Canada's bid to cut greenhouse gases flawed: probe

David Ljunggren, Reuters 5 Feb 09;

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Two of Canada's major strategies for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases have major flaws and cannot achieve the promised results, the country's environmental watchdog said on Thursday.

The report by Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan promises to be a fresh headache for Canada's minority Conservative government, which critics say is only paying lip service to green causes.

"The government cannot demonstrate that the money it is spending on some important environmental programs is making a difference," Vaughan said at a news conference.

Soon after winning power in early 2006, the Conservatives walked away from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, saying the cuts it required would harm the economy.

The Environment Department has since produced a less stringent plan that it says will reduce emissions by 50 percent from 2007 levels by 2050. One element of the plan is a C$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion) clean air trust fund that is designed to cut emissions by 16 megatons a year from 2008 to 2012.

"The department conducted almost no analysis to support that figure ... the little analysis it did undertake is based on flawed assumptions," Vaughan wrote in his report.

Ottawa handed over the C$1.5 billion to Canada's 10 provinces and three territories but did not require them to spend it on cutting emissions and did not oblige them to report the results of the actions they took.

"The nature of the trust fund makes it very unlikely that the department can report real, measurable and justifiable results," Vaughan said.

David McGuinty, finance spokesman for the opposition Liberals, told reporters he had raised concerns months ago about what he called a C$1.5 billion fraud.

"No one knows where the money is going," he said.

Vaughan also criticized a C$635 million program designed to give tax credits to those who use public transport.

In 2007, the Environment Department said this would cut emissions by 220,000 tonnes a year. A year later, it slashed this estimate to just 35,000 tonnes.

"The tax credit will have a negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions ... it is almost impossible to measure actual greenhouse gas emission reductions attributable to the tax credit," wrote Vaughan, citing the many factors that influence use of public transit.

"Environment Canada could not provide any analysis to support the assertion that the tax credit would result in measurable impacts."

Vaughan said the federal Finance Ministry had calculated that it should cost no more than C$800 to cut one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of doing so under the transit tax would be well over C$3,000 a tonne, he said.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Ottawa had relied on the best information that was available at the time.

"We have to examine the report ... and I imagine we will make improvements," he told reporters.

The Pembina Institute green think tank said it was "deplorable that Canadians were given the impression the federal government was taking significant action on global warming, when in reality Canada's action was and remains feeble by international standards".

($1=$1.23 Canadian)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frank McGurty)

Canada failing on CO2 cuts: audit
Yahoo News 6 Feb 09;

OTTAWA (AFP) – The Canadian government's efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and other pollution at a cost of more than two billion dollars have not produced any measurable results, a watchdog said Thursday.

"The government cannot demonstrate that the money it is spending on some important environmental programs is making a difference," Scott Vaughan, Canada's new environment commissioner, told a press conference.

"The government needs to know what works, what doesn't and why. However, our audit work for this report found gaps in the information."

And in areas where data was available, he said he found Canadians got little value for their money.

In his Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Vaughan looked at the government's key climate change programs and found no evidence to support its CO2 emissions reductions claims.

Specifically, he pointed to a 1.5-billion-dollar (1.2-billion-US) transfer to the provinces and territories to cut 80 megatonnes of greenhouse gases by 2012 and a 635-million-dollar (296-million-US) public transit tax credit.

The report said Environment Canada used "flawed analyses and assumptions" in establishing the amounts of CO2 reductions it expected each region to achieve as a result of the trust fund.

Because the 13 provinces and territories are not required to report how the funds are used, it is "very unlikely that (Environment Canada) will be able to report real, measurable, and verifiable results," it says.

The public transit tax credit, when it was announced in 2007, was to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 220,000 tonnes annually by encouraging bus and subway ridership.

The following year, Environment Canada lowered its estimate of expected emissions reductions to 30,000 tonnes per year.

Vaughan said in his report the public transit program would have a "negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions."

Canada had agreed under the international Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 6.0 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but emissions have instead increased by more than 35 percent.

In 2007, the government outlined a new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent, based on 2006 levels, by 2020, saying the targets agreed to by the previous administration were unattainable.