Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
Of course, if we're going to look at things on a per capita basis then the north becomes a burden - particularly fly-in, fly-out communities that run off generators and not efficient, modern power plants.
Really, Canada should be expected to have higher per-capita emissions than an average country of similar GDP, because of lower population density (more fuel transporting things and people) and cold climate (we require energy to heat our homes).
|
The transportation and cold weather effect are immaterial compared the U.S. and Australia who share the same basic shape and pattern of Canadian industrialization. Our passenger km travelled/capita is similar or lower than the U.S. and likewise our heating demand is more than offset for their cooling demand. There's been a number of reports that have proven that the Canadian cold weather big country explanation is mostly unsupported.
Quote:
|
Furthermore, if we look at Alberta's carbon emissions on a population basis, we would appear to be gluttonous, wasteful pigs. But if we were to attribute the carbon emissions from the oil sands to the end users, it would paint a very different picture, and one that is arguably far more fair.
|
If you net out all of the emissions that go to exports and intra-provincial trade from Alberta's fuel commodities, AB still has the highest GHG per capita and then some primarily because of the reliance on coal-fired electricity. Alberta's "own-source" GHG emissions would be more than double that of Ontario for example. So yes, potentially there's an argument that Alberta gets saddled with more GHGs than it deserves but it still has has by far the most emissions per capita (Saskatchewan has the most but who cares). And never-the-less, it's not like Alberta isn't getting something back from all of the GHGs it exports with its huge current account surplus so the province should be prepared to "pay" for those emissions.
Quote:
|
The point is that while emissions per capita is a much better metric than emissions per country, it's still a flawed way of looking at things.
|
My point in this post is that you can rationalize all you want about different ways to slice and dice emissions. The atmosphere doesn't care how we divy them up though. In the end, Canada has committed to certain GHG targets or at least to do *something* about emissions and has largely failed. We can wax on about China but they are currently doing more than we are to address the problem.
