Report - Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale

Project energy context
compared to other countries such as France, Sweden and Belgium where nuclear
power plays a major role in meeting their energy needs 1 .
According to federal government data and analyses 2 , Canada’s GHG emissions were
an estimated 758 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2004, up 27 percent from 1990,
the Kyoto baseline year, when they were estimated to be 599 Mt. When Canada
ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an appendix to the United Nations Framework Agreement
on climate change, in December 2002, it committed to reduce these emissions by
6 percent compared to the 1990 baseline on the 2012 horizon 3 .
According to federal government data, the energy sector (which includes the highway
transportation sector, the fossil fuel energy industry and thermal generated heat and
electricity) was responsible for 81 percent of total Canadian emissions in 2003, and
91 percent of growth in these emissions between 1991 and 2003. Moreover, these
data show that the intensity of these emissions per unit of gross national product
(GNP) decreased by nearly 12 percent in 2003 as compared to 1990.
Figure 3 provides the territorial breakdown of emissions across Canada according to
the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators program.
With respect to the emissions growth rate by province, data calculated by the Suzuki
Foundation 4 shows that Quebec had the third lowest increase in emissions for all
Canadian provinces and territories during the same period.
1. See, among others:
European Renewable Energy Council, Renewable Energy Policy Review Sweden, May 2004 [On-line:
www.erec-renewables.org/documents/RES_in_EUandCC/Policy_reviews/EU_15/Sweden_policy_final.pdf];
H. Nifenecker, Comparison of the energy structure between Denmark, France and Sweden [On-line:
www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Comparison-denmark-france.doc];
International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2006, Summary and Conclusions [On-line: library.iea.org/
textbase/weo/summaries2006/french.pdf].
2. Government of Canada, National Status and Trends [On-line: www.environmentandresources.gc.ca/
default.asp?lang=Fr&n=843A8EEB-1]
3. On April 26, 2007, the Government of Canada announced an action plan to reduce GHG and atmospheric
pollution. The plan calls for an absolute reduction by 150 Mt by 2020.
4. Dale Marshall, All Over the Map: A Comparison of Provincial Climate Change Plans, David Suzuki Foundation,
2005 [On-line: www.davidsuzuki.org/files/climate/Ontario/All_Over_the_Map.pdf].
78 Rabaska Project – Implementation of an LNG Terminal and Related Infrastructure