Kyoto & the Provinces

[August1991]

If I understand the Kyoto Protocol properly, each member country is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 5% from their 1990 levels:

By 2008-2012, Annex 1 countries have to reduce their GHG emissions by an average of 5% below their 1990 levels (for many countries, such as the EU member states, this corresponds to some 15% below their expected GHG emissions in 2008). While the average emissions reduction is 5%, national targets range from 8% reductions for the European Union to a 10% emissions increase for Iceland. Reduction targets expire in 2013.

Wikipedia

Has anyone suggested that each province in Canada should respect this rule? Canada has done an inventory of GHG emissions, presumably by province. So, we have the data.

How does PEI's current emissions compare to its emissions in 1990?

Could we set up an interprovincial market in carbon credits? Everyone knows that coal plants in Ontario and Alberta are the big GHG emitters but that was likely true in 1990 too.

Which province has gone furthest above its 1990 emissions? Anyone know?

[gc1765]

"An analysis of provinces and territories reveals four in particular -- Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick -- have seen their emissions rise astronomically. Saskatchewan has experienced the greatest percentage growth: a 61.7-per-cent increase since 1990."

Link

[August1991]

Thanks GC.

The national inventory of greenhouse gases for 2004 -- completed ahead of Environment Minister Rona Ambrose's trip to Bonn, Germany, last week to chair United Nations discussions on climate change -- shows emissions in the country have risen 26.6 per cent since 1990, the benchmark for measuring greenhouse gases. Under the international Kyoto accord, Canada has committed to cutting greenhouse gases to six per cent below 1990's mark.

An analysis of provinces and territories reveals four in particular -- Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick -- have seen their emissions rise astronomically. Saskatchewan has experienced the greatest percentage growth: a 61.7-per-cent increase since 1990.

Oil and gas development is driving Saskatchewan's push upwards.

In 2003, Alberta's percentage of emissions stood at 36.9; in 1995, 17.2 per cent.

So the average provincial increase has been 26.6%. Presumably all provinces have increased their GHG emissions.

If we translated this into gross GHG tonnes for each province, how much would PEI or Ontario have to reduce its emissions?

---

Before Albertans think this is a set-up, if central Canadian drivers burn Albertan gasoline, I expect the stats are added to Ontario and Quebec, not Alberta.

Instead, I think GHG reductions should be done within Canada. And if we are to have a GHG emission market, I think Canadians will accept one based on provincial "ownership" levels. Call it a new form of equalization.

[jbg]

One of the reasons that Kyoto is a bad deal for the US and Canada is that we've experienced greater growth, hence greater GHG increases, since 1990. The choice of 1990 as a base year, as I've posted elsewhere, is no accident. Europe's GHG's declined for the first few years after 1990 with the shuttering of East Bloc industries. Basically, the treaty contains their terms, not ours.

[Leafless]

Before Albertans think this is a set-up, if central Canadian drivers burn Albertan gasoline, I expect the stats are added to Ontario and Quebec, not Alberta.

Before you can even make that statement, do you have proof or whatever, if in fact Alberta gasoline is being used anywhere in Canada to begin with?

[Wilber]

Before Albertans think this is a set-up, if central Canadian drivers burn Albertan gasoline, I expect the stats are added to Ontario and Quebec, not Alberta.

Instead, I think GHG reductions should be done within Canada. And if we are to have a GHG emission market, I think Canadians will accept one based on provincial "ownership" levels. Call it a new form of equalization.

We are a trading country. Our standard of living depends on exports. How do you set up a market within Canada when exports contribute so much to emissions? Much of the West's energy leaves the country. So does much of Ontario's industrial production. Much of the petroleum Central and Eastern Canada consumes does not come from Alberta but from offshore.

The greater growth in emissions will come from those parts of the country that are growing the most and producing the most. A credit system will just reward those who produce the least and contribute the least to the country's economy. It will do nothing to reduce emissions. If we are going to throw billions at this supposed problem let's at least spend it on solving the problem.

