Following are the figures on the per capita by province emissions I have extrapolated from bargraphs on a British Columbia government Ministry of the Environment website. After quite a bit of searching around these are the best figures I can readily find.
Carbon Footprint by Province
greenhouse gas emissions per capita by province 2006, in tons of co2 equivalent
Tons of co2 per capita
Alberta 70
British Columbia 14
Manitoba 18
New Brunswick 24
Newfoundland & Labrador 18
Nova Scotia 21
Ontario 15
P.E.I. 15
Quebec 11
Saskatchewan 73
Yukon, Nunavut & N.W.T. 16
Interestingly, most sources for these figures, as well as total ghg emissions by province give graphic images, without showing the data. What is that about?
Interesting to note that B.C. acknowledges 62.3 million tons of co2 emissions in 2006, plus an additional 4 million tons of emissions caused by logging industry deforestation.
What are the total ghg emissions by province?
here are some Stats Canada figures on that, picked up from the Energy Collective website
Again, the figures given are just eyeballed off a bar graph, since the bar graphs appear in umpteen sources on the internet and I am having a tough time finding the actual stats
The numbers show the Greenhouse gas emissions for Canada by province, with the 1990 number first and the 2006 number second.
Emissions are measured in millions of tons of co2 equivalent, and are net, incorporating such factors as deforestation, afforestation, etc.
GHG Emissions 1990 - 2006
Alberta 172 - 236
British Columbia 50 - 66
Manitoba 20 - 22
New Brunswick 19 - 21
Newfoundland & Labrador 12 - 12
Nova Scotia 21 - 22
Ontario 174 - 190
P.E.I. 2 - 2
Quebec 84 - 82
Saskatchewan 45 - 73
Yukon, Nunavut & N.W.T. n/a
Interestingly, some of the federal government sources of information have magically disappeared.
But here is another very interesting set of data - this is the percentage of the Canadian increase in ghg emissions since 1990, by province:
Alberta 50.2%
British Columbia 10.9%
Manitoba 1.9%
New Brunswick <1%>
Newfoundland & Labrador <1%
Nova Scotia <1%
Ontario 13
P.E.I. <1%
Quebec 0% (total decrease of 1%)
Saskatchewan 22.7%
Yukon, Nunavut & N.W.T. 0% (total decrease of 17%)
The above figures also obtained from a chart on the Energy Collective.
A disturbing and divisive fact is beginning to emerge here.
This is that all provinces benefit from their natural resources according to their distribution among the provinces. However, as things are unfolding, it looks like all the citizens of a country are being held accountable for the emissions of the country as a whole.
I can't see this evolving in any way that will be palatable in a context of Canadian unity.
For one thing, we have two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, that are blatantly exposed in terms of per capita and total ghg emissions, especially against 1990 levels.
Alberta residents enjoy zero provincial sales tax and low income tax - so it's not going to look very good if residents of other provinces end up paying Alberta's way...
On the other hand Quebec is at the other extreme, already reducing emissions per 1990 levels. So Quebecers are really going to be hard pressed to agree with propping up any kind of polluting economy in the rest of the country.
Quebec and Alberta. Two provinces with already strong independent tendencies, are only going to find divisive forces running deeper and wider as the continuing climate discussions reveal more facts and the consequences become apparent to the average person.
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19 comments:
each and every day over the USA at an elevation of 25,000 to 40,000 feet 5,000 litres of fuel are being burned per second by commercial aircraft. The only recorded change in our weather was made during the 5 days after 9/11 when aircraft were gounded. It has been suggested that no matter what steps we take on the ground to reduce our CO2 output - it well be offset by the growing number of commercial flights.
people can always turn off their heat, and refuse the billions in equalization payments if they dont like the natural resource provinces.
Put your money where your mouth is Canada.
Put up, or shut up.
"Anonymous", if you are an Albertan, may I make a suggestion? Don't burn your bridges. You were a have-not province before the oil began to line your pockets, and you will be a have-not province again, because one day the oil will be alllll gone. And you have nothing else.
