Kyoto won’t hurt mining

Canada’s mining industry has been a constructive contributor to our shared search for solutions to environmental challenges.

In addition to representing the economic interests of your sectors, you [in the mining industry] are now integrating environmental and social responsibilities in line with your commitments to sustainable development. In many ways you have become environmental and social industrial leaders both in Canada and internationally. This is reflected in your policies, programs, guidance documents, and partnerships with other stakeholders in environmental and social initiatives.

You are improving your environmental performance with respect to managing releases to air and water, and are addressing concerns with acid mine drainage, with mine tailings facilities and abandoned mines.

With contributions from the Mining Association of Canada, we developed new metal mining effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act. Following extensive consultations, those regulations were registered in June of this year and will take effect in December.

Our shared effort was to replace 25-year-old regulations that were based on the knowledge and options of the 1970s. The new regulations are more stringent and comprehensive. They provide national minimum standards while providing the flexibility to address the ecological sensitivities of each mine site.

These regulations are now being implemented across Canada. In particular I wish to commend Falconbridge’s Raglan mine, in northern Quebec. They have already met and exceeded the requirements of these regulations and have become the first “zero discharge” mining operation in Canada.

This collaborative approach will be even more important given the requirements of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We have been working together to reduce environmental releases from base metal smelters through the development of environmental performance standards, targets and schedules. Scientific evidence tells us we have more to do.

You have probably heard a great deal about climate change and our government’s intention to ratify the Kyoto Protocol [the ratification was achieved on Dec. 10].

Over the past few months, Canadians have been bombarded with comments and claims that seem to be predicated on the assumption that we cannot do much about climate change — and we certainly can’t do it soon.

Our analysis points to a different conclusion. In fact, our extensive and detailed economic analysis shows that, under the most likely scenario, the impact on our economy will be less than half of 1% of gross-domestic-product growth and a 5-week delay in job growth over 10 years.

The Kyoto challenge for industrial sectors is about cleaner production and improved energy efficiency.

Your record is one of the best of any industrial sector. Canada’s target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Emissions from metal mining are already down 19% below 1990 levels, and emissions from smelting and refining have been roughly constant since 1990, despite a 25% increase in production.

The mining sector has invested in energy efficiency and recognized that saving energy also means saving our environment. Others can follow mining’s lead, and our climate change plan is meant to encourage them to do so. The plan is built around keeping costs down while maximizing opportunities for Canadian technology. Our plan reflects the agreement between provincial and territorial leaders and Prime Minister Chrtien that no region or sector will have to bear an unreasonable burden.

Consistent with the agreement of federal, provincial and territorial energy and environment ministers, we are committed to ensuring that businesses, such as those in the mining industry, that acted early to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will not be disadvantaged.

As part of this, we have recognized the realities facing many of our export industries — including mining. We have always recognized that mining companies compete with producers in countries that are not yet aiming to meet targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Accordingly, we have built our plan with a view to balancing impacts and accommodating growth opportunities.

We have done this across all major industrial sectors. The modeling projects minimal cost increases for natural gas and gasoline prices — well within normal market volatility. The base scenario we have put to industry to reduce emissions by 55 million tonnes by 2010 says the direct cost of a barrel of conventional oil would increase by about three cents — the price of that barrel is about $25 these days. That same analysis says that steel prices would go up by just three-tenths of 1%.

Let me also say that the proposed approach for large industrial emitters, such as the mining sector, would have built-in flexibility to adjust as companies grow. These were conscious choices on our part. They were the outcome of a full commitment to consultation. From the start, we have had regular and comprehensive discussions with economists and experts from the provinces and from the private sector.

We know our response to the Kyoto Protocol matters to our partners across Canada. We have actively solicited the input to build a plan that works for Canada and the world.

— The preceding is an edited version of speech presented to the Ottawa-based Mining Association of Canada in late November. David Anderson is the federal minister of the environment.