Thursday, December 11, 2014

Stephen Harper For President: Canada Calls Oil and Gas Emission Regulation “Crazy”

12/11/2014

TORONTO – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called regulation of emissions from the country’s booming oil and gas sector “crazy,” despite promising to take action on the matter during his inauguration in 2006.

Harper expressed his intensions of not acting on the matter on Tuesday, while Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq was participating in UN climate change negotiations at the COP20 summit in Peru.

“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy; it would be crazy economic policy to do unilateral penalties on that sector. We’re clearly not going to do it,” Harper said.

The prime minister’s comments came when an opposition member asked if he was going to keep his 2006 promise of regulating emissions especially after steps taken by the U.S. and China.

Since taking office in 2006, Harper has protected the country’s growing oil industry to a point that it has become the only unregulated major sector to emit carbon dioxide.

In 2012, Harper got Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol making it the only country that after ratifying it, left the global accord against climate change to avoid damaging the oil industry by imposing regulations.

During Harper’s mandate, Canada has become one of the world’s largest petroleum producers due to the massive reserves of bituminous sands deposits located in the western Canadian province of Alberta.

Canada committed in Kyoto to reduce emissions, but has failed to do so.

The environment minister on Monday said that her country would not accomplish the goals of reducing green house gas emissions by 17 percent, as compared to 2005, by 2020. 


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