With his environment minister in Lima claiming progress on greenhouse gas reductions, Canadian Prime Minister told the House of Commons it would be “crazy economic policy” to regulate oil and gas emissions while energy prices are low, iPolitics reported yesterday.
“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy—it would be crazy economic policy to do unilateral penalties on that sector,” Harper said. “We’re clearly not going to do that.”
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According to a June, 2013 Environment Canada briefing memo, obtained by Greenpeace under Access to Information and reported last month in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s emission reductions “flatlined over 2010, 2011, and 2012 and are set to begin rising again in absolute terms to 2020,” Cheadle writes. “Nonetheless, the prime minister maintains his government is cutting emissions.”
In Lima, meanwhile, environment ministers from Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Manitoba signed an agreement with 12 other sub-national governments, most of which have committed to reduce their emissions at least 80% by 2050. “All of us are signed on to an agreement to set targets together, to set common disclosures, and to build cooperation to get deep reductions,” said Ontario Environment and Climate Minister Glen Murray.