[noahbody]

Before Albertans think this is a set-up, if central Canadian drivers burn Albertan gasoline, I expect the stats are added to Ontario and Quebec, not Alberta.

Instead, I think GHG reductions should be done within Canada. And if we are to have a GHG emission market, I think Canadians will accept one based on provincial "ownership" levels. Call it a new form of equalization.

We are a trading country. Our standard of living depends on exports. How do you set up a market within Canada when exports contribute so much to emissions? Much of the West's energy leaves the country. So does much of Ontario's industrial production. Much of the petroleum Central and Eastern Canada consumes does not come from Alberta but from offshore.

The greater growth in emissions will come from those parts of the country that are growing the most and producing the most. A credit system will just reward those who produce the least and contribute the least to the country's economy. It will do nothing to reduce emissions. If we are going to throw billions at this supposed problem let's at least spend it on solving the problem.

Developing technology is the only real solution as it might get the US and China on board. Canada is ipretty insignificant. As a nation where fossil fuels are so important it might be wise to take a leadership role in this area.

[Leafless]

As a nation where fossil fuels are so important it might be wise to take a leadership role in this area.

For what real purpose?

Canada will always be knocked regardless as a fossil fuel hog in the way of GHG due to it's tiny population.

[myata]

Well, doesn't it prove that this effort should be coordinated on the international level?

One cannot impose a GHG cost tax on the main GHG producers (fuel and manufacturing) without hurting their international competitiveness (against countries which do not impose such taxes on their producers). If tax is imposed on domestic consumption only, the producers would turn more and more toward export, nullifying the reductions effect.

Looks like we're either stuck doing nothing, or in the need of an international agreement that would impose similar accross the board rules on all players. Which, in the essense, was the intent of Kyoto I.

How about this idea instead: fully commit to Kyoto I; cut as much as possible before 2012; buy the rest in credits from whoever is willing to sell; and pass the cost on to the provinces on per capita basis. The provinces will then recover it (the cost) from the individuals and businesses as they see fit and fair.

[Wilber]

How about this idea instead: fully commit to Kyoto I; cut as much as possible before 2012; buy the rest in credits from whoever is willing to sell; and pass the cost on to the provinces on per capita basis. The provinces will then recover it (the cost) from the individuals and businesses as they see fit and fair.

Better idea. Invest the money we would blow on credits (international or provincial) in the technology and infrastructure to reduce our own emissions. We are not going to reduce our own emissions by taking money out of our economy to make guilt payments. We will just make ourselves poorer and less able to do so.

[myata]

How about this idea instead: fully commit to Kyoto I; cut as much as possible before 2012; buy the rest in credits from whoever is willing to sell; and pass the cost on to the provinces on per capita basis. The provinces will then recover it (the cost) from the individuals and businesses as they see fit and fair.

Better idea. Invest the money we would blow on credits (international or provincial) in the technology and infrastructure to reduce our own emissions.

How would that affect massive emitters like oil companies or coal power plants, anytime soon (not next generations which may have more urgent tasks of rebuilding their habitations e.g. under the ocean?

We are not going to reduce our own emissions by taking money out of our economy to make guilt payments. We will just make ourselves poorer and less able to do so.

Bother to clarify why? I thought pretty much everybody is in consensus that the only way to achieve any actual reductions is to make the economy (i.e. business and consumers) aware of the cost of GHG. If the aim is to feel good, I agree, money should be spent on "research" and "awareness programs".

[Keepitsimple]

One of the reasons that Kyoto is a bad deal for the US and Canada is that we've experienced greater growth, hence greater GHG increases, since 1990. The choice of 1990 as a base year, as I've posted elsewhere, is no accident. Europe's GHG's declined for the first few years after 1990 with the shuttering of East Bloc industries. Basically, the treaty contains their terms, not ours.

