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Kyoto Facts & Stats Feature: Greenhouse Gas Emissions
November 2002
By Esme Friesen

With all the discussions on the Kyoto Protocol, it's easy to lose sight of some of the basic facts. How much GHG emissions are too much? What is my country's contribution? Is it worth the costs to the economy - to the environment? What are other nations doing to implement alternative energy measures? Is there support from any of the world's major corporations?

Canada
Canada's overall objective is to cut domestic emissions by 180 megatonnes per year. This is a 60-megatonne shortfall of what is required to meet the Kyoto target of 240 megatonnes per year. It is the aim of Canada's draft plan to gain credits for clean-energy exports to the U.S. in order to compensate for the shortfall - this, however, has not yet been approved by the Kyoto Accord, and is likely to be rejected by the European contingent.

According to the government of Alberta, Canada currently contributes 2% of the world's total volume of GHG emissions. However, in 1997 Alberta was listed as Canada's leading producer with a 29.47 per cent contribution to this estimate, while only housing 9.85 per cent of the population.

Province/Territory	% Canada's Emissions - 2000	% Population - 2000
Alberta	30.77%	9.79%
Ontario	28.59%	37.96%
Quebec	12.49%	24.0%
British Columbia	9.09%	13.19%
Saskatchewan	8.52%	3.32%
Manitoba	2.95%	3.72%
Nova Scotia	2.96%	3.06%
New Brunswick	2.78%	2.45%
Newfoundland	1.21%	1.74%
Prince Edward Island	0.30%	0.46%
Northwest Territories/Nanavut	0.25%	0.22%
Yukon	0.09%	0.09%

It is further estimated that eight per cent of these emissions come from the residential sector - fuel oil and natural gas for space and water heating, with only 4 per cent coming from the commercial sector. So what constitutes the other 88 per cent?

Transportation takes the lead with twenty-five percent, followed by industry and power plants at 21 and 16 per cent respectively. The remainder comes from fossil fuel industry (12%), agriculture (10%) and waste (4%).

A megatonne is a million metric tonnes, roughly the equivalent of a million automobiles.
On an individual basis, each Canadian produces approximately 5 tonnes of GHG emissions per year.

How much is too much?
This is still a question undergoing many debates, with scientists and experts on both sides of the fence. However, in a report published by the U.S. Environmental protection agency "The world is likely to warm by 0.3-1.3°C during the next 20-30 years no matter whether greenhouse gas emissions increase sharply or weakly".

The report further adds "that much of the global warming over the next several decades will be caused by the climate system gradually adjusting to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations that have already occurred." And, "studies indicate that rising emissions of greenhouse gasses would lead to significant warming toward the end of this century, with the final outcome more closely tied to whether emissions increase, level off, or decrease."

The upper limit on the potential warming by the year 2100 could be higher than 5.8°C. Source: April 18, 2002 issue of Nature

Kyoto Commitment
The charts below identify the current state of affairs with respect to the Kyoto commitment. To see data for countries not listed here, go to: www.grida.no/db/maps/collection/climate6

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