blog2007

Ottawa to cut emissions 20 per cent by 2020

Videos

John Baird unveils his green plan
Ottawa to cut emissions 18 per cent by 2010

Oil sands startups get break under climate plan
Green plan highlights
Oil sands hit by climate change politics
Canada to ban traditional light bulbs
The simple fax: Baird's remarks were leaked in error
Text of speech by Environment Minister John Baird

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Ottawa to cut emissions 20 per cent by 2020

Kyoto commitments abandoned as Tories target reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved air quality
GLORIA GALLOWAY
Globe and Mail
April 26, 2007

TORONTO — The federal Conservatives have reworked their much criticized environmental plan to significantly cut the time frame for reducing the gases linked to climate change.

The strategy unveiled Thursday by Environment Minister John Baird requires Canada to begin cutting the total emissions of the gases as early as 2010. A 20-per-cent reduction from today's levels is forecast by 2020.

COMMENT:
BC's 2007 Throne Speech: 33 per cent below current levels by 2020, placing British Columbia's greenhouse gas emissions at 10 per cent under 1990 levels by 2020.
Kyoto target: 5% below 1990 level by 2012.
California: 1900 level by 2020.
Europe: 8% below 1990 level by 2012.

That is much sooner than the dates set under the Clean Air Act introduced by the government last year. That legislation, which has essentially been shelved after it was eviscerated by environmentalists and opposition members, would not have stabilized those emissions for another 14 years.

But the new plan, which is estimated to cost the Canadian economy as much as $7 billion to $8 billion per year, does not address all of the complaints lobbed at its predecessor.

Environment Minister John Baird announces
Ottawa's plan for the environment during a news
conference in Toronto on Thurs., April 26, 2007.
(Adrian Wyld/CP)

It relies on the intensity-based targets that allow industries to increase their greenhouse gas outputs as they increase production. Those types on controls have been repeatedly panned by environmental experts who have demanded absolute reductions.

Under Mr. Baird's strategy, Canada would not meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas until 2025 — 13 years late.

And, while the major industrial emitters account for half of the country's output of greenhouse gas, they will be required to find just 40 per cent of the expected reductions. The rest will come from better fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, other federal initiatives such as the program that will help Canadians retrofit their homes, and provincial efforts to increase energy efficiency.

On the other hand, industry is likely to be unhappy with the new plan because those companies that do not meet stringent reduction targets will have to pay their excess emissions. While there will be flexibility in the way those payments can be made, critics will characterize the penalties as a carbon tax.

"The prices for consumer products like vehicles, natural gas, electricity and household appliances could go up. But it's a small price to pay to ensure a lasting environmental legacy for future generations," Mr. Baird told a press conference yesterday afternoon.

"Our plan strikes a plan between the perfection that some environmentalists may be seeking and the status quo that some in the industry seek to protect."

The new plan also takes aim at air pollution, setting fixed caps on the emission of four gases that cause smog and acid rain. And it promises to regulate products and commercial activities that reduce the quality of indoor air.

The environment was not one of the original five priorities of the Conservatives government, and it wasn't long ago that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was rejecting the notion of manmade climate change. But, as the issue became a concern for mainstream Canada and as the Liberals threatened to make political gains by raising the spectre of climate change, the Conservatives have revised their position.

After years of angrily rejecting Liberal plans to write greenhouse gases into the Canadian Environmental Act — effectively declaring that greenhouse gases are pollutants — Mr. Harper's government has done just that.

Mr. Baird, who repeatedly blamed the previous Liberal government for inaction on the environmental file, recently estimated that meeting Kyoto targets would cost the Canadian economy $51 billion annually — an amount rejected as inflated by many environmentalists.

His plan will give industry a much longer window to make the changes necessary to cut their emissions.

Companies not in existence today will have three years to meet greenhouse gas targets. The grace period has been instituted because the government says it takes a few years to get a plant running efficiently.

All other industries will have to begin reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 18 per cent, per unit of production, by 2010 and then by an additional 2 per cent in each subsequent year. Terms from today's levels by 150 megatonnes per year by 2020 — climbing substantially and then falling in the intervening years.

Of that 150-tonne drop, industry is expected to account for 60 megatonnes, fuel efficiency for cars and trucks is expected to account for 40 megatonnes, improvements in home fuel efficiency and other measures for 10 megatonnes, and the provinces will be responsible for eliminating the final 40 megatonnes.

Companies that have already made strikes to reduce greenhouse gases will be given a credit for their efforts. Those that don't meet the targets by 2010 will be penalized, but they will be given will be given several options for payment.

They will be permitted to buy carbon credits from other Canadians companies that exceed their targets or invest in other measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Baird says they will be able to trade certain credits through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism even though the accord stipulates that countries that do not meet Kyoto targets cannot participate.

Or they will be able to invest in a technology fund that will finance investments in technology that could lead to reductions in greenhouse gas.

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Oil sands startups get break under climate plan

SHAWN MCCARTHY
Globe and Mail Update
April 26, 2007

TORONTO — The Conservative government has signalled that it won't let its climate change plan derail aggressive oil sands expansion, exempting new projects from greenhouse gas emission targets until they are up and running.

Under regulations announced Thursday by Environment Minister John Baird, large industrial emitters will have to reduce their emissions per unit of production at existing facilities by 18 per cent in the first three years, and then a further 2 per cent per year.

However, companies that can't meet those so-called intensity targets will be able to purchase credits from more efficient ones or contribute to a technology fund, at an initial cost of $15 a tonne, rising to $20 in 2013.

Companies that build new plants will have to pass an environmental assessment process, which includes climate change impacts, and will then have three years before they must begin reducing their emissions.

Calgary-based petroleum companies had worried that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was prepared to get tough on the oil sands, the fastest growing component of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Baird said the new plan seeks to balance the environmental goals with the needs of a growing economy. The industrial targets are “concrete, challenging, yet realistic,” he said.

He said the government felt it was necessary not to impose initial emission limits on new plants in order to allow for economic growth.

Mr. Baird also announced new air pollution regulations that will force companies to reduce their emissions of smog-causing sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide, volatile organic chemicals and particulate matter.

Industry will have to reduce its air pollutants by 55 per cent by 2012.

Mr. Baird said the government is also working on new fuel efficiency measures for the automobile industry in an effort to reduce tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. The new regulations would take effect when a voluntary industry agreement expires in 2011.

