Various jurisdictions have their doubts about the Harper’s government’s environmental agenda.
Various jurisdictions have their doubts about the Harper’s government’s environmental agenda.
The numbers won’t add up in the Harper government’s proposed climate-change plan unless it fixes flaws that jeopardize the plan’s credibility, say some of North America’s largest provincial and state governments.
The Western Climate Initiative — a coalition of governments that includes Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and California — says a draft version of a federal “offsets” system for rewarding green practices must be revised to prevent businesses from profiting from actions that don’t actually reduce the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere…
The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group, said the proposed system would result in fictional emissions reductions in the same way that lax financial-accounting rules have created fictional profits. “If the loopholes aren’t closed, actual emissions are likely to be millions of tonnes higher than the nominal level of a future regulated emissions cap,” said Matthew Bramley, director of Pembina’s climate-change policy.