Don't piss the rest of us off with belligerence. Too bad the climate scientists have observed the things they have. Too bad the world figured out cigarettes kill. But it happened and things have changed. I'm surprised I haven't heard a peep out of Alberta about limiting production to some extent. But no, you figure money should shut us all up. Get real. It's the whole world that is frowning on you - not just Canadians - and the rest of the world doesn't benefit from your wealth. It just suffers from your greenhouse gas emissions.
Deborah
I cannot speak for Anonymous whether or not he is Albertan or not.
But I agree with his sentiments. Why, because I view you as an alarmist. Canada produces 2% of the worlds CO2, and the oil sands produce somewhere between 3-5% of that figure. The rest is transportation and electricity generation (via coal fire) and industry.
But people like you, and of course, this particular article, do a disservice by skewing the debate with misleading data that doesn't even give a breakdown as to the actual sources.
I suspect you are from Ontario. Your province is NOW a have not province. All thanks to the foolishness of your electorate.
You say Alberta was a have not province before the oil industry came along? Maybe the first couple years. Ever since then, we have been paying into that fund. And now it appears we have to pay YOUR way too.
In fact the source of the statistics is given in the post - it is the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment.
When you say Canada produces 2% of the world's Co2, you should also mention that we are less than .5% of the world's population.
We may be .5% of the worlds population, but we are also the second largest country in the world and a northern one at that. We also an exporter of many of the worlds comodities. If the world doesn't like that they can go elsewhere for their raw materials.Ditto for southern ontario, the polluted concrete jungle, and quebec the perenial welfare state. I note that it is ok for quebec to flood vast areas of the continent but oooh so bad for alberta to mine their province. The funny thing about that is that once the oil has been recovered from the earth, the earth is usually replanted. Can you say the same about the flooded valleys in quebec?
Hello, Hmmm, your thinking is somewhat narrow.
Perhaps you should also add up the hundreds of billions Alberta has contributed to "propping" up Canada over the last 40 years or so.
As for Deborah, my word...such ignorance and hostility. Not a pleasing combination.
The Oil Sands are .1% of CO2 emissions. CO2 is a very minor greenhouse gas.
If you haven't noticed, climate scientists are up to their necks in scandal after scandal. Corruption at the highest levels of the IPCC!
Start at 1900 and chart the CO2 levels vs. the temperatures. The first thing you will notice is how -little- the two match. So much for the CO2 leads temp. theory. Credible ice core science shows that temp. rise leads CO2 rise with about an 800 year lag. And 800 years ago we had.....
well as we all know, statistics are never manipulated to create a desired conclusion are they?
What is the carbon footprint of B.C. hospitals, that are now paying millions in carbon taxes?
andycanuck
Ah, yes the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. Another bunch of self centered bureaucrats interested in promoting a panic that will lead to higher carbon taxes to support their higher and wholly undeserved salaries. All overseen by our benignly smiling Premier Campbell, whose carbon footprint leading up to the Olympics is at least a size fifteen.
Fire them all.
I'm actually surprised that there are still people taking GHG emissions seriously. You know you're in trouble when California is jumping off the bandwagon.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ballot-warming6-2010feb06,0,5959308.story
And something tells me that the BC isn't taking into account all of their industrial pollution - those evil trees!
http://carbon-based-ghg.blogspot.com/2010/01/pine-beetles-transform-british.html
Regarding the so-called climate scandals... I haven't seen anything so overblown in the press since the phony Swift boat campaign against John Kerry. Whether or not one guy in India overstated some acknowledged guesstimates and one or two British scientists cracked a couple of jokes over an email, doesn't makes a fleck of difference in the overall climate change reality. Any given day brings more new and rigorous evidence (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/arctic-ice-melt-alarms-scientists-83704042.html) vs. what? A couple of massively overblown gaffes. And a buncha guys driving pick-ups.
Offroad Artist - It is obvious that you are an artist and not a scientist. Your devout belief in the absolute rubbish perpetrated in the name of 'Global Warming' is touching but tragic. Relying on computer progams with incomplete and manipulated data and then secret algorithms to turn cooling into heating is rather pathetic really. Oh yes, I'm an artist too - but with two science degrees and management training which has honed my BS detector.
