Climate Change and Canada

Galit Gerasimov 7153546

Climate change is presumably the most serious issue of our time. It’s consequences include, but are not restricted to; global warming, the rise in sea levels, extreme weather alterations and the melting of our glaciers. Burning fossil fuels is directly related to climate change as it produces additional green house gases, which due to their heat trapping properties retain more heat in the atmosphere altering the world’s natural temperature. Many countries are now promising to combat this serious issue by setting targets to reduce green house gas emission in the future. In a recent environmental meeting, the United-States and China shocked the world by promising extreme green house gas reductions in the next decade. However, despite this international pressure on the current environmental issues Canada has severely fallen behind in addressing these issues. Such lack of involvement could have serious consequences for Canada.

In recent times, Canada has blamed our lack of involvement in the fight against global warming on the fact that the biggest emitters were not doing anything from their end. However, since the latest environmental meeting, this argument can no longer hold. The United-States has set to decrease their emissions by 26 percent from what they were in 2005 by 2025. (McDiarmid, Mas 2012) China has agreed to implement a cap system to control green house gas emissions, and are intended to switch 20 percent of their energy to a zero-carbon bases by 2030. (McDiarmid, Mas 2012)

Canada is one the worlds biggest greenhouse gas emitters per capita, with 25 percent of the emissions coming from oil production in the Western region. (McDiarmid, Mas 2012) The conservative Government of Canada has long been promising regulations in the oil and gas sector, but so far no progress has been made to regulate it. This intense economic focus on the oil and gas sector could be troublesome for our economy in the future. Especially when our biggest demand comes from the United-States, and perhaps China in the coming years. Moreover, with these new international targets in place there will be enormous incentives to find sustainable energies, which will create major economic opportunities. With Canada being too pre-occupied with the oil and gas industry we might fall behind these future economic trends.