Canada the bad boy in Copenhagen

OK, it looks bad for Canada. Instead of reducing emissions since Kyoto we have increased them by something like 20% since 1990. But why? One reason is the increase in population - around 20%. Another reason is economic growth. Canada's GDP has increased 60% since 1990. But Canada is polluting much less now per billion of economic activity (see article here). This kind of analysis isolates the variable of economic growth from the variable of carbon emissions. Other nations pollute less because they grew less, not because they have stricter environmental policies. Of course this argument could be made by China or India... And what we need is less pollution, not less pollution per billion dollars...

We could also ask whether it is fair to compare total CO2 emissions (Canada is the number 7 polluter in the world) to see which countries are the worst offenders, or CO2 per capita (each Canadian pollutes over 50% more than a Brit). In either of these, Canada does poorly. But how much does Canada contribute to the absorption of CO2? 45% of Canada is forested (and we keep it like that). We have 10% of the world's total forest cover. That should count for something. How much is China absorbing of its own CO2?

This is also a cold country. Of course we are going to use more heating. SUVs are necessary to drive in the snow (or to clear snow). With lots of space, people like to have big houses. Should the government force people to live in small apartments (better insulation, shared heating)? I don't see this being done in other countries.

This said, we are increasing our CO2 emissions rather than reducing them. This is partly because of the extraction of oil from the Alberta oil sands. Is this wrong? Perhaps it isn't. All the world needs oil, we are selling it. It's bad for the environment to have an oil-based economy, but we do have one. We should think of the consequences for all economies of over the roof oil prices. Perhaps the world needs Canada to sell its dirty oil from the Alberta oil sands for a while, to allow for a smooth transition to more environmentally friendly energy sources.