The minister said the federal government is prepared to go it alone if the U.S. fails to adopt tougher fuel standards, but is hoping to harmonize standards with stricter U.S. regulations.

Environment Canada officials said the new plan will result in the stabilization of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by as early as 2010, and reduce them by 20 per cent of 2006 levels by 2020, or a decrease of 150 megatonnes.

The Pembina Institute has forecast that the expansion of the oil sands – where production is expected to triple in the next 10 years – could increase greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 142 megatonnes by 2020.

And while the overall targets are tougher than the ones the Conservatives had first issued last fall, there are a number of measures that will ease the pain on the industry.

Companies will initially be able to meet 70 per cent of their target by paying into the technology fund, which will in turn finance research and development into new technologies, including the capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide.

By 2017, they would be able to meet only 10 per cent of their regulatory obligation through contributions to the fund.

The government also indicated that companies could buy and sell emission credits among themselves, though initially that market will be domestic only. Mr. Baird said the government will explore developing an emissions-credit trading market with the U.S. and Mexico.

Large industrial emitters include utilities oil producers, refineries, cement plants, and pulp and paper mills, and metals smelting. Those sectors account for 40 per cent of Canada's emissions. And they will be required to make 40 per cent of the cuts, when the financial compliance methods are included.

The government forecasts that its plan will shave 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020 – roughly $7-billion in today's economy – but says the impact on employment will be “negligible.”

The cost is “significant, it's real but we had to come up with a balanced approach,” he said. “The cost of doing nothing was no longer an option for Canada.”

Mr. Baird has claimed that Canada would lose 270,000 jobs if the country moved to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Environmentalists and opposition MPs dispute that figure, saying the dismal forecast does not take into account growth potential from green technologies.

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Green plan highlights

Canadian Press
Globe and Mail
April 26, 2007

TORONTO — Highlights of the Conservative government's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants:

— Short-term emission reduction target of 18 per cent for existing industry by 2010, based on 2006 emission levels.

— A 26 per cent reduction target rate for industry by 2015.

— Canada's total emissions, including industry and other sources, reduced by 20 per cent by 2020.

— Industry can meet targets through reducing emissions, contributing to a technology fund, through domestic emissions trading and one-time credit for emission reduction action between 1992 and 2006.

— Plan predicts “real” but “manageable” price increases for cars, home appliances, electricity and fuel.

— National emission caps by 2012 for air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter.

— Plan predicts $6.4 billion in annual health benefits by 2015 from reduced risk of death and illness.

— Mandatory fuel-efficiency standard for auto industry, yet to be determined, to take effect beginning with 2011 model year.

— Economy expected to a hit of $8 billion in “worst” year of plan.

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Oil sands hit by climate change politics

Industry fears impact of emission targets
SHAWN MCCARTHY
Globe and Mail
April 26, 2007

Alberta's oil producers are finding themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of the government's new climate change regulations, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, even as industry plans to triple oil sands production.

Environment Minister John Baird is due to release targets for large industrial emitters today in Toronto, and the Conservative government is clearly pursuing a tougher line than it announced last fall.

The booming oil sands development represents the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, and industry analysts suggested the government will be hard-pressed to meet its targets without significant reductions in expected emissions there - either through a reduction in planned growth or through expensive technological solutions.

The Calgary-based Pembina Institute has calculated that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands amounted to 25 megatonnes in 2003, and forecasts that figure will jump to as much as 94 megatonnes in 2012, and 142 megatonnes in 2020 under a business-as-usual scenario.

Yesterday, Mr. Baird said the government plan would stabilize the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, then reduce them by 20 per cent - or 150 megatonnes - by 2020.

One industry official said the Conservatives' emission target appears to be politically driven - aiming to be slightly tougher than the original Liberal plan, but not as aggressively as the one proposed by Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. "It is not clear that governments have reconciled their economic growth goals with their greenhouse gas emissions targets," the executive said.

EnCana Corp. chief executive Randy Eresman said he fears oil sands producers are facing several government actions that will spur higher costs, including a provincial royalty review, the phasing out of a federal tax break and the climate change regulations.

"The oil sands development, although they're very large in magnitude, the returns associated with them are very skinny," Mr. Eresman said.

He said EnCana is a low-cost producer and he doesn't see a threat to its projects. However, "if we add on all these burdens - and those burdens are significant - they could start shutting down [proposed] projects," he added.

Peter Tertzakian, energy economist with ARC Financial Corp., said it is difficult to quantify the impact of the government's targets on the oil sands, and that the various projects have dramatically different emissions per barrel of oil, and underlying economics.

"If you are a high-cost producer at the margin, you probably will be hurt," he said.

But the economist said the Conservatives' tougher stand on climate change is only part of a broader, societal dilemma - a tradeoff between access to secure and cheap energy and environmental sustainability.

Industry is expected to invest some $125-billion to expand oil sands production from just over one million barrels per day to 3.5 million barrels by 2015. That additional supply could be critical in keeping world oil prices from spiking higher, Mr. Tertzakian said.

Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute, rejected the industry complaints. Industry could virtually eliminate oil sands greenhouse gas emissions at a reasonable cost if it embraced technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store the gas underground, he said.

Mr. Raynolds slammed Ottawa's target, noting that it will leave Canada with emissions 11 per cent higher than 1990 levels, when the commitment under the Kyoto Protocol was to reduce them 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

"Now is the time to get it right and then let business do what it does best - it makes investments in the right places and faces challenges like this."

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Canada to ban traditional light bulbs

By 2012, retailers will be required to stock more efficient lighting such as compact fluorescent and halogen bulbs
BILL CURRY
Globe and Mail
April 26, 2007

OTTAWA -- Canada will be among the first countries in the world to ban the purchase of traditional light bulbs as part of the government's plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The government's announcement yesterday follows the lead of Australia and Ontario and will take effect in 2012. Canadian retailers will be required to stock more efficient light bulbs such as compact fluorescents and halogen bulbs.

The new generation of light bulbs cost a bit more but last about seven years and use much less energy. The downside is that many of them contain mercury and need to be disposed of like paint and chemicals at special toxic-waste centres.

Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said the ban will get Canadians thinking more about the energy they use.

"This is more than just about light bulbs," he said. "The light bulb is only the gateway to broad public engagement on energy efficiency and action on climate change."

Opposition critics and environmentalists offered reluctant praise for the ban but condemned the government's overall plan for fighting climate change, which was outlined yesterday by Environment Minister John Baird.

