According to the Globe and Mail, Canada has officially agreed to reduce it’s carbon emissions by 17% from 2005 levels over the next 10 years. Unfortunately, our government still hasn’t managed to meet their 2006 goal of reducing our emissions to 3% lower than 1990 levels.

Dave Martin, a spokesman with the Greenpeace foundation has pointed out that this new target will actually increase our emissions levels by 2.5% over the levels that the Conservative government’s as of yet unaccomplished 2006 goal would have yielded.

We’re heading in exactly the opposite direction that we need to head,” Mr. Martin said. “Not only have they reneged on the target that they adopted a couple of years ago, they have also failed to put in place the regulations that they promised last year – Dave Martin, Greanpeace

While the shockingly nonsensical stance that Greenpeace takes on nuclear technology gives me very little reason to trust anything that the group publishes, Mr. Martin has written some excellent pieces covering the Harper government’s lack of commitment to the Copenhagen process.

But perhaps more worrying than the alleged role that the United State’s own climate policy has played in crafting our targets is the lack of hindsight in the following statement from Conservative Environment Minister Jim Prentice:

Mr. Prentice pointed out the major emitters such as China, Brazil, India and the United States didn’t have obligations to cut emissions under the Kyoto accord. He hopes this time it’s different, and that there will soon be news of emission cuts from countries that haven’t yet announced their own targets. – Bill Graveland, The Globe and Mail

Jim – I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, but your government didn’t cut emissions either. In fact, during the last election, it crippled the Liberal Party’s attempt to put a real plan for cutting our emissions in place. Way to set an example, buddy.