Official Sounds Alarm on Canada Climate
Pastor Dale Morgan
Sep 29, 7:22 PM EDT
*Official Sounds Alarm on Canada Climate*
OTTAWA (AP) -- In a challenge to the Conservative prime minister,
Canada's independent environment commissioner called Thursday for
stepping up the country's efforts to combat global warming.
In a hard-hitting report, Federal Environment Commissioner Johanne
Gelinas also criticized the former Liberal government's attempts to curb
greenhouse gases and called for a massive increase in Canada's efforts
to combat and prepare for climate change.
"The government urgently needs a believable, clear and realistic plan to
significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said the report. "It
must establish and commit to short-and long-term national goals.
"The current government has announced that Canada cannot realistically
meet its Kyoto target. If so, then new targets should take its place."
Under the terms of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Canada is committed to a 6
percent cut in greenhouse emissions from 1990 levels by 2012. Canada's
emissions are now 30 percent above 1990 levels.
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Rona
Ambrose are working on a new environment plan, Green Plan 2, but their
comments to date suggest they intend to focus on smog rather than global
warming.
Gelinas' forceful comments could raise problems for any strategy that
plays down global warming or gives it secondary ranking. The environment
commissioner is part of government's Auditor General's Office.
"Canada is at a historic juncture in its climate change file," Gelinas
said. "The current government says it wants to significantly improve the
poor track record to date."
Neither Harper nor Ambrose has acknowledged the impact of climate
change, preferring to speak of the problem in a hypothetical way, but
Gelinas says the disruptions are real.
"The impacts are already being felt from coast to coast to coast and in
almost every region and in many sectors of the economy," she said.
"Hundreds of communities depend on natural resource sectors that are
sensitive to climate change, such as agriculture, fisheries and
forestry. The impacts are expected to worsen."
Among the risks she cited in the report are the spread of pests and
diseases, drought in the prairies, melting permafrost and destabilized
infrastructure in the North, rising sea levels and more intense storms
on the coasts, and more days of extreme heat and smog in large urban
centers.
The commissioner came down hard on the oil sector, saying its greenhouse
emissions have increased more than 50 percent since 1990 and that
emissions from Canada's oil sands projects in Alberta could double by
2015, countering efforts to cut emissions in other sectors unless new
technologies are adopted.