May 4, 2007

OTTAWA – The Minister of the Environment, the Honourable John Baird, today welcomed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report by Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change, released earlier today in Bangkok, Thailand.

“The IPCC summary report further demonstrates that we are heading in the right direction with our Turning the Corner Plan,” said Minister Baird. “Our Government's plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution which is a major step towards mitigating years of Liberal inaction.”

Climate change is a global issue that requires global solutions. As each country is also shaped by its own domestic realities, Canada's New Government is taking a leadership role in tackling this challenge. Here are a few key points raised in the IPCC report:

• “The most stringent scenarios assessed by the IPCC […] would require global CO₂ emissions to peak before 2015 […]” [1]
  
  Our Turning the Corner Plan announced last week does exactly that. It puts forward a plan for Canada to stop the increase of emissions by 2010-2012 by setting challenging, yet realistic mandatory targets.
  
  
• “Integrating air pollution abatement and climate change mitigation policies offers potentially large cost reductions compared to treating those policies in isolation.” [2]
  
  For the first time in Canada, the federal government is taking a leadership role with its plan to address both greenhouse gases and air pollution. We have committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 150 megatonnes by 2020. In addition, we will impose mandatory targets on industry so that air pollution emissions from industry is cut by more than half by 2015.
  
  
• “Government support through financial contributions, tax credits, standard setting and market creation is important for effective technology development, innovation and deployment.” [3]
  
  Canada's greenhouse gases and air pollution and has put in place several complementary measures to achieve real reductions, such as:
  
  
• supporting provincial and territorial environmental projects (Trust Fund);
  
  
• investing in cleaner and renewable energy (ecoENERGY);
  
  
• encouraging development and use of cleaner transportation (ecoTRANSPORT);
  
  
• supporting the increased production of biofuels and other bioproducts (ecoAGRICULTURE).

As stated in the IPCC report, technological innovation is key to ensuring environmental progress. Through our Technology Fund, we want to ensure we provide the stimulus for technology development in the early years. We want Canadian companies to be able to make real contributions here at home by investing into a technology fund that will deliver reductions across industry and regions. This fund will allow Canada to become a leader in new green technologies, with potential export markets around the world.

“Canada will continue to work with its international partners to develop a meaningful and realistic plan to address this global challenge," said Minister Baird. "We will collaborate with other countries to help advance a more effective long-term approach to tackling climate change.”

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