Right on, JBG. Not enough people pay attention to those facts. The Europeans were on the cusp of undergoing a natural decline in GHG's because of all those East Bloc factories being shut down with the fall of Communism and the disappearance of State support. We got conned into accepting targets that were inappropriate for our situation. Someone else had posted that the Europeans had hard-nosed negotiators at the bargaining table. Canada sent environmentalists to support bureacrats and in the end, the Liberals agreed to 6% below 1990 for the simple reason that the US was asked to have a target of 5%. Chretien wanted to outdo the Americans - who wisely decided not to agree. While we now agree that the Liberals did next to nothing to reduce GHG, they don't get enough criticsm for "negotiating" such a bad deal to begin with.

[Wilber]

How would that affect massive emitters like oil companies or coal power plants, anytime soon (not next generations which may have more urgent tasks of rebuilding their habitations e.g. under the ocean?

How will sending money to Russia affect them?

Bother to clarify why? I thought pretty much everybody is in consensus that the only way to achieve any actual reductions is to make the economy (i.e. business and consumers) aware of the cost of GHG. If the aim is to feel good, I agree, money should be spent on "research" and "awareness programs".

Buying hybrid or electric cars, converting to geothermal heating and investing in other more energy efficient things we use in our daily lives is not cheap. We don't make them any more affordable by taxing and lowering the incomes of our own citizens then shipping that money to other countries.

August started this thread by proposing that provinces with higher emissions should send money to those with lower emissions like PEI. My question is, what the hell is PEI going to do with all that money to reduce GHG emissions? You need to invest money to combat the emissions at their source.

The lower mainland of BC needs infrastructure (more public transit and upgraded access to the city by road to reduce some of the congestion) not to send money elsewhere. Even though our population has tripled, we are connected to the rest of the country by the same 4 lane highway and bridge that was completed in 1963. All truck traffic to and from the largest port in the country to the rest of Canada has to cross that bridge. We were driving back from Vancouver yesterday and west bound traffic for the Port Mann bridge was backed up for nearly two miles at 3 PM on a Sunday afternoon and that is fairly normal. Just getting rid of that road bottle neck and combining it with a LRT system would reduce our emissions considerably.

[Topaz]

"An analysis of provinces and territories reveals four in particular -- Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick -- have seen their emissions rise astronomically. Saskatchewan has experienced the greatest percentage growth: a 61.7-per-cent increase since 1990."

Link

The coal burning pollution may be able to over come its pollution soon. A US business man has found a way to change coal from a solid to a liquid and when its burned it doesn't pollute the air. He going to set up this company in Mississippi and this will help to solve the pollution of coal. I'm sure there alot of people like this man that have ideas but do the big oil companies want us to move away from oil and its dangers to the air?

[jbg]

Right on, JBG. Not enough people pay attention to those facts. The Europeans were on the cusp of undergoing a natural decline in GHG's because of all those East Bloc factories being shut down with the fall of Communism and the disappearance of State support. We got conned into accepting targets that were inappropriate for our situation. Someone else had posted that the Europeans had hard-nosed negotiators at the bargaining table. Canada sent environmentalists to support bureacrats and in the end, the Liberals agreed to 6% below 1990 for the simple reason that the US was asked to have a target of 5%. Chretien wanted to outdo the Americans - who wisely decided not to agree. While we now agree that the Liberals did next to nothing to reduce GHG, they don't get enough criticsm for "negotiating" such a bad deal to begin with.

Thanks for the compliment. Quite obviously, no politician with even the slightest interest in re-election will allow their people's living standards to be deliberately reduced in order to receivde impossible to measure reductions in a global warming that may well be cyclical. Even a fool knows that actually taking action in this area is an act of utter futility.

To amplify my point that the selection of 1990 as the Kyoto "base year" from which to measure GHG reductions was hardly arbitrary, some countries have base years other than 1990. Countries with base-years other than 1990 are Hungary (average 1985-1987), Poland (1988) and Slovenia (1986) (link). I cannot believe that those variations give these countries more ambitious targets.

Europe was at an economic peak, and immediately after end of 1990 Germany was re-unified, closing many factories in the former East Germany. Similarly, without subsidies, many factories in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic closed, placing Europe immediately well under the 1990 baseline.