Today, the Conservative government will provide details of an environmental plan for Canada's industrial heavyweights that will seek links with the United States rather than the European countries that champion the Kyoto accord, Mr. Baird said.

The plan will mark a clear separation from Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, who has repeatedly claimed that Canadian firms could make "megatonnes of money" by taking part in Europe's market for trading carbon credits.

European countries have set up a cap and trade system, meaning countries dictate maximum levels of greenhouse-gas emissions for industry. To comply with the law, companies that are over the limit can buy credits from companies that are under the limit.

Mr. Baird said the Conservatives' plan will create a cap and trade system, but Canadian companies will be able to trade domestically only, or eventually with the United States and Mexico if the governments can reach an agreement.

"We have concerns about the European market," said Mr. Baird, repeating his claim that participation could allow Canadian firms to buy credits from Russia and other countries that do not reduce greenhouse gases.

Mr. Baird noted that Ontario has four coal-fired power stations, but receives pollution from 160 U.S. coal plants.

"If we want to reduce greenhouse gases and get the twin benefits of reducing air pollutants, we're better off to do it this side of the pond," he said.

Environmentalists express concern that the rejection of Europe in favour of the United States - which is not part of the Kyoto Protocol and has no national trading system - is another step away from Kyoto.

"I see it as an end-run around the United Nations system," Beatrice Olivastri of Friends of the Earth Canada said. "Anything that is a U.S.-related program is clearly outside of Kyoto, so that to me is very worrisome."

She also said Mr. Baird's announcement that Canada will still be above the Kyoto target eight years after the 2012 deadline shows a lack of urgency.

"It's putting a Band-Aid on cancer," she said.

Canada committed to reducing its emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas to 6 per cent below 1990 levels in the years 2008 to 2012. However, emissions are currently more than 30 per cent above 1990 levels.

Mr. Baird said the Conservative plan would stop the rise of emissions by 2012, and that by 2020 emissions would be 20 per cent below 2006 levels.

The Conservatives' decision not to base their plan on Kyoto targets follows last week's release of a government study warning of severe job losses and economic upheaval should Ottawa force the Kyoto targets on industry and consumers.

Although the government obtained independent verification of its dire forecast, a new survey by the Strategic Counsel shows that Canadians are not convinced.

Only 30 per cent of Canadians surveyed said the Kyoto commitments are unachievable and that a "made-in-Canada" plan is now required. Instead, 63 per cent said Canada should continue to try to achieve Kyoto targets and keep the commitments.

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How many light bulbs does it take to change the environment?

The government announced plans yesterday to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 6 million tonnes per year. Here's how it could be achieved:

If each of the 12 million households across Canada were to replace 16 light bulbs (the 60-watt incandescent type), with 15-watt compact fluorescent lights...(That's 192-million light bulbs in total). we could cut the country's annual greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 6.3 million tonnes (The same as taking more than 1 million cars off the road).

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Kyoto and the crunch

Support for Kyoto commitments, April 21-24, 2007

Which one of these best represents your own view?

We should continue to try to achieve targets and keep our Kyoto commitments: 61%

Do not know: 7%

The goals are unachievable and we now need our own "made-in-Canada" plan: 32%

Do you find that keeping our Kyoto commitments would cost 275,000 jobs and take the country into a recession?

Not believable: 60%

Do not know: 4%

Believable: 36%

SOURCE: THE STRATEGIC COUNSEL

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The simple fax: Baird's remarks were leaked in error

Canadian Press
Globe and Mail
April 26, 2007

OTTAWA -- It was supposed to be a dramatic conclusion of the government's environmental plot line, after months of cliffhanger-like buildup.

But the release of the Conservative government's revised plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, scheduled for today, fell victim to anticlimax by way of a simple fax machine. Remarks that Environment Minister John Baird was supposed to deliver in advance of the announcement were mistakenly sent to the Opposition, forcing his office to publish them early.

The result was that a day before the big announcement, environmentalists and industry groups were already parsing Mr. Baird's words and picking apart a plan that was to be painstakingly rolled out with a series of briefings and a major news conference.

Mr. Baird passed off the fax as human error, and tried to explain why the inadvertent recipient -- Liberal MP David McGuinty -- was threatened with legal sanctions if he made Mr. Baird's remarks public.

"My staff did that, I think it was probably a good thing to do. It was just an abundance of caution," Mr. Baird told reporters.

He added: "Humans make mistakes. I'm the minister and I take responsibility for it. We're going to move forward; we have a great plan to reduce greenhouse gases."

Representatives from organizations such as the Sierra Club and the David Suzuki Foundation came out yesterday to criticize his plan to reduce Canada's emissions from last year's levels by 2020. That was a very loud admission, they said, that Canada has effectively abandoned its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

The stumble was just another in a series that have bedevilled the Conservatives on the file since they formed government in January of 2006.

Former minister Rona Ambrose was lambasted for her handling of the environmental file, leading Prime Minister Stephen Harper to replace her and to rework a previous plan that was severely ridiculed.

Still, the government is promising a plan for Canada's major industrial emitters that takes action against climate change while mitigating the impact on the economy.

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Text of speech by Environment Minister John Baird

John Baird
Globe and Mail
April 25, 2007

REMARKS
Regulatory Framework
Environment Minister John Baird, P.C. M.P.
April 25, 2007

Introduction

Good afternoon

Greenhouse gases are rising.

The climate is changing.

Winter is disappearing as we know it.

Air pollution is getting worse.

The air we breathe is dirtier than ever before.

We need to Turn the Corner.

After 13 years of inaction by the Liberal government, Canada is going in the wrong on the environment.

Since the Liberals promised to reduce greenhouse gases in 1997, they have only gone up.

They promised to meet Kyoto, but went in the opposite direction.

This is how we find ourselves today with one of the worst environmental records among industrialized countries.

Now, we need to turn things around.

We need to do a U-Turn.

On behalf of all Canadians, particular our youngest citizens, we need to find a better way.

Instead of greenhouse gases going up, we believe they should go down.

Instead of putting more carbon into the air, we believe we should put less.

Instead of our air getting dirtier, we think it should get cleaner.

Instead of childhood asthma rates rising, we think they should be declining.

Canada's New Government's Turning the Corner plan will stop the rise in greenhouse gases in 3-5 years.

The previous government was never able to put on the brakes. We will do that beginning today.

Once greenhouse gases have stopped rising, we will begin to reduce them, so that by 2020, Canada will have cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million tonnes. This is 20% of our total emissions today.

