3a) Country's plan, and implications

Oct 22, 2015 by pamela

“What are Canada’s future plans, and their implications”?

As of October 19, 2015, Canada’s future plans for the fight against climate change have slightly altered. With a new Prime Minister, our international agreements (Copenhagen Accord) have not been updated yet. However promises of national changes have been made.

A few of Canada’s future plans ( formulated with the past government, and those that are promised to occur with the current one) include:

• Extending the invitation for all Premiers to attend the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21). The gravity of this step is not to be undermined because Premiers know more about their specific provinces than a Prime Minister. Their job is to understand the needs of the people in their region. Therefore, they can present a primary source example of the effects of climate change in their districts.
• Reduce our carbon emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
• Enforcing regulations limiting emission amounts from cars and light trucks model years 2017 and beyond. By the year 2025, greenhouse gas emissions from the aforementioned vehicles will have been reduced by 50 percent.
• Ban on British Columbia’s crude oil tanker traffic. This is because the current travel of vessels on our waters puts our marine life at risk of contamination from oil and chemical spills. This becomes even more of a problem because half of our oxygen comes from marine life (plankton).
• In the area of sustainable development, the Canadian is making sure that all legally sold gasoline contains an average of 5 percent renewable content.

Although the above is not all the nation is doing to combat climate change, we still have a long way to go. Some of the above policies have been in place for a few years, but we will not know more until the COP21 conference where Canada, as well as other countries, will agree on internationally binding agreements on the actions needed to be taken starting in 2015 and beyond.

The above plans demonstrate that Canada is taking steps to reduce carbon emissions. Most importantly I believe, they indicate that the leaders of Canada see and understand that climate change is not a debate anymore, see its negative impact on the country’s environment and people, and are willing to take actions against it. Whether these actions are too little too late, or are simply a front, I am not sure of. However, I am hopeful for the result of the conference, and that we will hold strong to whatever agreement we might make (SDGs for example).

Thank you for reading.

Pamela

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