A front-page article in the March 10 Sooke News Mirror with the headline – Sooke GHG emissions dropping, but too slowly – is misleading.
Based on a recent CRD report, Sooke’s greenhouse gas emissions have in fact increased by nine per cent between 2007 and 2020. Sooke’s increasing emissions are totally out of line with the District of Sooke’s goal of reducing emissions by 40 per cent by 2030.
The article states that emissions dropped between 2018 and 2020, but this spurious claim is based on changes in accounting methodology and on noisy, COVID-related data. Also, quoting per capita emissions obscures the fact that total population and emissions are positively correlated variables.
Increasing population will always result in greater emissions, unless significant measures impacting current residents are enacted. Total Sooke emission numbers are the numbers we need to reduce if we want to do our part in addressing the climate emergency.
The inconvenient fact is that the significant measures, necessary to reduce emissions, have not yet even begun to be implemented. This highlights the urgent need to pass the new Official Community Bylaw and enact the Climate Action Plan.
Kief Elliott
Sooke
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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