual emissions by 10 per cent below 1990 levels.