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According to Environmental Minister Peter Kent, the Canadian government is entering into the shale gas debate by launching two simultaneous studies of fracking and its impacts on the environment.  Environment Canada is pursuing an in-house review of the controversial fracking process, while the Council of Canadian Academies will lead an independent investigation to provide an expert assessment of the science and environmental impacts associated with fracking.

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According to Environment Canada’s peer-reviewed July report on Canada’s Emissions Trends [pdf], government action to date is not putting the country on track to meet the carbon emissions reductions it commited to in 2009.

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The Canadian government is again being called out for providing misleading information about its commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) has released its fifth annual report [pdf] analyzing government efforts to follow through with its obligations to reduce its carbon pollution, as set out under the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act (KPIA).

The findings are disturbing and show that Canada’s emissions reduction policies are only about half as effective as advertised. The recent analysis shows that government policies aiming for 54 million tonnes of carbon reductions by 2012 will only yield around 27 million tonnes of reductions.
 

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Each year, in advance of United Nations (U.N.) climate discussions, governments around the world submit an inventory of their carbon emissions. This year, Canada is taking a unique approach to lower its reported emissions in preparing the annual carbon inventory – it has purposefully excluded information in order to give the false impression that when it comes to climate-altering tar sands pollution, “everything is fine.”

In reality, Canada’s carbon emissions have tripled since 1990, and Canada is making only minor progress to lower its carbon production 17% by 2020, according to Environment Canada’s own figures.

Last week, however, it was revealed that in the 567-page report detailing the country’s emissions, the Canadian government decided not to include 2009 data. Why? Perhaps because it documents a 20% increase in pollution from Alberta’s tar sands industry. The elusive data was only gradually released through emails in response to an investigation by Postmedia News.

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An Environment Canada report recently published in Geophysical Research Letters confirms that Canada’s lack of action on climate change is likely going to mean an inevitable 2 degrees Celsius of warming projected by 2100.  The report, entitled Carbon emission limits required to satisfy future representative concentration pathways of greenhouse gases, suggests that Canada must “ramp down to zero [carbon emissions] immediately” to avoid a 2 degree Celsius rise in worldwide temperature.

That will be nearly impossible, since current Canadian leadership still has no climate policy in place to deliver on such an uncompromising action plan. The Vancouver Sun notes some of the consequences of inaction: “Allowing temperatures to climb more than 2 C could wipe out thousands of species, melt Arctic ice and trigger a rise in sea level of several metres.”

Environment Canada’s latest study confirms that Stephen Harper and other leaders have not honored their international commitments to avoid the dangerous climate disruption that will ensue with 2 degrees C or more of rising temperatures. Unfortunately, the Harper government remains a master at climate change inaction.