If the Liberal government had instituted this plan in 1998 when they signed Kyoto, Canada would have achieved its emissions target.

Canada would be at Kyoto today.

Sadly, the real international commitments were only followed by empty rhetoric.

The same story is true for air pollution.

The Liberals did nothing to fight air pollution, but watch our air get dirtier.

We will impose stringent targets on industry so that air pollution is cut in half by 2015.

We will accomplish our goals with a concrete and realistic plan to regulate industrial air emissions.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Canadian industry is today served notice that it will have [to] become more efficient in order to reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution.

We will do this by mandating strict targets for industry.

Firms will have access to a few tools to meet their targets. They will be able to:

- make in-house reductions,

- take advantage of domestic emissions trading,

- purchase offsets,

- use the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, and,

- invest in a technology fund.

The design of this plan will give industry several tools to achieve real reductions.

We believe the market can help play a role. We will explore domestic trading as well as future linkages with emissions trading systems in the U.S., and possibly Mexico. Our one test for any emissions trading system will be that it is first and foremost in the best interest of Canada.

We want the Canadian industrial sector to be making real contributions here at home, now and in the future.

To achieve medium and long term reductions, industry will need to find some new solutions that don't exist today – such as a way to capture carbon and store it in the ground.

Our capped technology fund will help industry develop the solutions to produce deep reductions in greenhouse gases over time. This is true especially for electricity generation and oil sands development.

The fund is capped to ensure that it doesn't become a tax on industry and to ensure it isn't used by industry to pay its way out of achieving real reductions.

The development of new technologies will benefit the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will allow Canada to become a leader in new green technologies, with potential export markets around the world.

We will not allow good actors to go unrecognized. Companies who reduced their greenhouse gas emissions prior to 2006 will also be rewarded with a one-time credit for early action.

Our Turning the Corner plan will achieve real reductions in greenhouse gases, while helping make Canadian industry more efficient and more competitive on the global stage.

Air pollution

Air pollution is also a real concern for Canadians.

With our plan, we will begin to turn back the hands of time on a record of rising air pollution over the last 13 years.

Our plan sets overall national fixed emissions caps for industrial pollutants that cause smog and acid rain.

We will target:

- Nitrogen oxides (NOx),

- Sulphur oxides (SOx),

- Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and

- Particulate matter (PM)

The plan will produce real results that Canadians will be able to see – a cut in half of air pollution by 2015.

We will also take action to help make common consumer and commercial products -- such as dishwashers, refrigerators and air conditioners – more energy more efficient.

Yesterday, along with Gary Lunn, the Minister of Natural Resources, our government announced the banning of inefficient light bulbs.

Improved energy efficiency, means less wasted energy and less air pollution.

With our real plan, we also recognize that Canadians spend 90 percent of their time indoors, where they are exposed to various pollutants..

Therefore, we will take action to improve the quality of the air we breathe indoors starting with the identification of the most harmful pollutants in our homes and our offices.

The benefits of this plan are real — cleaner communities, healthier children, fewer premature deaths, and more sustainable natural resources.

Significant health benefits linked to air improvement are expected to lead every year to:

- 920 less cases of chronic bronchitis;

- 1,260 fewer hospital admissions and emergency room visits;

- 5,600 fewer cases of child acute bronchitis;

- 170,000 fewer asthma incidences; and,

- 1,200 fewer premature deaths related to air pollution;

Our plan includes an aggressive strategy on air pollution because it is critical to the health of each and every Canadian. It's too important to ignore.

Maintaining our economic growth

This is an ambitious plan — one that will require resolve, and one that comes with some costs. Part of these costs will be paid by individual Canadians and their families. The costs are real but they are manageable.

When fully mature, by 2020, total costs will be in the range of $XX per Canadian in today's dollars. This could include price increases for consumer products like vehicles, natural gas, electricity, household appliances and even groceries. We need to be prepared for this extra responsibility if we are going to get the job done.

All Canadians have a key role to play — by taking action as consumers, as employees, as business people, as parents, and as responsible citizens, we will turn the corner.

Conclusion

Some people will be critical of our plan, saying that it doesn't go far enough, while others will say that we are going too far.

Some environmentalists may want perfection. Some in industry may want nothing.

Our government recognizes that we were going in the wrong direction and we need to correct course.

We will not spin the wheel so hard as to put the Canadian economy in the ditch to deliver environmental plan asked for in some quarters.

We will also not keep going in the same direction, as some others wish us to do.

We will turn the corner, with a balanced plan that recognizes the urgent need to act on the environment, while also respecting our responsibility to keep Canadian families working

Thank-you.

- END -

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Canada's water supplies up for grabs in closed-door talks

Harper government participating in corporate takeover of public resource

Maude Barlow
Edmonton Journal
April 26, 2007

Earlier this month, one of our biggest fears about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was confirmed. The leaked document of a prominent Washington-based think-tank obtained by the Council of Canadians revealed that government officials and business leaders from Canada, Mexico and the United States are scheduled to discuss bulk water exports in a closed-door meeting in Calgary on Friday. This would be part of a larger discussion on North American integration.

Titled the "North American Future 2025 Project," the initiative is led by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Conference Board of Canada and the Mexican Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE).

The project envisions a joint security perimeter, a continental resource pact (read energy and water) and explicitly calls for trilateral co-ordination of energy policy -- all within the context of North American integration.

This is the latest round of private meetings taking place within the context of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). Corporate lobby groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the U.S. Council of the Americas, and now think-tanks like CSIS, CIDE and the Conference Board of Canada, have been granted executive-level access to the integration process. No equivalent role has been granted to labour groups, civil society or even Parliament in Canada.

Most alarming is the fact that the April 27 roundtable on the "Future of the North American Environment" will discuss "water consumption, water transfers and artificial diversion of bulk water" with the aim of achieving "joint optimum utilization of the available water."

In response to the media coverage earlier this month, Environment Minister John Baird's office issued a statement claiming that Canada had restrictions in place to protect it from bulk water removal and diversions. His statement was full of holes.

Our legislation does not provide adequate protection against water diversions and bulk water exports. The provincial accords Baird referred to in his statement are voluntary and can be broken at any time. The so-called prohibition on bulk water exports contained in the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty Act (IBWTA) only applies to waters that are shared with the U.S. and does not apply to what the U.S. is really after -- water from Canada's north. Last October, the Global Water and Energy Strategy Team, another Washington-based group, put forward a proposal to export water from northern Manitoba to Texas through a pipeline. Nothing in Canada's existing legislation would prevent this type of scheme from being implemented.

