All This 'Carbon Neutral by 2050' Business. That's Nonsense.

The record speaks for itself. The current federal government, like its predecessors, can't be trusted to keep its promises. It doesn't keep its immediate promises and, as for something that's supposedly going to be done by 2050, that's a giggle at best.

Let's focus on something in the on the horizon, Canada's targets for emissions cuts by 2030. Ten years out. That's reasonable. So where do we stand as our government enters its fifth year in office?  Brace yourself.

Canada is on track to substantially miss its 2030 targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, new government data show. 

The numbers, released Friday, show how significant the work ahead is for Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Mr. Wilkinson to find a way for Canada to “exceed” its 2030 emissions targets in his mandate letter. The latest numbers show most of the progress made in government policies over the past year was cancelled out by other factors that raised emissions projections.

I'm pretty sure that news didn't take many Canadians by surprise. Harper was a knuckle-dragger on emissions and, since taking office in 2015, the Trudeau Liberals have been falling further behind with each passing year.

Maybe it's time to haul this sorry business before the Supreme Court of Canada. The Dutch went to their high court and they won.

The court ruled that the government had explicit duties to protect its citizens’ human rights in the face of climate change and must reduce emissions by at least 25% compared with 1990 levels by the end of 2020. 

The non-profit Urgenda Foundation, which brought the case, welcomed the “groundbreaking” judgment. The original judgment in 2015 was seen as a landmark in the then nascent field of climate litigation, and inspired similar cases across the world, from Pakistan to New Zealand.

According to the supreme court, individual nations have direct obligations under articles 2 and 8 of the European convention on human rights, covering the right to life and the right to private and family life.

I suppose Ottawa could argue that, unlike Europe, it doesn't have obligations covering the right to life even if it has promised proclaimed a climate emergency in the land.