(Picture from the Globe & Mail)During this year's G8 summit in Italy, the eight leaders of (supposedly) the world's most important eight industrialized economies (Canada, U.S., Russia, Italy, France, England, Germany and Japan) created ambitious targets to reduce GHG emissions by 80 percent by 2050. This applies to the world's 32 'industrialized' countries. They had previously agreed to a 50 percent reduction in the same time frame, but since their ultimate goal appears to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celcius, they had to ramp it up a bit.
Many will applaud and praise the G8 for setting these historic and ambitious targets. It's true, these are big and fancy, but when you read into it a bit more carefully, you'll realize, just like other big target announcements, that it's probably no more than a source of political bragging rights.
Targets are great. After all, you have to know where to shoot before you pull the trigger. But the problem for the G8 is that (for the most part) they don't really have a gun, let alone a trigger. Climate change-focused targets have been the popular thing over the past few years. In Canada, Stephen Harper's government pledged to reduce GHG emissions by 20% by 2020 from 2006 levels. The indicators thus far point to a big ol' negatory in the success of reaching those goals.
The most notable climate change target has been the epic failure that is the Kyoto Accord. Many countries signed it, but few have achieved the relatively limited targets of a 6% reduction by 2012 from 1990 levels set out to be achieved in three years time. Canada, during the Chretien years, actually stated it would exceed the Kyoto targets. But instead the country's emissions rose by nearly 27%. Good on us.
Targets with no plan, such as the G8 plan, are basically useless, especially when made toothless from a disconnect to any form of binding law. It's no different than the hungover teenager making a vow to themselves to never drink again. Guess what? They will. And so will the G8. Without almost anything but pure moral obligation (sure, some countries have slowly instituted cap-and-trade plans...) the G8 will probably keep on pumping the GHG emissions into the atmosphere.
Furthermore, these ambitious targets are full of many holes. What base year should we use? No doubt the U.S. and Canada will recommend we use 2005 or 2006 as the base years, which would make for quite a different outlook compared to using 1990 levels. What about the newly-industrializing economies, like China, India and Brazil? They don't want to commit to anything until the 'developed' nations have done so, thereby recirculating the cyclical debate over whether the developed or developing world should reduce first.
Targets can be a step in the right direction. Often, they are the first step after identifying a problem. But we have known what the problem is for decades and, as per my earlier analogy, should have had targets long ago to fire our yet to be purchased gun at.
I don't mean to be cynical about the whole thing, but we need more than targets. We need a decent, well-made plan that will work. If only policy-making weren't so complicated...
Many will applaud and praise the G8 for setting these historic and ambitious targets. It's true, these are big and fancy, but when you read into it a bit more carefully, you'll realize, just like other big target announcements, that it's probably no more than a source of political bragging rights.
Targets are great. After all, you have to know where to shoot before you pull the trigger. But the problem for the G8 is that (for the most part) they don't really have a gun, let alone a trigger. Climate change-focused targets have been the popular thing over the past few years. In Canada, Stephen Harper's government pledged to reduce GHG emissions by 20% by 2020 from 2006 levels. The indicators thus far point to a big ol' negatory in the success of reaching those goals.
The most notable climate change target has been the epic failure that is the Kyoto Accord. Many countries signed it, but few have achieved the relatively limited targets of a 6% reduction by 2012 from 1990 levels set out to be achieved in three years time. Canada, during the Chretien years, actually stated it would exceed the Kyoto targets. But instead the country's emissions rose by nearly 27%. Good on us.
Targets with no plan, such as the G8 plan, are basically useless, especially when made toothless from a disconnect to any form of binding law. It's no different than the hungover teenager making a vow to themselves to never drink again. Guess what? They will. And so will the G8. Without almost anything but pure moral obligation (sure, some countries have slowly instituted cap-and-trade plans...) the G8 will probably keep on pumping the GHG emissions into the atmosphere.
Furthermore, these ambitious targets are full of many holes. What base year should we use? No doubt the U.S. and Canada will recommend we use 2005 or 2006 as the base years, which would make for quite a different outlook compared to using 1990 levels. What about the newly-industrializing economies, like China, India and Brazil? They don't want to commit to anything until the 'developed' nations have done so, thereby recirculating the cyclical debate over whether the developed or developing world should reduce first.
Targets can be a step in the right direction. Often, they are the first step after identifying a problem. But we have known what the problem is for decades and, as per my earlier analogy, should have had targets long ago to fire our yet to be purchased gun at.
I don't mean to be cynical about the whole thing, but we need more than targets. We need a decent, well-made plan that will work. If only policy-making weren't so complicated...
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