Even the restrictions on shared waters outlined by the IBWTA are weak and have been ignored in the past, allowing for water diversions from the Great Lakes.

Canada does not, as the North American Future 2025 Project reports, hold 20 per cent of the world's fresh water. According to Environment Canada, we hold seven per cent of the world's freshwater supplies -- water that can be used without damaging the ecosystem or the overall water stock.

There is no spare water in the Great Lakes and the Prairies are already experiencing major water shortages.

Most of the rivers coveted by the U.S. flow north. Using them to supply the U.S. would require monumental feats of engineering that would inevitably lead to ecological devastation by reversing the natural flow of water. It would also lead to Canada losing complete control over its water. Under NAFTA, water is described as a "good." Since under the free trade deal, no party may adopt or maintain any prohibition or restriction on the exportation or sale for export of any good destined for the territory of another party, once Canada starts exporting fresh water to the U.S., we would not be able to turn off the tap.

I have been conveniently called anti-American for sounding the alarm over what is clearly the corporate takeover of a precious public resource.

It is not only that Canada would suffer from water scarcity through these ill-conceived projects. It is that the planet would suffer from such massive transfers of water. Displacing water from one place to another spreads desertification. We need to address drought through sustainable conservation strategies administered by the public sector.

The North American Future 2025 Project cannot be dismissed as the abstract musings of a group of intellectuals either.

We know from previous meetings of this nature that they have led to the development of policies. It was the controversial Conference Board of Canada study that led to the signing of the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) in Alberta and British Columbia. This too happened without parliamentary or public debate.

After being exposed by the Council of Canadians, the organizers of the Future 2025 meeting scrambled to invite us to what would remain a "closed-door" session. The Council of Canadians has declined. This process is flawed and ideologically biased from the start. Parliament cannot be bypassed and bulk water exports should not be a topic of discussion at a closed-door meeting.

Maude Barlow is national chairwoman of the Council of Canadians and author of Too Close for Comfort: Canada's future within Fortress North America

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=04d565fc-af50-4a41-a336-7a238a23faec

Canada's energy insecurity

We have no plan if shortages hit, yet we're talking about selling more of our oil to U.S.

Gordon Laxer
Toronto Star
April 26, 2007

Today and tomorrow, a prominent right-wing think-tank based in Washington is the lead host to two closed-door meetings in Calgary. The meetings are to discuss ways to enhance American energy security by getting more Canadian oil and gas.

Why are Canadians involved in discussing American energy security when Canada has no energy policy, and no plans for ensuring oil for Eastern Canadians during a supply crisis?

The roundtables, two of seven planned meetings led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), are part of the "North American Future 2025 Project."

It is intended to feed into the Security and Prosperity Partnership, begun in Waco, Texas, by the "three amigo" governments of North America in 2005.

The stated goal is to enhance the security and competitiveness of North America. The real goal is more about integrating Canada and Mexico into the American way of doing things. It's also about getting our energy and water and Canadian participation in U.S.-led, pre-emptive wars.

The CSIS roundtables are funded by the U.S. and Mexican governments, but not by Canada.

CSIS bills itself as being launched "at the height of the Cold War, dedicated to the simple but urgent goal of finding ways for America to survive as a nation and prosper as a people."

The Conference Board of Canada, and CIDE, a Mexican think-tank, are co-hosts.

These roundtables are part of a broader, largely subterranean process to pull this country deeper into the U.S. orbit. There is buy-in from elites in invitation-only meetings, but the public is left in the dark, because most would be opposed.

Why isn't Parliament debating this initiative and the government holding public hearings?

While rising Canadian oil exports are helping to wean America off Middle Eastern oil, the Canadian government is shirking its responsibility to protect Canadians. Rising Canadian oil exports are, perversely, leading Canadians to rely more on Middle Eastern imports.

The National Energy Board, whose mandate is to "promote safety and security ... in the Canadian public interest," admitted to me in an email: "Unfortunately, the NEB has not undertaken any studies on security of supply."

This is shocking.

In reference to my question on whether Canada is considering setting up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve under its membership in the International Energy Agency, the NEB stated that Canada "was specifically exempted from establishing a reserve, on the grounds that Canada is a net exporting country whereas the other members are net importers."

But it is not safe to assume that Canada is immune to oil shortages because we produce more oil than we consume.

Last year, Canada imported 850,000 barrels of oil per day, to meet 90 per cent of Atlantic Canada's and Quebec's oil needs, and 40 per cent of Ontario's. A rising share, 45 per cent last year, came from OPEC countries, primarily Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Meanwhile, a falling proportion (37 per cent) of Canadian imports come from safe North Sea countries – Norway and Britain.

Thus Canada neither supplies its own market, nor has a Strategic Oil Reserve like the United States and 21 other countries in the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The U.S. is doubling its reserves to withstand an international oil crisis beyond the 67 days supply it currently has.

Of the 24 countries in the International Energy Agency, only Norway and Canada have no reserve. Norway doesn't need one. Sensibly, it supplies its own needs, before exporting surpluses.

Canada then, is the most exposed member of the IEA, established by industrial countries in 1974 to counter the boycott power of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

What would Canada do in a supply crunch during an Arctic cold front?

We do not have enough pipeline capacity to bring Western oil to meet Eastern Canadian needs.

Strategic petroleum reserves are good for short-term energy crunches, but not long-term shortages. The best insurance for Eastern Canadians is to bring back the rule of no energy exports unless there are 25 years of proven supply, and build another oil pipeline on Canadian soil.

Rather than pledging allegiance to U.S. energy security in secret Calgary meetings, Canada should look after the security needs of Canadians.

Canada had a National Energy Program, flawed as it was, but buried it in the Free Trade Agreement. Now, we have a new NEP – "no energy policy."

Ironically, Canada's current position was eloquently expressed in a popular, Alberta bumper sticker in the early 1980s – "Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark."

Is this what is meant by a security partnership?

