{"id":66178,"date":"2015-12-03T20:42:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T02:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=66178"},"modified":"2015-12-03T20:42:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T02:42:00","slug":"manitoba-pledges-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-create-green-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/12\/03\/manitoba-pledges-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-create-green-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Manitoba pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create green jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Photo<\/a>
(Photo from Wikipedia<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WINNIPEG\u2014Manitoba is promising to cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-third in the next 15 years and bring in a cap-and-trade system for the province’s 20 largest emitters to help meet that goal.<\/p>\n

Three years after missing the province’s previous greenhouse gas emissions target, Premier Greg Selinger said Manitoba aims to be carbon-neutral by 2080.<\/p>\n

He says climate change is too great a challenge to ignore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve seen major floods. Every year we’re seeing more forest fires,\u201d he said Thursday before leaving for the global climate change summit in Paris. \u201cAll of those weather events are becoming more severe, more intense and more frequent. And they’re costing us billions of dollars to address.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NDP promised in 2007 to reduce harmful emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Instead, emissions were almost 15 per cent higher.<\/p>\n

This time, Selinger said, the government will create 6,000 green jobs in the next five years, expand its Power Smart program to help people reduce energy use and bring in an environmental bill of rights with an independent watchdog.<\/p>\n

It will also join Ontario and Quebec by introducing a cap-and-trade program for the 20 large emitters, the details of which will be worked out with those companies, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll be working with all of them to put the system in place to ensure they are part of the solution,\u201d Selinger said. \u201cIt’s a firm, hard commitment that requires us all to work together to achieve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cap-and-trade commitment won the approval of former U.S. vice-president and environmental champion Al Gore.<\/p>\n

\u201cManitoba\u2014hurray!\u2014Is adding to Canadian provincial leadership by launching a carbon market,\u201d he said on social media. \u201cGreat timing for the world!\u201d<\/p>\n

Others said the threat from climate change is real and needs a more ambitious plan.<\/p>\n

Danny Blair, climate change scientist and acting dean for the University of Winnipeg’s faculty of science, said anything that results in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is \u201ca good thing.\u201d But the world needs much more drastic action if it is going to keep temperatures from rising by more than 2 C, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it sufficient? No,\u201d Blair said. \u201cIf we go beyond two degrees from a global perspective, there is a dangerous kind of climate change occurring. We will continue to see even more extreme events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Paterson with the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition said the plan announced Thursday is \u201cbetter than what we had yesterday.\u201d Its impact will depend a lot on the details of any cap-and-trade initiative, he added.<\/p>\n

Paterson, too, said much more radical action is needed. The economy needs to stop propping up \u201cdinosaur fossil fuel\u201d industries that contributed to the current environmental crisis, he suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your business can’t survive without aggressive reductions, you’re going out of business. That’s what climate change demands\u2014that we develop new businesses that don’t rely on the production and the burning of fossil fuels,\u201d Paterson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has to be a loser in climate change and it has to be heavy emitters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WINNIPEG\u2014Manitoba is promising to cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-third in the next 15 years and bring in a cap-and-trade …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":66179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5927,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-66178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-environment-nature","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-chinta-puxley","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}