“The first thing you have to do is have a plan; you have to implement your plan, and then you have to ratchet up ambition. That’s part of the Paris agreement, and that’s what we’re absolutely committed to doing.”

That’s Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in an interview she gave to the Globe and Mail before heading to Bonn for the COP23 climate talks.

Let’s just start by saying it’s really good to hear that McKenna understands she needs a plan. Two years into her mandate, she hasn’t shown us one. An actual plan would include numbers that add up to the stated goal. McKenna has offered no such thing.

The Trudeau government is very committed to talking about climate change, to talking up goals they aren’t going to meet. What they aren’t terribly interested in is telling the rest of us how they propose to get there, backed up by math.

“We are absolutely on track to meet our 2030 commitments,” McKenna told the Globe. “We have a plan … and there’s a whole variety of measures we need to be taking. We also aren’t doing this alone. We’re working with provinces and territories.”

That much is true: the federal government is relying on the provinces to get us to the planned 30 per cent reduction in 2005 emissions levels by 2030. But what the provinces have told us so far doesn’t add up to a 30 per cent reduction.

Let’s talk about the commitment to eliminate coal by 2030. McKenna and the British are pushing in tandem for that ban. That’s a good thing, of course; coal must be eliminated from the global fuel supply if we’re going to address climate change. But Canada generates 80 per cent of its electricity from non-GHG emitting energy sources, like hydro and nuclear. Easy enough for us to wag our fingers and tell the rest of the world to get off coal — but if the idea is to set an example, we’re failing.

For the British, and for Canada to some extent, the plan is to replace much of that coal-fired generation with natural gas. Emissions from natural gas run to about 50 to 60 per cent of the emissions from coal — but wind and solar emit nothing at all. So when will we eliminate all fossil fuels from the generation mix?

If the war on coal is won, the war on natural gas must follow. Is the Trudeau government willing to actually say that?

ICYMI: Can Trudeau Possibly Square New Pipelines with the Paris Agreement?

If we eliminated all the coal-burning we saw in 2015 (the last reported year) in favour of natural gas, our total emissions compared to 2005 would drop by … about 4 per cent. That’s not insignificant. It’s no silver bullet, either.

But a further 7 per cent reduction is available to us by moving completely to non-emitting sources such as hydro, wind and solar. That would get us one-third of the way to our Paris goal on its own. Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends.

Alberta accounts for close to 60 per cent of all Canada’s emissions from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. The province plans to get off coal by 2030, replacing half of that displaced fuel source with natural gas — with the remaining generation to come from renewables. Which sounds terrific until you read the fine print — and understand just how disingenuous McKenna is being in Bonn on the topic of coal. Alberta’s plan is to offset all those emissions reductions from eliminating coal by increasing emissions from oilsands production. So much for our Paris commitments.

Catherine McKenna Says Canada Has a #Climate Plan. Prove It. https://t.co/E3kQp7pg1t @cathmckenna #COP23 #climateaction #coal #natgas #oilsands

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 15, 2017

McKenna also is suggesting a ‘low carbon fuel standard’ will be a key factor in reducing our emissions. She’s not wrong; it’s a regulatory way to get industry to reduce the carbon content in the mix of fuels we all burn. But that’s a complicated policy to tackle and McKenna already is indicating the standard won’t be complete in time for the Christmas target date.

ICYMI: Low Carbon Fuel Standard: The Best Canadian Climate Policy You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada adopted a national gasoline standard of 5 per cent ethanol content. It’s never been clear why he did that. The Harper government was notoriously indifferent to climate change policy. Canada imports both corn and ethanol, while we export oil we could make into gasoline ourselves.

If the idea was to cut carbon emissions, importing ethanol is a poor approach; it doesn’t really offer much of a reduction in emissions, for starters, and the ethanol imported from the U.S. Midwest is relatively carbon-intensive to produce.

Canada imports fully half the ethanol today we use in gasoline. We have consumed all our domestic capacity to make this fuel. If the Trudeau government boosts the ethanol content standard — say, by another 5 per cent — we’d likely end up importing it — which means we’d be competing directly with California, which is busy ratcheting up its own fuel carbon standard.

