Volume 127, July 2016, Pages 156–164
Highlights
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- Canada's demand based greenhouse gas emissions are estimated from 1995 to 2009
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- Demand based emissions exceeded production based emissions from 2006 to 2009
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- Fossil fuel exporting provinces in Canada are net exporters of embodied emissions
Abstract
Canada
is the only country to have ratified the Kyoto protocol and then
withdrawn. Part of the justification for Canada's reluctance to commit
to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions is the country's status as
fossil fuel exporter. In this paper we use input–output analysis and the
World Input–Output Database (WIOD) to ask whether Canada's contribution
to global GHG emissions changes when calculated using a demand-based
shadow emission approach that excludes GHG emissions created in the
production of exports like fossil fuels, but includes emissions released
to produce imports to Canada. We find that from 1995 to 2005 Canada's
contribution to global emissions was lower using this demand-based GHG
accounting approach than a production-based approach. From 2006 to 2009
however, increased imports from GHG-intensive trading partners like
China meant that Canada's demand-based shadow emissions were higher than
its production-based GHG emissions.
We also introduce
a method of calculating sub-national GHG shadows using limited data.
Applied to Canada this exercise demonstrates that fossil fuel exporting
provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan have demand-based shadow
emissions significantly lower than their production-based emissions,
while populous provinces such as Quebec and Ontario have demand-based
emissions that are relatively higher than their production-based
emissions.
Keywords
- climate change policy;
- multi-region input–output analysis;
- Canada;
- greenhouse gas emissions;
- GHG accounting;
- GHG shadow;
- carbon footprint
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
