Appendix A: Analysis and Assessment of Individual Measure 1.9 Clean Air and Climate Change Trust FundThe 2009 Plan maintains the 2007 and 2008 estimate that $1.519 billion provided by the federal government to the provinces and territories through the Clean Air and Climate Change Trust Fund (CACC Trust) should generate emission reductions of 16 Mt per year for the years 2008—2012. These estimates, based on information provided in 2007, were derived from the projected rate of emissions reductions per dollar in Quebec. The Government of Quebec's June 2006 climate-change plan credited federal funding of $328 million with generating 3.8 Mt of emissions reductions per year. According to Environment Canada, "it was assumed that the tonne per $ reduction estimated by the Government of Quebec would hold (approximately) for projects in other provinces (3.8 Mt/$328 million = 0.012 tonne per $). Applying this factor to the $1.519 billion the federal government has provided provinces and territories through the CACC Trust, generates an emission reductions estimate of 17.6 Mt." As provincial policies play a key role in contributing to the national emissions reductions, understanding the role of all provincial measures is important. There are two key issues with respect to the reporting of emissions reductions for the CACC Trust. First, as it is a trust fund, the federal government has no direct control over the measures implemented at the provincial level, nor can it enforce the emissions reductions. Second, and more important, many of the provincial measures are now included in the Environment Canada Projected Emissions Excluding Government Measures trajectory — the business as usual scenario. The Plan acknowledges these issues, suggesting, "Since the federal Government does not determine precisely how these funds are used, there is an intrinsic uncertainty in calculating the number of reductions expected to result from the Trust Fund."[49] There is confusion about how the CACC Trust can be generating 16Mt of emissions reductions while the 2009 Plan states, "measures presented in this Plan — including both federal measures and provincial/territorial measures — emissions levels are expected to be about 1 Mt below the baseline." This is the issue of what is and is not included in the baseline. There is an important tension here between properly attributing emissions reductions to the federal funding flowing to the provinces and the double-counting of these initiatives. ConclusionsGiven the nature of the CACC Trust and the lack of attributable detailed information and methodologies from provincial and territorial governments it will likely not be possible to attribute specific emissions reductions to the funding provided to the provinces. It is important to note that no province has the same public reporting obligation as the federal government has been given by Parliament. In future, it would be more informative to establish a baseline that includes provincial programs launched before a cut-off date (January 1, 2006 is used in the current Environment Canada Reference Case) and to provide an estimate of the impact of specific provincial measures generated through the integrated modelling within the E3MC framework. While this approach is not perfect, it will certainly add a greater degree of transparency to the current method of reporting for the CACC Trust. << Previous page | TOC | Next page >> ______________________________ |