Gordon Laxer is a political economist and the director of Parkland Institute, a research policy network at the University of Alberta. He is writing a book on energy security and climate change.

www.thestar.com

See also:
Will federal parties secure Canada's energy future?
Gordon Laxer, Parkland Institute, 06-Jan-2006

Canadians want leadership on climate change

Press Release
April 20th 2007
Climate Action Network/Réseau action climat (CAN-RAC)

Minister Baird: Canadians want leadership on climate change, not a ‘can’t do’ attitude

Unrealistic models border on the comical

OTTAWA --- Minister Baird’s dire predictions of the costs of meeting Kyoto targets are not based in reality, CAN-RAC concluded today. By relying on unrealistic assumptions, Baird’s study massively inflates the costs of action on climate change and fails to recognize the environmental benefits of taking action.

“Canadians expect our Environment Minister and Prime Minister to take a leadership role and meet our international obligations, and instead he’s paying for incomplete studies to rationalize insufficient action,” said Matthew Bramley, Pembina Institute. “By rejecting Canada’s Kyoto target, Minister Baird advocates breaking international law. That is not an acceptable position for a Minister to take.”

The Minister’s dire predictions of economic collapse are the result of a contrived study seemingly produced for the express purpose of misleading Canadians. “The consequences that Minister Baird predicted are fantastical and fictional – it’s like watching a Hollywood doomsday movie,” said David Coon, President, CAN-RAC.

"The only thing missing in this study is that all our children will contract smallpox and a can of maple syrup will cost $100. Canadians are not idiots. The government should stop treating them as if they were," said Hugo Séguin, Equiterre.

“The Minister has presented a doom and gloom economic scenario that carries little credibility. His analysis leaves out essential elements, such as economic benefits of meeting our Kyoto targets and the potentially disastrous costs of climate change to our economy,” said Emilie Moorhouse, Sierra Club of Canada. “He also underestimates the potential of Kyoto’s flexible mechanisms, which allow Canada to invest in clean development projects in poorer countries and use those greenhouse gas reductions towards our target.”

The World Bank’s former Chief Economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, found last year that the costs of unchecked climate change would be between five and 20 per cent of global GDP, while the economic cost of addressing climate change is just 1 per cent of global GDP. Stern’s authoritative review of climate change economics concluded that “tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy; ignoring it will ultimately undermine economic growth.” In Canada, 5-20% of GDP is equivalent to $70-280 billion in economic losses to Canadians.

Last fall, Canada’s former Environment Commissioner called for a “massive scaleup of efforts” to fight climate change. “Business as usual falls far short of a massive scale-up of efforts, and that is what Minister Baird proposed today. He wants us to walk away instead of stepping up to the plate to meet the challenge,” said John Bennett, Climate for Change.

- 30 –

For more Information Contact:
Andrew Dumbrille, CAN-RAC, 613-862-1852

Baird's Green scare wears thin

Green scare wears thin

Susan Riley
The Ottawa Citizen
April 20, 2007

We finally got step one of the Conservatives' two-step climate change plan yesterday: Scare the bejeesus out of everyone.

Environment Minister John Baird, sounding like an itinerant salesman peddling an ersatz home-alarm system, warned that meeting Kyoto Protocol targets would cost 275,000 Canadians their jobs by 2009, double electricity bills after 2020, send gasoline prices soaring to $1.60 a litre and double the cost of home heating with natural gas.

Sometime after 2012, the sky is expected to fall.

Baird didn't just pluck these alarming prognostications out of the warming air: His officials worked long and hard to produce a rationale for the Tory approach to climate change, which can most kindly be summarized as "easy does it," and, more accurately described as "deny and delay."

The second shoe -- a Tory plan that would see emissions continue to rise until technological solutions are found -- is expected to drop any day now. Once we are good and scared.

But it is going to take more than Baird's transparently bogus study to fool critics or dull public appetite for urgent action. The document doesn't take into account the significant cost of not acting to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, a price outlined in exhausting detail in a recent report from British economist Nicholas Stern.

Nor does it calculate energy savings in the short term, as our habits change and new products appear. It doesn't consider job growth, or export opportunities, in the burgeoning green sector, either.

Most important, it suggests meeting Kyoto targets means cutting emissions by one-third annually, starting Jan. 1, 2008 -- an overnight shift in consumption that would have a radical impact.

But that isn't how Kyoto is structured. First-phase reductions are averaged over five years, until 2012, and can be carried over to the next phase if unmet.

Meeting the goals will mean sacrifice -- and polls suggest voters expect some costs -- but most experts discount Baird's predictions of recession. As for the independent economists who endorsed the minister's dire findings, some, with reservations, it only proves you can find a consultant who'll say anything.

In fact, Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper risk being caught on the wrong side of history, science and, most damaging for them, the wrong side of business.

While the oil patch resists strict regulation, other sectors see profits in a green future. Yet, in the Commons yesterday, Harper took refuge in paleo-politics: The environment versus the economy. "We have no intention of doing anything that is going to destroy Canadian jobs," he declared, echoing George W. Bush.

This also mimics the gloomy and ultimately mistaken projections of corporate and political reactionaries who fought action on acid rain, ozone depletion and fuel-emission standards. All predicted economic calamity; in all cases, affected industries adapted and thrived.

The Conservatives' second, equally tired strategy is to blame the Liberals. We know the Liberals did next to nothing for 13 years. It is entirely plausible, as Baird charged yesterday, that Ralph Goodale and Anne McLellan stridently opposed Kyoto. So what? The Liberals have a new leader and, more important, the issue has new profile. This often leaves Baird and Harper berating an empty room.

Their study, "The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business," was specifically commissioned to discredit a bill sponsored by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez that would recommit Canada to Kyoto and call on the government to produce a plan.

Significantly, Baird is ignoring a more detailed environmental proposal. The revamped clean air act, recently approved by all three opposition parties, is a sweeping reform that sets out targets and timetables for Kyoto and deals with air pollution, too.

Come to think of it, the Conservatives have had 15 months to produce their own plan, far short of 13 years, but still -- why the delay? Wouldn't Baird's officials be more usefully employed tackling climate change than telling us not to expect much? As for the final plan, if it is as amateurish and slight as this week's study, it doesn't deserve to survive.

The Tory strategy -- frighten and blame -- will only work if people are stupid. That seems to be the approach underlying many Harper strategies.

You want scary? Try drought. Floods. Ice storms. You want economic impact? Try forest fires. Pine beetle infestations.

Voters are not stupid. When Baird insists his party supports Kyoto -- apart from its targets and timetables -- they wonder: What part of the accord, exactly, do you like?

---

Conservatives' Kyoto analysis based on voodoo economics

Scaremongering about economic collapse gives no weight to innovation
Don Martin
Edmonton Journal
April 20, 2007

OTTAWA - Before the advent of the Model T, New York City was filling up with horses.

