The federal government will fail to meet either its 2020 or 2050 carbon emissions targets because it has “done virtually nothing” to reduce emissions, according to an analysis published by energy economist Mark Jaccard.
The Conservative government promised to reduce Canadian emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 65% by 2050. Jaccard, who teaches at Simon Fraser University, says achieving the 2020 target is “unachievable without doing great harm to the Canadian economy” as it would require an extreme measure such as putting in place a $50 per tonne carbon tax, rising to $150 by 2020 (British Columbia currently has a $30 per tonne carbon tax).
Achieving the 2050 target would require “an almost complete transformation of the Canadian energy system” over 35 years, Jaccard wrote.
“Tomorrow, yesterday, [Stephen Harper] could have been putting in policies and either regulated emissions or priced them and that’s what we should judge him on,” said Jaccard, adding he would like governments to forget about focusing on targets and instead implement actual policies.
The Conservative government has put in place two policies that were intended to curb emissions: regulations for new coal-fired power plants and matching the stricter vehicle efficiency regulations the United States has adopted. But Jaccard said there is no evidence that either of those policies have reduced emissions.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ focus on growing oil sands production has increased emissions.
While Jaccard had a hand in designing B.C.’s carbon tax, he said he prefers regulation over pricing carbon. B.C.’s requirement that all new energy generation projects be zero emission, Quebec’s cap and trade program and Ontario’s closure of coal-fired power plants are all examples of provincial policies that have demonstrably reduced emissions.
Jaccard noted that the prior to the Conservatives coming to power in 2006, the Liberal governments of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien also failed to act on climate in any meaningful way. But in the decade since then, the threat posed by climate change has only increased.
“By 2008, we knew that Harper could not hit his 2020 targets, because he would have implemented by then the policies that would have happened then,” Jaccard said.
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