healthier, happier and richer

The Netherlands and UK voted yesterday to elect new members of the European Parliament, and the other countries will vote on Sunday. The European Parliament has significant powers over EU legislation, shared with the Council of Ministers (that is the National Governments), and the EU has a good set of binding climate targets, to be met by 2020.

Agriculture is only directly responsible for a small percentage of carbon emissions, but it is responsible for a higher percentage of total greenhouse gas emissions due to emissions of methane (particularly from cows) and nitrous oxide (from the use of manure and artificial fertilizers). As far as forests are concerned, as well as being beautiful, vital for biodiversity and home to millions of people, they are crucial carbon sinks.

Climate change is a contentious topic in Canada, largely due to the nation’s long-standing ties to the fossil fuel industry. At the forefront of Canadian discourse on this topic is the Province of Alberta’s famous “dirty” tar sands oil production. This is followed closely by the coal-fired electricity industry. From a high-level perspective, these two well-established, carbon-intensive industries, combined with the provincial and federal governments’ reluctance to limit their emissions in a meaningful way, form the basis upon which Canada has historically failed to engage in climate change discussions and continues to fail to significantly address climate change.

Canada is responsible for only 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions and also 2% of the historic contribution. However, it uses a third more energy per unit of GDP than the USA, has per capita annual emissions of 23 tons and is developing tar sands – a wasteful way (from the point of view of energy and water) of getting oil from tar, which is notable for being an even more polluting energy source than coal.

This document sets out some of the important climate change statistics concerning energy use in Canada.