If a year such as 2000 were picked as the US's base, it would be a fairer treaty. There's also not a chance in h*ll that European countries would have ratified such a treaty. Any government actually proposing to lower living standards to try to change the weather would be laughed out of office.

Seeking to add insult to injury, apparently (or to ensure that at least some countries would vote to ratify the treaty), the Kyoto sponsors are so serious about the environment </ sarcasm> that they granted Iceland a free pass to emit more GHG's. Clearly, Kyoto's a tilted deck that has nothing to do with science, climate or environmental betterment, and made an exception for Iceland (link), specifically, some aluminum smelters it wanted badly to develop. Excerpts below:

February 4, 2007

Smokestacks in a White Wilderness Divide Iceland

By SARAH LYALL

NORTH OF VATNAJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland —

*snip*

This is the $3 billion Karahnjukar Hydropower Project, a sprawling enterprise to harness the rivers for electricity that will be used for a single purpose: to fuel a new aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminum company. It has been the focus of the angriest and most divisive battle in recent Icelandic history.

The culmination of years of effort by the center-right government to increase international investment in Iceland, the project has already begun to revitalize Iceland’s underpopulated east. But it has also mobilized an angry and growing coalition of people who feel that the authorities have sacrificed Iceland’s most precious asset — the pristine land itself — to heavy industry from abroad.

Now, with proposals on the table for three more power-plant-and-aluminum-smelter projects, environmentalists say the chance to protect Iceland’s spectacular, and spectacularly fragile, natural beauty is running out.

*snip*

Icelanders tend to view their unpredictable environment — carved from volcanoes and ice and full of stunning waterfalls, geysers, fjords and glaciers — with respect and awe. The air is so pure that the Kyoto Protocol gave Iceland the right to increase its greenhouse emissions by 10 percent from 1990 levels.

*snip*

They are also allowed to pollute: another Kyoto exception gave power-intensive industries that use renewable energy in Iceland the right to emit an extra 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year until 2012.

[emphasis in article supplied]

[jbg]

BUMP

[geoffrey]

Each barrel of oil from Alberta is cleaner now than in 1990, our carbon intensity per unit of production is down. It's the only way to measure things. You can acheive Kyoto by tanking your economy, or you can work to make cleaner products. I prefer the later.

[Saturn]

Each barrel of oil from Alberta is cleaner now than in 1990, our carbon intensity per unit of production is down. It's the only way to measure things.

So if each barrel is "cleaner" and you produce 5.5 times more barrels, what is the overall outcome? Only 4.5 times more pollution instead of 5.5?

[B. Max]

So if each barrel is "cleaner" and you produce 5.5 times more barrels, what is the overall outcome? Only 4.5 times more pollution instead of 5.5?

Co2 is not pollution.

[na85]

It can be, when it is released in excessive amounts. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

[Wilber]

It can be, when it is released in excessive amounts. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

Then stop breathing.

[na85]

I take it you disagree? Look it up.

[B. Max]

It can be, when it is released in excessive amounts.

The vast majority of co2 is released natural. Mans contribution is minuscule.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

A minor player so small it can barley be measured. Water vapor is the major green house gas.

[geoffrey]

Each barrel of oil from Alberta is cleaner now than in 1990, our carbon intensity per unit of production is down. It's the only way to measure things.

So if each barrel is "cleaner" and you produce 5.5 times more barrels, what is the overall outcome? Only 4.5 times more pollution instead of 5.5?

There has to be some concession for economic growth. If we limit our economy by pollution control measures, we'll become stagnant pretty fast. Per unit of economic growth, Alberta is the leader on reducing their pollution.

It's not our fault people want more oil for their cars or fancy plastic water bottles.

I still firmly believe that taxing Alberta on oil for carbon emissions is like taxing Ontario automakers for the emissions that each and every one of the cars they produce will eventually produce. Very silly. Way too costly. If another tax has to be implemented, it should be only on the consumers of the product, as that is the behavoir that needs to be corrected.

[na85]

The vast majority of co2 is released natural. Mans contribution is minuscule.

70% of industrial greenhouse gas release is CO2, more than methane and nitrous oxide combined.