Without Numbers to Prove It,
Conservative Green Plan is “EcoFraud”
Ottawa
– Conservative Environment Minister John Baird must release
details to demonstrate how his green plan will achieve its emission
reduction targets, Liberal Environment Critic David McGuinty demanded
today.
“Two
weeks ago, Minister Baird misled Canadians on the costs of meeting Kyoto,
then he followed that up with a plan that scientists and experts around
the world have panned,” said Mr. McGuinty.
“Until the minister can produce a single analysis that
demonstrates how he will meet the targets and timelines his government is
proposing, his emissions plan will never be anything more than an ‘EcoFraud.’”
Since
the release of the Conservative plan, environmentalists here and abroad
have denounced it for its reliance on intensity-based targets and lack of
detail. David Suzuki called
it an “embarrassment.” Al Gore called it a “fraud.” Even Yvo de
Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, questioned why Canada would offer a plan “less ambitious
than the commitment it has under the Kyoto Protocol.”
Richard
Peltier, an atmospheric physicist and co-author of a recent UN climate
change report, noted last week that the Conservatives’ intensity-based
reductions will actually allow emissions in Canada to shoot up “like a
rocket” and will prevent Canada from doing what it “need[s] to do in
order to make a difference.” Gordon
McBean, chair of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric
Sciences, expressed concern that the government’s plan will erode
Canada’s international credibility when it comes to engaging other
emerging economies like China or India to take aggressive action to
mitigate climate change.
Last
week, Minister Baird claimed that this plan would stabilize Canada’s
greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 and maintained that it would achieve
absolute reductions of 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020. Health
Minister Tony Clement also chimed in, claiming the plan would prevent
1,000 deaths in Canada annually and result in over a million fewer days
lost to productivity losses. And yet the Harper government has failed to
offer any detailed analysis and no credible third party has backed up
these claims, said Mr. McGuinty.
According
to Treasury Board guidelines, before recommending any regulation,
departments and agencies are responsible for producing a cost-benefit
analysis that weighs its social, environmental and economic impacts, both
positive and negative. To date, the Harper government has failed to
confirm that this has been done.
“Doubts
are being raised by other experts,” said Mr. McGuinty. “Even
economists are looking for the details to back up Mr. Baird’s claims for
a successful plan and are having little luck finding them.”
David
Keith from the University of Calgary, Mark Jaccard from Simon Fraser
University's school of resource and environmental management, Don
Drummond, Chief Economist at the TD Bank Financial group, and Carl Sonnen,
president of Informetrica Limited have all noted the plan’s lack of
detail makes its targets, costs and regulatory framework impossible to
validate.
“At
this point Mr. Baird’s plan is little more than a vague yet
tightly-scripted message track,” said Mr. McGuinty.