An estimated 200,000 clogged the streets during equestrian rush hours and when they died, which was often, they rotted where they dropped.

Alarmed scientists predicted that something had to be done immediately to cope with the surging number of nags, each churning out 24 pounds of crappy fertilizer daily, or city streets would be rendered an impassable manure pile.

Enter the car, and horses as a primary mode of transportation were put out to pasture, leaving the streets to a new environmental problem.

Perhaps it was all that horse poop, but this anecdote sprung to mind as the federal Conservatives unveiled their doomsday forecast on the Canadian economic mayhem that would accompany the Kyoto accord crackdown on greenhouse gases.

It looks just one year ahead to the dawn of the Kyoto implementation period and whacks the economy with an immediate 33-per-cent slash in greenhouse gas discharges.

Not surprisingly, that means chaos and catastrophe as the economy spirals into a deep recession.

Now, in theory, Environment Minister John Baird did precisely what was required under the terms of a Liberal MP's private motion passed by opposition MPs a couple months ago.

But the unwritten intent of the document was not to serve as a realistic foreshadowing of Kyoto's ramifications, but to inflict ridicule on Liberal opponents who support the treaty.

His scenario calls for a $195 per tonne carbon tax, which both leading parties have vowed not to introduce. It foresees a $6-billion per year spending spree on international carbon credits, which the Conservatives have insisted they would not tolerate.

What's worse, the projection splices apocalyptic policy to frozen-in-time behaviour. There's no allowance in the economic model for free enterprise to react or human behaviour to adapt to dramatically new policy circumstances.

The economists who endorsed the government report were limited in their analysis by the gloomiest of scenarios and confined to existing technology. It's no wonder they glumly signed off on the document.

Tell an economist to predict the impact of cheap and plentiful cold water fusion on the Alberta energy sector, for example, and he'd see the province as an agrarian backwater with lots of empty subdivisions and skyscrapers at fire sale prices. They might not understand the province has evolved beyond oil and gas to full-scale economic diversification.

The future fluidity of free enterprise and the flexibility of human behaviour ensure climate-change adaptation is not only probable, it's inevitable.

If, as the model assumes, the price of natural gas doubles and gasoline rises to $1.60 per litre, gas-miser car sales will spike, thermostats will be lowered, electricity savings plans will be enacted and alternative energies will become viable.

We should pause to acknowledge the report does admit to shortcomings.

It deliberately excluded technology which isn't ready to roll now, such as carbon sequestration in airtight geological formations. And it admits monetary policy and exchange-rate reactions would skewer its projections.

But it's a waste of resources when the government could've produced a realistic model that factored in human adaptation, free enterprise ingenuity and the potential cost of doing nothing.

Look, anyone who believes Canada can actually meet its Kyoto obligations on schedule without serious economic complications is a common sense denier.

But show me a government that declines to take the climate change challenge seriously, and I'll show you a party that's doomed to sit on the Opposition side of the Commons.

Baird understands this and could afford to be gleeful as he publicly read back Liberal concessions that there'd be a hefty economic cost to cranking greenhouse gas discharges six per cent below 1990 levels.

That's because he will take a bold step forward next week by imposing harsh reductions on greenhouse gas emission intensities on the industrial and energy sectors.

But an allegedly serious analysis that assumes the worst about technology while ignoring the best of human adaptability cannot be taken seriously as a blueprint of the future.

It's greenhouse gases generating voodoo economics.

As such, Baird has crafted an historic correlation to the Big Apple's 1890s nag problem. He's seen future shock based on fixed 2007 scenarios -- and the end result is a lot of horse manure.

Don Martin writes for the Calgary Herald

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

Kyoto forecast 'alarmist'

Economic meltdown seen. Opposition parties, environmentalists accuse Tories of fear-mongering
MIKE DE SOUZA, KEVIN DOUGHERTY
Montreal Gazette
April 20, 2007

Tempers flared on Parliament Hill yesterday as Prime Minister Stephen Harper used a new report that warned of skyrocketing energy prices and a crippling recession to justify his decision to walk away from Canada's international commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Conservatives argued the report - paid for by taxpayers and verified by five independent economists - proved Canada would be hard-pressed to close the gap between its current pollution levels and its commitment under the 1997 climate change agreement signed by the previous Liberal government.

Opposition parties, environmentalists and Quebec's new environment minister were among those who accused the Tories of fear-mongering.

"The real issue here is whether any of the opposition parties have the guts to face reality," Harper said in the Commons.

"You cannot reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by one-third in less than four years and have a positive effect for the Canadian economy."

The report provoked an angry reaction from the opposition, setting off a series of testy exchanges at a Senate committee that reviewed it with Environment Minister John Baird yesterday morning.

"We've seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth, but I guess this would be a convenient lie," said Liberal Senator Dennis Dawson, referring to last year's documentary on climate change that featured former U.S. vice-president Al Gore. "Every time we talk about changes that would normally protect the environment, we always have people coming in and telling us: 'It will destroy the economy.'

"It was not true in 1960, it was not in 1970 and it won't be true (in the future)."

Baird urged the Senate to reject a private member's bill tabled by the Liberals to force the minority government to comply with its Kyoto obligations of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels.

He cited figures from the government report that warned the economy could shrink by 6.5 per cent under such a scenario, driving up the cost of electricity and gasoline by more than 50 per cent, and causing nearly 300,000 Canadians to lose their jobs.

"This might not seem like much of a sacrifice for the opposition parties that united to pass Bill C-288 in the House of Commons, but for the government these numbers are simply unacceptable," Baird said.

"We are talking about jobs and families. We are talking about Canadian quality of life or, in the case of Bill C-288, severely limiting that quality of life.

"Rather than take it to those reckless extremes just to make up for lost time, we prefer a more balanced and a more realistic plan, which I will introduce soon."

Baird added the government remains committed to the Kyoto process and would make its "best efforts" to achieve its targets.

The Liberals insisted their new climate change plan, which includes introducing penalties for large industrial polluters, would address environmental issues and allow for economic growth.

NDP leader Jack Layton said global warming posed the greatest threat to the Canadian economy.

"The prime minister has got to stop hiding behind bogus, irresponsible and incomplete reports that purport to suggest that it's either (a choice between) jobs and the economy on the one hand or the environment on the other," Layton said. "That's simply wrong."