One recent estimate said that, in order to meet its upcoming fuel standard, California would require almost 75 per cent of Brazil’s production of sugar cane ethanol. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for us.

So the delay in announcing our new national fuel standard is hardly surprising, given the factors involved. Does the Trudeau government really understand what it promised to do? Hard to tell at the moment.

The minister is right — you need a plan. So where is it?

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Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister initially seemed very serious about confronting greenhouse gas emissions — a position that came as a surprise to many given the history of Canada’s conservative politicians sidestepping the tricky issue of climate change.

The party’s election platform pledged to “work with the federal government and other jurisdictions as we develop a made-in-Manitoba climate action plan.”

After winning a massive majority in April 2016, it hired Canadian climate policy legend and campaign manager David McLaughlin as senior adviser on the file.

An online survey was extended for an additional two weeks in March to allow for more public input.

These were all impressive things from a government led by Pallister, who had previously served as an MP in Stephen Harper’s notoriously anti-climate policy government.

But nearly 16 months later, the plan has never materialized.

The government effectively stopped talking about it. In fact, the latest action by the PCs has been to publicly announce that it’s seeking legal guidance on the constitutionality of a federally imposed carbon price, a move right out of recently resigned Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s playbook.

What on earth is going on?

Only Four Per Cent of Manitoba’s GDP Exposed by Carbon Pricing

Manitoba is in a near-ideal state to introduce climate policy that fulfills the federal requirement of carbon pricing.

The province has only a few “large emitters,” with a mere five sites that expel more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

A 2015 report by the Ottawa-based Ecofiscal Commission concluded that only four per cent of Manitoba’s GDP would be disadvantaged with carbon pricing. Meanwhile, a massive 18 per cent of both Alberta and Saskatchewan’s economies are deemed “emissions-intensive and trade-exposed.”

Furthermore, the federally mandated carbon pricing framework likely won’t require agriculture to be included, which is the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gases in Manitoba.

Where On Earth Is Manitoba’s #ClimatePlan? @Brian_Pallister https://t.co/UiZVZ3YmEz @IISD @CCPAMB @mbenergyjustice #cdnpoli #manitoba

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 15, 2017

Agriculture Likely Excluded From Manitoba Plan

The federal government’s technical paper didn’t address nitrous oxides and methane, meaning the biggest sources of pollution from agriculture are not going to be included in Manitoba’s plan.

Almost all of Manitoba’s electricity is generated by the low-carbon and high-impact network of hydroelectric dams in the province’s north.

That leaves transportation and stationary combustion — such as residential and commercial building heat — affected by the carbon tax.

However, there are solutions for both of them via electrification and energy efficiency measures, which would be further incentivized by a price on carbon.

Disproportionate impacts on low-income residents could be easily addressed via a rebate program similar to Alberta’s.

Yet Manitoba is left without a plan, or any indication of when one will be released and implemented.

‘Sustainable Development’ Minister Suggests Plan Is Being Worked On

There are no easy explanations for what’s going on behind the scenes. The government itself has been mum beyond regurgitated talking points from their campaign platform.

For instance, Minister of Sustainable Development Cathy Cox has continually cited the ongoing creation of a “made-in-Manitoba climate plan with carbon pricing,” reflecting almost precise language contained in the mandate letter that she received from Pallister in May 2016.

She has also suggested that “the federal government should recognize the significant investments Manitoba has already made in renewable energy resources,” despite the fact that both B.C. and Quebec have large hydro resources while also implementing carbon pricing.

One potential reason for the delay is disagreements within the party itself about climate policy.

“It’s unclear whether or not there’s internal agreement within the government about how to proceed or whether to proceed,” Nathan Laser, campaigns coordinator for the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, told DeSmog Canada.

Similarly, Molly McCracken of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba said in an interview that “there are various schools of thought in the PC caucus.”

That may indeed be the source of delay.

But Pallister has also taken seemingly decisive action on a number of controversial issues, most notably healthcare: in recent months, the government has administered cuts to Winnipeg’s health authority that have in turn resulted in the closures of multiple emergency rooms and clinics.

There’s also a chance that Pallister is banking on the fact that a climate plan will be federally imposed on the province if not implemented provincially, meaning the Premier won’t have to unnecessarily spend political capital.