Facts seem to have no sway with those who march in lockstep with their chosen peer group.
Man is too small to have any really heavy influence on warming or cooling trends.
Solar storms and eruptions like Mount Saint Helens ARE influential in swinging earth temperatures however.
Only Man's hydrogen bomb is large enough to affect our atmosphere in the short term. We have wisely eased off on that, thank heaven.
Mankind's pollution, on the other hand, is having a profound effect on most living things on earth.
Tons of bee colonies are vanishing due to chemicals that weaken their immune systems. Sick bees then, carry five or six different ailments making it impossible for a man made antidote.
Families travel about farm to orchard in China and pollinate crops and orchards by hand using feathers attached to poles.
a label of one or two percent applied to the oil sands is not the point. Poisoning IS the point. Mass killing of waterfowl and poisoning of land and animals must simply be corrected.
I find that we Canadians are both stubborn and ignorant when it comes to adopting technical change.
Sadly that makes quick adoption of the electric car unlikely in Canada. Shameful!
The EV is 60% more efficient than gasoline and diesel even with power generated by coal plant.
Power here in BC is mostly clean hydro generated so percentages are better.
Today, the grid in BC can easily charge 2 Million and 500 thousand EVs overnight with no modification to the grid except for a 220 volt tap to the garage.
The new Nissan Leaf EV is only one of 32 new model EVs coming to market soon. Price is in the 20K area.
The Honda Insight gives you a 66 MPG economy but alas it is a hybrid.
Remember, during an emergency gasoline boycot, hybrids can not move on battery power alone.
There was A BOYCOTT in the early seventies. One terrorist blast on a multi-Billion$ refinery and gas for police and ambulance only can happen again.
You can't do much about Global Warming, but you can reduce pollution with an EV and save yourself $400 a month in gasoline you don't buy. TG
Here is a great quote by Arnie Madsen in Manitoba:
"Nature made the Tar Sands and Alberta converted some of it into gasoline so that the folks in Ontario can put $10 worth of gas in their car to drive .03 cents worth of empty tofu packaging to the recycling depot on Saturday morning."
There's a big hole in this argument. You're assigning responsibility for the CO2 emissions to the producer. Some of it does belong there.
But no energy development would exist without consumers of that energy. Half or more of the responsibility belongs to the people who consume the oil from the oil sands. Which means mostly the U.S. of A., who are building independence from Arabian oil.
Fights over carbon emissions won't ruin Canada. But misplaced blame and abuse of statistics might just do that.
Anonymous, To my knowledge these figures show only the emissions incurred. So the emissions shown for Alberta are what is incurred in the production of tar sands and regular crude and of course the side effects of fossil fuel power generation and the cattle industry, which creates a lot of ghg emissions as well. Emissions produced when the fossil fuels are used are counted at the site where they are burned, to my knowledge.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics....
Okay, we all know statistics can be and often are manipulated. However, common sense shows that our environment is being impacted, and ultimately, we are going to have to change how we live or the planet isn't going to survive.
I'm doing what little things I can right now, and when I CAN buy an affordable fully electric car, I'll be at the head of the line.
The kerfuffle around the tar sands has been interesting and amusing to watch. Yes, I can't wait until we're not dependent on fossil fuels. But right now, we are. And yet it's become internationally fashionable to bash this one particular energy source.
Never mind that this energy source leads to Canadians having much lower fuel costs than many other countries, which in turn lets our farmers - those hard-working folks that supply an incredible 25% of the entire world's wheat - do so for today's prices. I wonder what these international tar sands bashers would say if they were presented with the choice of having the prices of a significant number of their food staples quadrupling (or more), or keeping the tar sands running? Hmmmm.
Food for thought.
Cagey One @ 5:21
You make very good points.
Constructive views. I especially like this...
'' I'm doing what little things I can right now, and when I CAN buy an affordable fully electric car, I'll be at the head of the line. ''
Good!
An EV gives you mobility during a gasoline boycott.
Hybrids can not move off your driveway without gasoline.
Electric vehicles are the new logical must have trend.
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