Ottawa - Canadians should look to the opposition parties for federal leadership on reducing the emissions that cause global warming, the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation said today.
Today, NDP leader Jack Layton tabled a private member's bill that would set Canada on a path to achieve an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels, with interim targets for every five-year period beginning in 2015. Leading jurisdictions have taken on similar targets, which reflect the scale of reductions needed to prevent dangerous climate change.
Mr. Layton's bill complements Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez's private member's bill, Bill C-288, which would require Canada to meet its Kyoto target in the 2008-2012 time period. Mr. Rodriguez's bill is currently being studied by the House of Commons Environment committee, and is on track to be back in the House of Commons for a final debate by mid-December.
In May, the Bloc Québécois won majority support in the House for a motion calling on the federal government to meet its Kyoto obligations.
"Canada must meet its legal obligations under Kyoto, and C-288 is critical in making sure that happens. Mr. Layton's bill builds on C-288 to provide Canada with medium and long-term greenhouse gas targets that measure up to what the science and economics show is needed," said Matthew Bramley, director of the Pembina Institute's climate change program.
The federal government has abandoned Canada's short-term Kyoto target, and the intensity-based medium-term targets it has proposed would allow emissions to grow until 2020 or later.
Dr. Bramley noted that the Stern review, an economic analysis released yesterday by the former chief economist of the World Bank, found that failing to act on climate change would cost between 5 and 20 per cent of the world's GDP. Sir Nicolas Stern has concluded that developed nations need to cut their greenhouse gas pollution by 60-80 per cent by 2050, and even a decade's delay is too risky.
"This government has run out of excuses," says Dale Marshall, climate change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation. "The old lament that we can't afford to do anything about climate change has been hit with the cold, hard economic fact that we have to take action now or suffer dire economic consequences in the near future. In light of the government's failure to act with urgency on climate change, the good work by Canada's opposition parties is crucial in protecting Canadians from dangerous climate change."
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For more information:
Matthew Bramley, Pembina Institute
819-210-6115 (cell)
Dale Marshall, David Suzuki Foundation
613-302-9913 (cell)