“The federal government has essentially provided an out to any provincial government that doesn’t want to act in saying that if you don’t act, we will,” Laser said.

It might be a clever political move, although it could result in the loss of $66 million in federal funding via the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund. And in the wake of Premier Wall’s resignation, it would make Pallister the most explicitly anti-climate policy leader in the country.

Carbon Pricing Coalition Created by Eleven Organizations

That’s why, on the morning of August 3, representatives from almost a dozen local organizations gathered on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature to officially launch the Manitoba Carbon Pricing Coalition.

They included Canadians for Clean Prosperity, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Climate Change Connection, Prairie Climate Centre, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba, Green Action Centre and Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition.

McCracken said it’s quite rare for many of the organizations to take a public stand of this nature but “their participation just shows the urgency of this issue and how we need to move on it.”

The coalition partners hold a wide array of opinions on specific policy issues, but agreed on six principles about carbon pricing in Manitoba: that it’s a key part of climate action, it must increase over time in a predictable and schedule way, and that it must be applied across jurisdictions to ensure fairness.

“Ultimately, our organizations have varying opinions on how a carbon tax should be structured and what the revenue could be invested towards,” Laser explained.

“But what we agreed to do is come together on the side of a) climate change is real and b) carbon pricing is a reasonable and effective tool in the toolbox in tackling climate change.”

“It’s not the only thing but it’s a real tool that could give us some revenue to tackle climate change and make investments,” Laser said.

This launch occurred exactly three weeks after another campaign by “Manitobans Against Carbon Taxes Coalition,” consisting of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.

A poll from Angus Reid published in early July also suggested that 60 per cent of Manitobans oppose federally mandated carbon pricing.

Advocates Maintain Optimism for Climate Plan

That clearly leaves plenty of work for advocates of climate action.

Despite the government’s lack of visible progress on the file, local environmentalists and educators are indicating optimism that the Progressive Conservatives will make the most of the opportunity to re-position the province’s economy.

“The mere fact they did a press release on the same day that we did where they indicated they were seeking legal opinion says this is still on their mind,” Curt Hull, project manager at Winnipeg’s Climate Change Connection, told DeSmog Canada.

“We gave them a heads up that we were forming and they chose to time the release of their announcement of the seeking legal opinion on the same day. That’s fine: it means it’s still in their consciousness and they’re working towards it.”

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The federal government is expected to announce the details of Canada’s national climate plan Friday, Dec. 9 at a high-profile gathering of First Ministers in Ottawa.

The details of the climate plan, which amount to a balance sheet of the nation’s carbon emissions, are critical to evaluating the federal government’s recent decisions to approve major fossil fuel projects in light of Canada’s international climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

“To have confidence in this plan’s ability we need to see credible accounting,” Catherine Abreu, executive direction of Climate Action Network Canada, said.

Trudeau has garnered significant criticism for his recent approvals of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Enbridge Line 3 replacement, both of which invite increased production in the Alberta oilsands, Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

In September the federal government approved the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal on the B.C. coast, a project that is expect to be the single largest point source of emissions in the country.

These approvals — and the increase in emissions they entail — have raised questions about the government’s ability to meet its climate targets.

Under the Paris Agreement Canada pledged to reduce emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“We know the 2030 target is the one that is top of mind for ministers,” Erin Flanagan, director of federal policy for the Pembina Institute, said. “It’s the one that [Environment and Climate Change] Minister McKenna is referring to when she says we’ll meet or exceed our climate commitments.”

Canada, unfortunately, has a long history of signing up for targets and an equally long history of not meeting them, Flanagan said.

“In fact, Canada’s best reporting through its biennial report indicates we’re a long way off from achieving those goals,” she said. “The report is quite bullish on fossil fuel development.”

By its own accounting the federal government anticipates Canada will emit 814 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030. To meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, Canada must limit that number to 524 Mt.

Flanagan said the federal government has yet to release an updated plan that incorporates recent climate efforts, like the introduction of a national carbon tax, the phaseout of coal power plants and provincial climate plans, into the overall emissions accounting.

