Blame Canada for Climate Change
Apropos of Anna's fascinating post yesterday, I decided to do a little digging to find out if Canada's superior record of concern for the environment is translating into a better record for the planet.
So far, it's not. At least not when it comes to climate change, which I'd argue is the biggest environmental (and economic and social justice) challenge facing the world.
On the one hand, the US failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while Canada agreed to a 6 percent emissions cut under the treaty. Today, however, Canada is a whopping 33 percent above the target. (Though it's also miles off, the US actually appears be closer to its non-agreed-to Kyoto targets than Canada. Ouch.)
And while it's true that the United States is by far the world's largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions, that's partly because there are roughly 10 times as many Americans as Canadians. When it comes to our individual contributions to warming the planet, however, we're really not so different after all.
Per capita, Canadians emit about 10 percent less emissions from energy consumption as Americans. But if you were to factor in the substantial greenhouse gas emissions from logging and cattle-raising (both big business in Canada for which I don't have data), Canadians would probably be nearly neck and neck with American emissions, on a per person basis.
It gets worse.
