Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Waiting to inhale

Just three more years until some action actually gets taken on greenhouse gas emissions:
Canada's plan for controlling greenhouse emissions from large polluters...won't be in place until the beginning of the 2008-2012 compliance period in the Kyoto protocol, when Canada is supposed to be actually achieving cuts of roughly 30 per cent from present emissions levels...

Big emitters such as smelters, refineries and power plants account for about half of Canada's emissions. Efforts to cut those emissions through voluntary action have failed, and Canada's total emissions are now 24 per cent above 1990 levels.

Needless to say, this plan stands very little chance of actually succeeding.

Had the Libs actually taken meaningful action within 7 years of the Protocol being agreed to, we'd not only be in much better shape to meet the immediate target, but also be much further along technologically to keep emissions all the lower in the future. By delaying concrete action (and by naively falling for the idea that voluntary action would solve anything), they've made the problem one that we probably can't solve in time, and then only at more cost than should have been required.

And now they're delaying even more. Since that's worked so well so far.

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