Why is it so difficult to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions?

Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the Rio Treaty and the 25th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol. Despite decades of effort, and an apparent global consensus on the need for action, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Canada and the rest of the world keep increasing. This is in sharp contrast to issues like carbon monoxide, soot particulates, sulphur dioxide and ozone-depleting compounds where Canada and other countries succeeded in dramatically reducing emissions over the same interval. This talk will explain why reducing CO2 emissions is proving so difficult, why mainstream economists in the 1990s predicted the current impasse, and what it means for Canada’s energy and climate strategy going forward.

Speaker:

Ross McKitrick received a PhD in economics from UBC in 1996 and has been a Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Guelph ever since. His academic research has appeared in top economics and climate science journals and he has given invited academic lectures around the world. His textbook Economic Analysis of Environmental Policy was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2010. He has served as an invited expert reviewer for Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the past three Assessment Reports, has testified before numerous committees of the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament, and is a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute.