How Canadian provinces measure up on greenhouse gas emissions

Canada, as a signatory nation to the Kyoto Protocol, is obligated to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels.  This is supposed to have happened by, well, now: from 2008 – 2012.  No one is pretending that’s possible.  

What’s the dilemma?  Canada signed Kyoto as a single entity, but the reality is when it comes to energy and emissions, the federal government only has so much authority.  Energy is famously, indeed even notoriously, within the purview of provincial governments.

If Canada as a whole is to even approach its Kyoto targets, all ten provinces must chart their own courses.  Can it be done?  It can in Quebec, where David Suzuki, among others, note with admiration and glee that the province has achieved a fourth consecutive year of reducing emissions.  

In this, Quebec is by far Canada’s leader.  Via measures as broad as carbon and petroleum taxes, a green fund, expanded public transit, even cutting highway speed limits, the province is showing Kyoto targets are possible.  

The rest?  Laggards?  

No other provinces have so clear a vision as Quebec’s Climate Change Action Plan, enacted in 2006. Take Alberta, for example. Emissions have increased by 36 per cent since 1990, moving the province ahead of big, industrial Ontario for the “lead” in provincial emissions.  Not per capita, mind you, but overall.  

Alberta, for its part, says it’s impossible to compare apples to oranges. It shouldn’t be held accountable for producing the energy the rest of the world (and country) eagerly consumes. Whether that’s true or not is beside the point.  

Quebec has demonstrated that real progress can be made in a short timeframe. Only two years since implementing its comprehensive (and rather ambitious) action plan, Quebec has seen measurable results.