Peter Kent's Claims Of Our Being Halfway On Our Way To Hitting GHG Reductions...

...May Be Greatly Exaggerated.

At least according to Marc Lee's CCPA analysis of the federal government's 'Emissions Trends 2012' report that was used as 'evidence' to back Mr. Kent's wild claims.

Here is Mr Lee's kicker:

...(I)t is worth recalling that the Harper government abandoned the Kyoto Protocol and its target of emissions 6% below 1990 levels by 2012 (which works out to a drop from 589 Mt CO2 equivalent in 1990 to 554 Mt in 2012). In its place they made a commitment in the 2009 Copenhagen Agreement to a lesser target of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 (a drop from 740 Mt in 2005 to 607 Mt in 2020). Kent claims the government is halfway there, but the modeling in Canada’s Emission Trends projects that in 2020 emissions will be 720 Mt. This is only 2.7% below 2005 levels, nowhere close to a 17% reduction.

So where does halfway come in? The report creates an alternative “do nothing” scenario that leads to surging emissions of 850 Mt in 2020, then subtracts estimates of federal and provincial actions taken to date, which gets us to 720 Mt. That is a lot of spin on the numbers, perhaps hoping few people will bother to read the actual report and just report the government’s line....

Which is all interesting, and important, because pointing out that the goalposts have been changed, arbitrarily, by the Harper government is going to be important in helping to check the flinging of the propaganda by a lazy, headline/soundbite-chasing herd media that has already begun (see screenshot above).

But I found something deeper in Mr. Lee's piece to be even more interesting:

...The report is not a complete write-off. It highlights clearly the emissions growth coming from Alberta, whose emissions will increase 48 Mt between 2010 and 2020, a rise of 20%. BC is the other culprit, with an increase of 16 Mt between 2010 and 2020, a rise of 29%. For BC, the feds are effectively outing the provincial government for failing to comply with its legislated GHG reduction target of a one-third decrease in 2020 relative to 2007 levels. The BC government, by pursuing a massive expansion of natural gas for export as LNG (liquified natural gas) to Asia, is breaking its own law...

Imagine that!

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