The environment commissioner tabled his spring report this morning.
Although the federal government has begun to lower greenhouse gas emissions, right now the reductions are not happening fast enough to meet the 2020 target … The question of economic cost is crucial. The government’s stated rationale for withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol was the prohibitive projected cost to the economy, estimated at $14 billion in December 2011. Accordingly, I expected that the government would have calculated the projected costs to the Canadian economy of its regulatory approach to meeting its new target of reducing greenhouse gases by 17 percent below our 2005 level by 2020. Right now, it has not done so. The result is that Parliament lacks a full picture of the combined costs of reaching the 2020 target.
More from the Canadian Press, CBC, Postmedia, Global and CTV. Environment Minister Peter Kent’s official response is here.