> Canada's current climate policies unlikely to reach emission reduction targets
Canada's current climate policies unlikely to reach emission reduction targets
September 26, 2008
The Conservative government's policies on emissions reduction are "highly unlikely" to meet their target of dropping 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020 and could in fact remain as high as today's levels, according to a trio of SFU researchers.
In a six-page brief outlining the state of the country's current climate policies, SFU professor Mark Jaccard and graduate students Nic Rivers and Jotham Peters say that the lack of an economy-wide emissions price and the allowance for 100 per cent offsets for industrial emitters make it "highly likely" that emissions will become significantly higher than promised by the government.
The researchers have carried out numerous assessments of the country's climate policies at the federal and provincial levels. Their latest assessment examines the federal government’s current policy, which includes an intensity cap on industrial emissions.
The researchers point out some key lessons from the past two decades of policy failure:
The complete brief is available here.
In a six-page brief outlining the state of the country's current climate policies, SFU professor Mark Jaccard and graduate students Nic Rivers and Jotham Peters say that the lack of an economy-wide emissions price and the allowance for 100 per cent offsets for industrial emitters make it "highly likely" that emissions will become significantly higher than promised by the government.
The researchers have carried out numerous assessments of the country's climate policies at the federal and provincial levels. Their latest assessment examines the federal government’s current policy, which includes an intensity cap on industrial emissions.
The researchers point out some key lessons from the past two decades of policy failure:
- emissions targets are meaningless by themselves (and often a red herring);
- non-compulsory policies and subsidies don't increase the cost of emitting and thus fail to cause substantial reductions – only compulsory policies will do this;
- to make reductions as economically efficient as possible, compulsory policies, whether an emissions cap or trade or carbon tax, need to have economy-wide applications.
The complete brief is available here.