A recent analysis done by EnviroEconomics finds that climate progress made under Trudeau’s leadership will help close but not eliminate that emissions gap. The report estimates that by 2030 Canada will overshoot its 2030 target by 152 Mt (or slightly less if international carbon offset credits are used).

But those calculations are based on what can be gleaned from provincial and federal plans announced so far and not necessarily what the federal government has in store.

On Friday Trudeau will meet with ministers and provincial and territorial premiers to discuss the details of what Trudeau has called an “ambitious and achievable plan” to meet 2030 targets.

The specifics have up to this point remained elusive.

Much-Anticipated Details of Canada’s #ClimatePlan to Be Revealed at First Minister’s Meeting. Maybe. https://t.co/7b11biMXJP #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 8, 2016

Steven Guilbeault, senior director of Équiterre, said the government must show its work.

“Without a balance sheet there is no way to know if this plan is delivering on what it says it does,” he said.

“What is enabling Canada’s emissions to go down? Why are they going up? To be able to adjust that plan over time and to have a genuine understanding and reassurance that we do have a plan that will put us on a path towards emissions reduction is needed for credibility,” Guilbeault said.

“Without the plusses and minuses it’s impossible for us to say whether premiers and the Prime Minister have delivered on that plan.”

This week the Canadian Press reported internal sources said the federal government will not, as expected, release detailed information regarding the country’s greenhouse gas inventory.

Minister McKenna responded to the reports, telling the CBC that Canada will indeed release an in-depth plan.

"We will show how we're going to meet our 2030 targets — what measures we've taken, what additional measures we will be taking to meet the target," McKenna said.

"You will see a specific plan. You will see, in each sector, what we're doing to reduce emissions. You'll see what investments we're making. You'll see how we're working with Indigenous communities, in particular in the north, where they have specific concerns about diesel but also about adaptation."

“We know Friday is not the end of the story,” Dr. Louise Comeau, director of climate change and energy solutions with the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, said.

Wrinkles in the climate framework as they relate to financial arrangements for green infrastructure, low carbon economy funding and equivalency agreements, which aim to standardize accounting of efforts made from province to province, will need to be ironed out moving forward, Comeau said.

Dale Marshall, climate campaigner with Environmental Defence, said he’s confident the ministers’ meeting will end with a climate agreement.

“I think there is high likelihood we’ll get an agreement,” he said.

“The federal government has spent since the last First Ministers’ Meeting in March, coordinating with the provinces, meeting with working groups and signed a number of agreements that had the signon of the country, like the carbon price, within the pan-Canadian framework.”

“Most people are feeling positive that we’re going to have a pan-Canadian framework agreed to by most if not all of the provinces and territories.”

Catheine Abreu said it’s important to ensure what is decided now, will remain relevant to 2030 and beyond.

“What we want to see on Friday is a commitment that the federal government and provinces commit to collaborate on moving forward.”

Abreu added more in-depth discussion is needed on crafting a workable accountability mechanism to ensure governments at all levels are keeping to their targets.

In addition the commitment made under the Paris Agreement isn’t just to limit emissions to 2030 but to strengthen targets every few years moving forward, Abreu said.

Canada committed to complete decarbonization by the end of the century and to work to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Abreu said Canada needs top-notch measuring, reporting and verification systems to not only establish emission reduction policies and regulations, but to gradually improve them over time.

“We have to totally or almost totally decarbonize our economy,” Guilbeault said. “Really 2030 isn’t the end.”

Image: Justin Trudeau and First Ministers at a March meeting in Vancouver. Photo: Prime Minister's Photo Gallery

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“We will continue to have a strong economy while meeting the 2020 [climate] targets … and we will meet those.”

It was a bewildering statement, like something out of a poorly scripted political drama. The idea that within the next five years, Alberta — the province responsible for over 35 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 — would meet its emissions targets would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.

But that’s what was said.

And by Diana McQueen, a former minister of environment, no less. By the very person who’s now leading the revision of the province’s oft-delayed climate change framework.

Back in 2008, the Alberta government, then headed by Progressive Conservative leader Ed Stelmach, brought forward a fairly weighty climate change strategy. Goals were set, policies outlined.

“Our targets,” wrote Stelmach, “are based on sound research not wishful thinking.”

