Fact Sheet
Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

Greenhouse Gases

When greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, they alter its composition, and affect its chemical and physical properties. As a result of human activities, predominantly the combustion of fossil fuels, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased substantially since the industrial revolution. This has led to an enhanced greenhouse effect, an increase in global surface temperature, and other climatic changes that can be witnessed today.

The Kyoto Protocol has identified a number of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as having significant global warming potential. They are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons. Given the quantity of emissions expected over the next century, these GHGs have the potential to substantially change our climate.

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely recognized as the most authoritative scientific body on climate change. The IPCC was established by United Nations agencies in 1988 to undertake periodic assessments of the available information on climate change and its impacts. These assessments are undertaken with the help of thousands of experts from around the world, including Canada, and undergo a very extensive and open peer review process involving government and non-government experts. To date, the IPCC has issued comprehensive assessments in 1990, 1995, and 2001.

The IPCC has provided compelling evidence of the need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and has demonstrated that climate change is a serious global issue that demands a collaborative, global response as envisioned in the Kyoto Protocol. The findings of its Third Assessment Report, published in 2001, have been accepted by scientists and governments worldwide.

The immediate and long-term effects of GHGs

Recent regional changes in temperature have already had discernible impacts on many physical and biological systems. Examples include: shrinkage of glaciers; thawing of permafrost; shifts in ice freeze and break-up dates on rivers and lakes; increases in rainfall and rainfall intensity in most mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere; lengthening of growing seasons; and earlier dates for flowering of trees, the emergence of insects and egg-laying in birds.

The IPCC's Third Assessment Report includes detailed evidence that the Earth's climate has changed since the pre-industrial era. Over the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has increased by 0.6 C. It is very likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, of the instrumental record. It is likely that the 20th century warming is unprecedented during the past 1,000 years. Most of the warming of the past 50 years is likely to have been due to increases in GHG concentrations as a result of human activities. Carbon dioxide concentrations, surface temperature and sea level are projected to increase during the 21st century. The projected warming by between 1.4 and 5.8 C over the period 1990 to 2100 is very likely to be without precedent during the last 10,000 years.

Impacts on Natural Systems

Diversity in ecological systems is expected to be affected by climate change and sea level rise in the future, with an increased risk of extinction of some vulnerable species. Systems at risk include coral reefs and atolls, mangroves, boreal and tropical forests, coldwater and cool water fish habitat, ecosystems overlying permafrost, ice edge systems, polar and alpine ecosystems, prairie wetlands, and remnant native grasslands.

Some plant and animal species and natural systems are likely to be adversely affected by climate change of less than one degree Celsius. Adverse impacts to species and systems would become more numerous and more serious for changes of one to two degrees Celsius.

Impacts to Systems on which Human Life Depends

Climate change is expected to have serious impacts on the availability and access to food and water. A large proportion of the world's population is living under conditions of water scarcity now. Climate change would exacerbate water shortage and quality problems in many water-scarce areas of the world.

Changes in extreme events and sea level rise will have significant impacts on human safety and security, and on ecosystems, as well as on the availability of fresh water, arable land, and agricultural productivity.

In the 21st century, greenhouse gas emissions could set in motion large-scale, high impact and potentially abrupt changes in physical and biological systems over the coming decades to millennia. If such changes were to occur, their impacts would be widespread and sustained. Depending on the rate and magnitude of such changes, the capacity for human and natural systems to adapt could be exceeded and have substantial impacts.

Impacts on Human Life

In Canada, the projected increased frequency and severity of heat waves may lead to an increase in illness and death, particularly among young, elderly and frail people, especially those living in large urban areas. The effects of an increase in heat waves would often be exacerbated by increased humidity and urban air pollution.

Any increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as storms, floods and droughts would directly impact human health through loss of life and injury. They could also affect health indirectly through loss of shelter, population displacement, contamination of water supplies, loss of food production, increased risk of infectious disease epidemics, and damage to infrastructure for provision of health services.

What Canada is doing

Climate change poses a challenge for Canada and the world, but Canadians are rising to that challenge. All of us - industry, governments, communities and individuals - must do our fair share.

For that reason, the Government of Canada released on April 13, 2005 its updated Climate Change Plan: Moving Forward on Climate Change: a Plan for Honouring our Kyoto Commitment (http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/english/). It is a comprehensive plan providing the tools and incentives to secure a healthy environment and strong, growing economy - at the same time as allowing Canada to achieve its greenhouse gas emission reduction goal of 270 megatonnes between 2008 and 2012 including a 45 megatonne reduction from Large Final Emitters.

As part of that plan, the Government signaled that its preferred option for implementing the Large Final Emitters system was to use the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

GHGs and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act

To control emissions of GHGs using Parts 5 and 11 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 GHGs must first be added to the list of substances in Schedule 1 to the Act, using the criteria set out in Section 64. International science clearly demonstrates that GHGs meet the second criterion for listing, namely that they constitute a danger to the environment on which life depends.

This conclusion is supported in the report "The Kyoto Protocol Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act" currently available at www.ec.gc.ca/ceparegistry under the "What's New" section.

For more information, please call 1-800-668-6767.