Canada gets failing grade on climate report card
Last Updated: Monday, June 4, 2007 | 6:53 PM ET
CBC News
Canada has one of the worst records for fighting climate change among G8 countries, a new report released Monday by the World Wildlife Fund contends.
The report tallied the environmental records of the world's eight major industrialized countries and issued a colour-coded score for each — red for fail, yellow for passable and green for good.
Canada, Russia and the United States all hit the red mark.
"Canada is joining the United States as the worst performer on climate change," Julia Langer, a spokeswoman for WWF Canada, said at a press conference in Ottawa.
"We are definitely and firmly in the red."
She said Canada scored so low because greenhouse gas emissions are increasing sharply, the use of renewable energy is declining and the Conservative government's current plan to combat climate change fails to meet the targets set out under the international Kyoto Protocol agreement.
Russia was docked for its rising emissions, while the United States was critiqued for not signing the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. was also nailed for having high emission rates, a high dependence on oil and coal, and no strong policy in place to curb future emissions.
The report was kinder to the U.K., France and Germany, whose strong environmental policies allowed them to rank the highest among G8 countries. Japan and Italy were slightly beneath them.
Still, the five leaders only earned yellow scores — no one hit green.
"None of the G8 countries are doing enough to forestall climate change," Langer said. "Collectively, and globally, we have a long way to go."
The report, which looked at past records and future plans of countries, used a benchmark when ranking and rating them, judging how much they are doing to keep global temperatures from rising less than 2 C.
Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its network of global scientists stated that up to 30 per cent of the world's species face an increased risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 2 C above 1980s and 1990s levels.
Baird blames Liberals for failing grade
Canada's environment minister blamed the previous Liberal government for his country's poor ranking.
"I can tell you it's the price of 10 years of inaction," said John Baird, speaking to CBC News from Germany, where he will be attending the summit of G8 leaders later this week.
"It's a clear statement that we've got to move forward with a plan to reduce greenhouse gases in this country," he added. "That's why we're moving forward with national leadership to grab the bull by the horns and to work toward an absolute 20 per cent reduction in these harmful greenhouse gases."
Critics have attacked the Tory plan because it allows Canada's industrial sector to meet intensity targets, instead of hard caps, meaning targets are based on units of production.
Critics have also lashed out because the plan sees Canada meeting its Kyoto emissions targets between 2020 and 2025, instead of the required 2012.