The strategy promised that by 2020, the province’s annual emissions would fall by 50 megatonnes below “business-as-usual” numbers — in 2008, that number was  232 megatonnes per year.

But according to Environment Canada’s most recent projections for emissions, Alberta’s annual output will instead grow to 287 megatonnes a year — an overall increase of 55 megatonnes, which means that the target (a 12 per cent increase from the 2005 number) will be missed by a full 27 Mt.

Removing bitumen from the oilsands will account for a great majority of that increase, the report noted. The resulting emissions from that process will practically wipe out all the reductions in Canadian emissions accomplished by retiring coal-fired power stations.

In other words, unless emissions from the Alberta oilsands are dramatically tempered in the next five years, the bitumen extraction industry will come close to single-handedly undoing all the hard work done by the rest of the country to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

In the next five years, Ontario is projected to reduce its emissions by 37 megatonnes, Nova Scotia by eight, Quebec by six.

Alberta could wipe out all of that (and New Brunswick’s contributions while we’re at it).

But McQueen asserts that Alberta will live up to its goals.

McQueen’s Troubling Climate History

It’s not the first time McQueen, the former mayor of Drayton Valley, has made statements that were out of touch with reality.  

In 2011, when McQueen was environment minister, she denounced Kyoto because it “didn’t work for Canada without all the large emitters at the table.”

Then in 2013, McQueen told a Belgian news agency that the province had “taken some very strong movements … with regard to monitoring.”

But the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (thankfully reducible to the easy acronym of AEMERA), designed under McQueen’s watch, has been roundly criticized as a failure.

Alberta’s auditor general, Merwan Saher, condemned the agency’s work in his October 2014 report, noting the organization’s report for 2012-2013 took an egregious length of time to be made public. Saher said the report “lacked clarity and key information and contained inaccuracies” and that there was little actual information on the implementation of the monitoring program.

Now that Prentice has slashed Saher’s budget by a cool half-million, we can expect less review of the agency’s shortcomings.  

The agency serves as the primary body to oversee the responsibilities suggested in its title and yet the chair of the board is Lorne Taylor, former environment minister under Ralph Klein, and a serious hater of Kyoto. He gets paid $50,000 a year for that job, which requires a once-a-month, six-hour meeting.

On a side note: AEMERA is now looking for a new chief executive officer! Apply today. Warning: Might be a stressful gig.

Alberta’s False Climate Starts

Other nonstarters have plagued the governing party on its road to meeting 2020 targets.

In April 2013, then-premier Alison Redford hinted at an augmented carbon levy. The Specialized Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER), which has remained untouched in specifics since its inauguration in 2007, charges large emitters (those who emit more than 100,000 tonnes a year) a mere $15 for 12 per cent of all total emissions.

Definitely not a carbon tax. But it’s something, right?

Specifically, Redford briefly proposed a 40/40 framework as an addition of sorts to the regulation: that is, $40 would be charged for 40 per cent of emissions. Not at all in the realm suggested by the Pembina Institute – which recommended a legitimate carbon tax between the range of $100 and $150 per tonne — but again, an improvement! Unfortunately, that concept was quickly forgotten.

But none of the aforementioned examples – the monitoring agency or increased carbon levy – come close to the dashed promises of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

CCS was the foundational element of Alberta’s 2008 climate plan. The province committed $2 billion to the controversial technology.

Interestingly, now-premier Jim Prentice, called CCS a “science experiment” during his campaign for party leader but has since gone on to describe the technology as “game-changing” during a pro-Keystone XL pipeline tour in Washington, D.C.

Prentice did not mention that the remaining $700 million allocated to CCS advancement would be diverted for other purposes.

The abandonment of CCS leaves Alberta with effectively no plan to reduce per-barrel emissions from the oilsands, which have been on the rise since 2011 according to the Canadian Association for Petroleum Producers (CAPP). 

Which brings us back to McQueen.

She stated — as a public servant presumably expected to tell the truth to constituents — that the province she represents will achieve the respectable emissions reductions by 2020.

In reality, the oil and gas sector has increased emissions by more than 100 per cent in the opposite direction. And no one, including McQueen, seems to have any idea about how to turn that around. 

