74% Of Canada's Kyoto Costs Borne By Citizens, Not Energy Sector

[hatrack]

BROOKLIN, Canada, Apr 26 (IPS) - "Canada plans to shift the burden of massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions onto the public and away from its booming oil and gas sector. Scientists blame greenhouse gases, most of which are released when fossil fuels like oil and coal are burned, for global warming.

''Project Green,'' Canada's 10-billion-dollar plan to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, makes individual Canadians responsible for at least 74 percent of emission reductions even though they are responsible for only about one-fourth of the country's emissions, environmental organizations said. By contrast, they added, Canada's booming oil and gas sector, among the most pollution-intensive in the world, gets off lightly under the plan. ''Project Green is unfair and unmanageable. It shifts an impossible burden of reductions onto Canadian taxpayers,'' said Matthew Bramley, director of climate change at the non-governmental Pembina Institute.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in February, Canada agreed to reduce its GHG emissions by 6 percent by 2012. This translates into a reduction of between 270 and 300 megatonnes (Mt) of GHG emissions. ''Industry could make big cuts at low cost. The oil industry had previously said it would only cost 25 cents a barrel to make significant reductions in emissions,'' Bramley told IPS.

Canada's energy and automobile manufacturing sectors are among large industrial emitters of GHGs collectively responsible for nearly half of all GHG emissions. Under Project Green, Canada's largest emitters are expected to reduce emissions by just 36Mt. The plan spares Canada's automotive industry from having to boost car and truck fuel efficiency 25 percent by 2010. Instead, it asks automakers to work together voluntarily to lower total emissions by 5.3Mt by 2010."

EDIT

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=28457