Kyoto pledge can’t be kept, province says

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This article was published 06/12/2011 (5437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the world gathers in South Africa for a conference on climate change, Manitoba’s conservation minister admitted Monday the province will fail to meet its legislated 2012 Kyoto emissions-reduction target.

Dave Chomiak said the main reason those targets won’t be met is rules prevent the province from counting some of its green strengths.

Manitoba had hoped, for instance, to count the environmental value of exporting clean hydroelectric power to the United States, which relies heavily on coal-fired power. Similarly, it had hoped to count the greenhouse gas-cutting value of its vast boreal forests, which trap carbon.

It’s the first time the NDP government has acknowledged it will be unable to keep its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction promise. It even held out a faint hope for success after Manitoba’s auditor general cast grave doubts on it in a report a year ago.

Chomiak vowed Monday that the government has not given up its fight against climate change. He said it will reveal new GHG emissions targets in the new year.

“We tried,” he said, referring to the province’s Kyoto pledge. “We’re going to have a new plan in the new year.”

In 2008, the NDP government, then led by Gary Doer, boasted of being the first jurisdiction in North America to legislate its Kyoto commitment. It backed it up with a $145-million investment. The Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act bound Manitoba to cutting emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The legislation didn’t outline any consequences should the province fail to achieve its lofty goal. When asked about that, Doer famously said: “If we don’t achieve it, the ultimate penalty in 2011 will be defeating the government.”

But it’s long been known the NDP wouldn’t have to answer for a broken promise on Kyoto in this year’s election. Official national tallies for any given year are notoriously slow to emerge. The report card on Manitoba’s 2010 performance, for instance, won’t be known until next year.

Chomiak on Monday expressed confidence the province would meet its interim target of holding 2010 greenhouse gas emissions to no higher than 2000 levels. But he was already throwing in the towel on 2012, saying there are few places to register big cuts now that a couple of the province’s few large coal-fired plants, such as Manitoba Hydro’s old power facility in Brandon, have shut down.

Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen said the admission points to another in what he called a litany of broken NDP promises over the past dozen years.

But rather than fault the government for not achieving its Kyoto promise, he accused it of setting a totally unrealistic goal in the first place.

“It’s a case of making promises that they have no prospect of being able to keep.”

McFadyen said achieving the 2012 target would have required an “economic shutdown” of “draconian” proportions.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca