Conservative MP Maxime Bernier (Beauce) raised a lot of eyebrows this week by declaring himself a climate change skeptic in a letter to the Montreal newspaper La Presse (the full English version is here). In doing so, he also applauded the government's go-slow approach to reducing emissions.
While federal opposition parties and other commentators suggested he had been dispatched by the Prime Minister to express his government's true beliefs on climate change, Chantal Hébert argues that Bernier is instead jockeying for future leadership of the federal Conservatives.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice was quick to distance himself and the government from the comments, telling Mike De Souza and Sheldon Alberts of CanWest: "As you know, there are many points of view on the science debate that is currently circulating around. The views that Maxime has put forward are his personal views. They are not the government's view. I don't specifically share them. He is certainly entitled to his perspective, but it is his perspective as an individual. It's not the government's perspective."
Meanwhile, just across the border in Ontario, the consequences of inaction on climate change were spelled out very clearly by the province's Expert Panel on Climate Change Adaptation. The 11-member panel's report took two years to produce and provides 59 recommendations aimed at building the resilience Ontario needs to cope with the impacts of climate change, both now and in the future.
The report includes new projections of climate scenarios for Ontario created through an "ensemble" approach that uses 24 different climate models. The report estimates that by 2050, Ontario's average annual temperatures could rise by 2.5 to 3.7°C province-wide in a scenario with moderate greenhouse gas reductions, or by 3 to 4°C under current emissions trends. (Both temperature increase ranges are relative to 1961-1990).
Climate impacts would be most serious in the North, with a greatly reduced ice cover season on James Bay and Hudson Bay, melting permafrost, methane releases from peat and over 35% more snow in winter (leading to higher risks of extreme flooding in spring). But the coming challenges are very significant for the rest of the province as well. As the report notes, "the effects of climate change are already being felt, and are set to become so pervasive that all levels of government and all sections of society have a responsibility to become informed and to take appropriate action within their mandates."
In other news, a report in La Presse suggests that Canada's federal government has abandoned its quest for a North American cap-and-trade system (and thus a cap-and-trade system in Canada) and will instead aim for harmonized regulations with the United States. Minister Prentice justified this switch by citing the U.S. Senate's inability to pass a comprehensive climate bill - an assessment that looks to be more than a bit hasty. In fact, as the Washington Post reported the very next day, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called for a climate and energy bill to be tabled immediately. In response, Senators Kerry (a Democrat), Graham (a Republican) and Lieberman (Independent) - who have been working together on a joint bill - have stepped up their efforts and expect to have it ready for legislators' consideration within two weeks.
P.J. Partington was a senior analyst with the Pembina Institute's federal policy group until 2015.
