(Ottawa) The Commissioner of the Environment laments in his analysis three decades of “missed opportunities” in the fight against climate change in Canada.
Jerry DeMarco says 30 years of commitments by the federal government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada have resulted in emissions increasing by more than 20% since 1990.
“It’s 30 years of targets, goals and plans, but no results. That is the lesson we have learned from this history of Canada on climate change. It is not a great epic of the greatest feats, it is failure after failure. I am disappointed with that, but I am looking to the future, and we have time to make progress, to improve the result in Canada ”, affirmed the Commissioner of the Environment of Canada, Thursday, in a press conference, at the following the unveiling of five reports.
Among the lessons of Canada’s climate action and inaction, the first to be learned is that more effective leadership and coordination are needed to advance commitments to address climate change.
Other lessons focus on the need to reduce the country’s dependence on sectors that release large amounts of emissions, adapt to the effects of climate change, increase public awareness and invest in a resilient future. in the face of climate change.
The Commissioner stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that concerted government action can prevent the worst effects of a crisis.
“Climate change, like pandemics, is a global crisis, a crisis on which experts have sounded the alarm for decades,” DeMarco said in a statement. “Both pose risks to human health and the economy, and in both cases the whole of society must step in to protect current and future generations,” he added.
Emissions reduction fund: design issue
The environment commissioner said a federal aid program during the pandemic for the oil and gas sector that was supposed to keep jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions was not designed to do so. either of those things.
“This is a program that needs a lot of improvement,” Commissioner Jerry DeMarco said of the Coastal and Offshore Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) Program on Thursday.
The $ 675 million program was announced in April 2020 to help the industry stay afloat amid a massive reduction in fossil fuel use during the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program funds projects to help oil and gas companies meet or exceed regulations requiring them to reduce methane, which escapes or is intentionally released during production.
Mr DeMarco’s audit unveiled Thursday indicates that the process used by the Department of Natural Resources to calculate emissions lacks transparency.
He also points out that the claimed emission reductions were based on outdated data on existing emissions, and that the program did not ensure that companies were using the money for new projects that they would not otherwise have completed.
The report claims that two-thirds of applicants to the 40 projects funded in the first round admitted the funds would help them increase production. But neither they nor the federal government took into account the resulting increased emissions.
Mr DeMarco said he was “disappointed” with the design and implementation of the program, as well as the ministry’s response to the audit.
He said the ministry did not agree with all of the audit findings, defended some of the practices, and that does not bode well for the fixes.
Over 80% of FRE funding has yet to be released and, according to the Commissioner, it is not too late to fix the program to make it work.
“Based on their responses, I am not optimistic, but there is always the possibility that they will see the wisdom” to make corrections, he said.
The government argued that the program would ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a range of 5.1 to 8.8 million tonnes, but the audit indicates that the first 5.1 million tonnes would be achieved simply if companies comply with methane regulations.
The audit indicates that only the remaining 3.7 million tonnes can be allocated to the emissions reduction fund, to help companies exceed these regulations.
But the ministry acknowledged that meeting the targets will require almost all of the 610 eligible oil and gas companies to receive funding and use it to exceed methane regulations.
Mr DeMarco says that not only is this too ambitious, but that the government has claimed it has achieved 3.1 million tonnes of emission reductions for the first 40 projects carried out by 15 companies.