Image Credit: Diana McQueen via Twitter

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In the ongoing battle to win approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada has repeatedly justified its climate inaction by pointing to the fact that it shares similar emission reductions targets to the U.S. In August of last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper even wrote a letter to President Barack Obama inviting “joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector” if such efforts would help green-light the Keystone XL.

But this week’s announcement that Obama will use his executive authority to introduce a nationwide emissions reduction plan that targets more than 1,000 of the country’s most highly polluting power plants might leave Canada squarely in the dust.

Obama’s new plan — already being called the “most ambitious anti-global warming initiative of any U.S. president" — will introduce new standards by 2015 to decrease the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of power plants (responsible for 40 per cent of the country’s carbon pollution) by 30 per cent from their 2005 levels by 2030.

Cutting emissions and climate confusion

The new plan is expected to tackle emissions as well as contentious climate politics in the U.S. where political positioning on emissions standards and carbon tax schemes is often drawn along sharp lines.

“We see this as the pivotal battle on climate change,” Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) director of government affairs David Goldston said at a briefing last week. “For the first time, climate is going to be front and centre as the national issue. And what that means, we think, is that when this battle is over and the power plant standards are in effect, climate will have turned into an ordinary environmental issue.”

The NRDC has been pivotal in the creation of the new emissions standards and is leading a massive campaign this month to "demystify" climate change issues.

Oilsands trouble Canada’s emissions future

Such determination south of the border is bringing Canada’s stalled climate politics into sharper relief as the Harper government continues to hold GHG emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector at bay.

The federal government has promised to deliver strengthened emissions standards for several years but has consistently failed, especially to rein in emissions from the Alberta oilsands, Canada’s fastest growing source of GHGs.

Under the Copenhagen Accord, Canada committed to reducing GHG emissions 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. But according to Environment Canada’s latest emissions report, Canada will fail to meet its own reduction targets using current measures.

Environment Canada data also shows emissions from the oilsands increased around 267 per cent between 1990 and 2011 despite a per barrel emissions decrease of a reported 26 per cent. The projected increase of oil production in the oilsands has emissions from the sector set to steadily increase for several decades.

“The EPA’s climate rules send a strong signal that the United States is serious about addressing its largest source of greenhouse gas pollution,” Simon Dyer, senior spokesman for the Pembina Institute, said in a statement. “In contrast, the Canadian government continues to resist action on addressing its major emissions growth problem — the rapidly increasing greenhouse gas pollution from oilsands production.”

“While Canada has the same 2020 emissions target as the U.S., our federal government has failed to produce a plan to meet its goal,” he said.

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, echoed those sentiments, saying climate action in the U.S. demonstrates Canada’s need to rein in emission from the oilsands sector.

“It’s time for Canada to follow suit,” he said in a statement released Monday. “We should all celebrate this U.S. action taken for the sake of our shared climate…It’s high time for Canada to step up, do what is right, and stop the soaring pollution of the tar sands.”

“Canada,” Gray said, “can either lead or be dragged along in this global shift towards a safer, cleaner, low carbon economy.”

Canada lacks leadership

A study released by Globe International, which surveyed nearly 500 pieces of climate legislation in 66 countries, found Canada lacked any “flagship legislation” for climate despite being in the world’s top 20 emitters.

Political support for strong climate standards in Canada has dwindled under the Harper government, which withdrew from the international Kyoto Accord in 2011.

According to federal Green party leader Elizabeth May, Canada has a history of following the “bad behaviour” of the U.S. when it comes to climate policies.

“When Barack Obama came up with the 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, Canada said ‘okay, we’ll take that target’ because it weakened our target [under Kyoto] even more,” she said in an interview last May.

A new international climate change regime is expected from the upcoming UNFCCC COP 21 meeting that will take place in Paris in 2015. Canada has been accused of acting as an "obstructionist" at international climate conferences for the last several years.

“Many Canadians,” May said, “don’t realize that the worst thing that Harper has done on climate, as bad as his domestic performance has been, has been undermining global negotiations.”

She added the most recent Environment Canada figures “make is absolutely crystal clear that there is no intention on the part of Stephen Harper for reaching the Copenhagen target either.”

Image Credit: Scout Turfankijan for Obama for America via Flickr.

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