Canada’s GHG emissions in 2005 was 747 megatonnes (Mt) of CO2 equivalent, or 23.1 tonnes per person on average ($670 to offset), 25% above 1990 levels on which the Kyoto Protocol was set and 33% above the 6% reduction target for Kyoto.
Posted by envirostats on Friday, December 14, 2007
The per capita calculation was my doing from a population of 32.3121 million in 2005 from Statistics Canada. I don’t know why when they report these things they don’t put it into context.
The offset cost was also my doing, at $29 per tonne CO2 equivalent from information in Stat 0624.
This was one of many statistical highlights from the source, which I won’t have time to blog all those environmental statistics due to other environmental statistics I have access to that may not be captured elsewhere and due to limited time. I would highly recommend those interested in Canadian environmental statistics to check out the source below, though.
The 25% and 6% do not add up to 33% because the “base” became smaller in the reduction. Just take an example of 100 and do the math of 25% increase to 125 and then have 125 divided by 94 (the 100 minus 6%) and you’ll see.
CO2 equivalents refers to the fact that some greenhouse gases have a lot more global warming potential (GWP) than CO2 to do damage to the environment that the same mass of these other gases do some multiple of the CO2 weight required to do the same damage. See Stat 0117 for some examples.
The Canadian per capita total is one of the highest value in the world, partially reflected in the last statistic’s body text where Canadian CO2 emissions performance (not just purely emissions but also what was being done about it) was rated 4th worst in the world. Unfortunately, the Conservative government we currently have in place is making Canada lose all of its credibility, not just in the environmental arena but especially there. Again, the political masters probably intervened to eliminate our relative world standings in these reports, but you’d never catch them saying that. [Envirostats author]
- Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators 2007 by Statistics Canada (2.2 MB)
- Canadian population in 2005 via Statistics Canada
