Reporting the Latest Trends in Canada’s Environment at

CSIN 2010

The Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI)

Environment Canada

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Background on CESI….

• In May 2003, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy recommended that the federal government establish a key set of easily understood environmental and sustainable development indicators.

• In response, in 2005, the government began publishing the annual Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) Initiative

• CESI is produced by Environment Canada in partnership with Health Canada and Statistics Canada, and supported by provincial and territorial contributions.

• CESI provides a national environmental indicators system of authoritative, best-available information in relation to key issues of high importance to Canadians: 

• Air Quality • Water Quality • Greenhouse Gas Emissions• to be added for 2009 – Nature - Protected Areas

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CESI meets the following federal objectives:

• The commitment in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (1999)

• Requires the minister publish “a periodic report on the state of the Canadian environment” [44(1)(f)ii]

• The commitment of the Department of Environment Act• Reporting on the environment

• Requirements of the new Federal Sustainable Development Act• Positions environmental indicators as a basis for reporting progress

towards sustainable development

• Highlights Government of Canada’s environmental priorities and legislative agenda

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Key roles of environmental indicators

• Providing reliable, long-term trend information to track progress

• Highlighting trends in a transparent and accountable manner to Canadians based on sound, consistent and scientifically-accepted methodologies

• Enabling decision-makers to understand socio-economic links to the environment, allowing them to better focus efforts and make informed decisions about programs, policies and services

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Key accomplishments over the past 4 CESI reporting yearsCESI 2005-2007:• Published annual print and web-based reports • Improved trends based reporting (i.e. 15 years of

trend data on national ground-level ozone)• Upgraded air monitoring instrumentation,

developed quality assessment of water data and air–health indicator methodology

• Updated 4 Statistics Canada surveys to improve integration of key pressures and drivers

• Nurtured provincial partnerships

CESI 2008:• Eliminated print reporting • Indicator information written in a less technical

manner for Canadians• Improved web-based delivery consistent with on-

line reality• Improved web functionality with drill down to

indicator information at local, regional levels on a map

• New information on international comparisons and individual actions

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CESI Indicators can provide a range of information on an annual basis…

• National indicator results for air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, water quality and protected areas.

• Compares indicators for provinces, regions and ecological areas.

• Compares Canadian progress on the world stage

• Provides information about the pressures on the indicators

• Shows related environmental, health and economic impacts

• Includes What can I do? section

• Contains a Data, Sources and Methods section.

• Allows downloading of data used to create the indicators.

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Air quality: National perspective showing long range trends

Nationally, the ground-level ozone exposure indicator showed an increase of approximately 13% from 1990 to 2007.  

No trend was detected in the PM2.5 exposure indicator from 2000 to 2007.

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Greenhouse gas emissions: Integration with economic indicators

Comparing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions to GDP can help to show how efficient sectors in the economy are restricting emissions while producing goods and services for our consumption.

Between 1990 and 2007 the level of emissions per unit of GDP fell by 21% in Canada. They fell to approximately 0.57 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007 compared to their peak in 1992 at 0.74 tonnes.

This means that there was more economic activity in 2007 for each tonne of GHGs emitted compared to 1992.

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Water quality: Information by monitoring station and in your region

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Methodology Improvements to WQI

• A core network of river stations was used to calculate the national and regional histograms.

– reduces bias of having a large number of stations in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor

– focuses the indicator on the river basin regions under direct pressure from human activities.

– Allowed us to eliminate issues of unequal geographic coverage of monitoring sites in northern and southern Canada

• Stations have been classified according to the extent and nature of human activities occurring within their drainage areas.

– This organization allows further analysis and quantification of the potential pressures human activity is exerting on water quality across Canada.

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Protected Areas: How does Canada compare?

Area of protected lands and proportion of land area protected in selected countries, 2004

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

USA

Russia

n Fed

erat

ion

Canad

a

Austra

lia

Germ

any

France

Japan

Sweden

Italy

UK

Million square km

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Percent

Area of protected lands (million squarekilometres)

Proportion of land area protected (% ofnational territory)

Sources: OECD Environmental Data Compendium. 2004. (OECD,Paris), Except for the Russia Federation - N.A. Sobolev1, E.A. Shvarts, M. L. Kreindlin, V. O. Mokievsky, and V. A. Zubakin. 1995. Russia's protected areas: a survey and identification of development problems. Biodiversity and Conservation 4, 964--983 (http://www.springerlink.com/content/g63436w670662446/)Notes: Restricted to protected areas classified under IUCN categories I through V.

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Key target audiences of CESI and engagement strategy

Target Audiences Engagement OpportunitiesInterested Canadian public Website, Newsletters, site level data, weekly

newspaper articles

National and International government decision-makers and policy analysts

Website, Newsletters, working groups, consultations, presentations

Politicians Householder

Environmental and non-governmental organizations

Website, Newsletters, data

Industry Website, Newsletters, data

Media News release, Website

Academia Website, newsletters

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CESI 2009 and priorities beyond

CESI will:• continue to track and report on

priority environmental sustainability issues to Canadians

• improve delivery through an interactive and visually appealing web site

• enhance regional and international comparisons

• improve engagement tools such as links to common social networking web sites

• track use and perform ongoing program evaluations

• provide integrated analysis of multiple issues

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How can we improve CESI and the protected area indicator….

• Environment Canada's CESI program encourages you to link to the CESI website: http://www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators and;

• Share your thoughts on how CESI might evolve to better meet your needs. Please contact: Indicateurs-Indicators@ec.gc.ca

• Contact:

Darlene Thibault

Director, Information and Indicators Division

email: darlene.thibault@ec.gc.ca