Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Tories need a tough approach to climate change - Greenpeace weighs in on how Canada should address the problem
Ottawa, Canada — Canada's Conservative government has failed to adequately address climate change, proposing a so-called Clean Air Act that was more smog and mirrors than real action on this global threat. Recently, hearings have been held to strengthen the Act. Last week, Greenpeace was in Ottawa to ensure Canada takes needed action to avert dangerous climate change.
We called for a complete overhaul of the Act, stressing that Canada must honour our Kyoto targets, and then further reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the years to come. As the Act is written, the Conservative government has not committed to absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions before 2020, and this is a huge mistake. The longer we wait to reduce these emissions, the more intractable the problem becomes.
Canada is already near the bottom of a list of 41 industrialized countries that have signed Kyoto in terms of the increase in our greenhouse gases, and we are on track to do even worse in the future.
From the way reductions in emissions are calculated under the Act, to the introduction of stringent vehicle emissions standards to elimination of tax breaks for the Alberta tar sands, we need to drastically overhaul the Clean Air Act.
The first step is to meet our Kyoto commitments with stringent emissions reductions, and we are waiting on the Harper government to step up to the challenge.
# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:22 AM 