Baird said the government is building on new programs and initiatives announced since the beginning of the year.opopspanfontp

"I'll take responsibility for the action of my government over the last year if members from the other party take responsibility for the inaction of 10 years," he said.

Government officials refused to say how much it cost to produce the study.

In Quebec City, rookie Environment Minister Line Beauchamp called her federal counterpart "alarmist," and accused him of overstating the economic impact of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Beauchamp, who was sworn in the day before, said the real question to ask is: What is the cost of not implementing Kyoto?

She noted Sir Nicholas Stern, chief economic adviser to the British government, estimated in a report last October that not acting on climate change now would have a devastating impact on the world economy. He said the worst-case scenario was a 20-per-cent contraction in global consumption.

Beauchamp said Quebec will meet its share of Canada's Kyoto commitments "by 2012," thanks to a federal transfer payment of $350 million.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Ottawa's commitment toward Quebec's green plan just before Premier Jean Charest called the March 26 provincial election.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

Kyoto study raises alarm

Tories' dire economic warnings about swift emissions cuts dismissed by opposition as `shock and awe' communications
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau
Toronto Star
Apr 20, 2007

OTTAWA–Canada could face a deep recession, sky-high energy prices and about 275,000 fewer jobs if it slashes greenhouse gas emissions to meet its Kyoto targets, according to an economic analysis prepared by the Conservative government.

Environment Minister John Baird presented the report yesterday to a Senate environment committee that is studying a Liberal bill that would force a massive cut in emissions – about 270 megatonnes by 2012 – when they are still increasing.

Baird said the government would need to "manufacture a recession" in order to meet Kyoto as the legislation, Bill C-288, demands.

"The government would need to introduce major punitive measures to get the deep cuts in emissions in the very short time frame required by (the bill)," he said.

But opposition parties jumped on the study, calling it a Tory "shock and awe communications" strategy.

Even Quebec Environment Minister Line Beauchamp, whose government has been friendly to Ottawa, described the federal study as alarmist.

"The assumptions of the scenario are extremely severe," she told a news conference.

In the Commons, NDP Leader Jack Layton said the report "deliberately deceives the Canadian people about the impact of Kyoto obligations."

Liberal environment critic David McGuinty said the study is skewed because it artificially restricts the use of international emission trading and ignores the job creation that would come with a new focus on green technologies.

"Of course it's hard to get the job done without tools," McGuinty said. "That's like saying it would take years to build a subway line with teaspoons."

The study comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Baird prepare to roll out a revamped climate change plan, likely next week, with mandated emission reductions for industrial polluters like Ontario's coal-fired electricity plants and Alberta's oil sands. It is expected to include targets for reductions that will fall well short of those set out in the Kyoto treaty.

Harper gave a spirited defence of his government's much criticized performance on the environment in the House of Commons.

"The reality is ... you do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one-third in less than four years and have a positive effect on the economy," he said. "This party has no intention of doing anything that's going to destroy Canadian jobs or damage the health of this economy."

The government received a major boost with the endorsement of five independent economists, who reviewed the analysis before its release and sent letters saying that they agreed with its general findings.

Mark Jaccard, a professor of environmental management at Simon Fraser University, said the study backs up his own research that it is now impossible to meet Kyoto's 2012 targets without causing a recession.

The government's Kyoto impact study predicts that individual Canadians could see natural gas prices double and electricity prices rise by 50 per cent over five years, changing $90-a-month bills into $145-a-month bills. Gasoline prices would rise more than 60 per cent to $1.60 a litre before 2012.

More than 275,000 Canadians could lose their jobs by 2009 and the unemployment rate would rise by 25 per cent, while the gross domestic product would decline by 6.5 per cent, the study estimates. The proposed bill would result in a carbon tax on industry of about $195 per tonne of carbon.

Green Leader Elizabeth May said a carbon tax, which is designed to make it more expensive for industries to pollute, should be set at between $30 and $50 a tonne. She said the study's elevated figure was intended to create a picture of "economic disaster."

In addition to Jaccard, TD Bank's Don Drummond, the University of Calgary's David Keith, McGill's Christopher Green and Informetrica's Carl Sonnen signed off on the Kyoto study. Drummond, TD's senior economist, said the bill would ruin Canada's competitiveness.

---

Like Kyoto? Don't vote Liberal!

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Edmonton Sun
19-Apr-2007

Contrary to the advice of Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, anyone who cares about global warming should not vote for Stephane Dion and the Liberals in the next federal election.

The Liberals' record on this issue during their 12 years in power can best be likened to an arsonist returning to the scene of the crime and shouting: "OMIGAWD! WHERE ARE THE FIRE TRUCKS?"

The Liberals, first under Jean Chretien and then Paul Martin, were at least 30% behind their own Kyoto target of reducing man-made greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels, starting in 2008, when they were defeated last year. But even that figure grossly underestimates the extent of the Liberals' failure to address what they now insist is the number one crisis facing our planet.

In their 1993 Red Book, Chretien and Martin (who co-authored the document) promised to reduce Canada's man-made greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005.

Thus, the Liberal government's dismal record of steadily increasing greenhouse gas emissions from 1993 to early 2006 can fairly be described as one of repeatedly watering down its own targets.

For Liberals to complain now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper hasn't imposed mandatory reduction targets on the fossil fuel industry, after 15 months in office, is rich.

Here's then Liberal natural resources minister Anne McLellan touting the merits of the Grits "Voluntary (yes, you read that right) Challenge and Registry" program -- VCR for short -- on climate change in October, 1996.

In a speech to fossil fuel industry representatives, she called it a "key element" of the Liberals' plan to reduce greenhouse gases while balancing "the needs of the economy with those of the environment."

She chummily advised them that "the more we can achieve through the voluntary approach, the less pressure there will be for other types of measures."

McLellan also assured the reps of Canada's major greenhouse-gas emitters that under the Liberals "a carbon tax is not on the table," despite the fact environmentalists wanted one, because "we must not depart so fundamentally from our southern neighbours, with whom we conduct 85% of our trade, for we would risk seriously damaging Canada's competitiveness, and as a result, our economy."

SHORT MEMORY?

While May praises Dion and the Liberals now on global warming, here's what the Sierra Club of Canada, when May was executive director, said about their environmental record in the fall of 2000: "On issue after issue, in the last eight years, Canada has moved from a leadership environmental position globally, to being a laggard and international embarrassment. Whether in negotiations to control persistent organic pollutants, or to reduce greenhouse gases ... Canada is now achieving a new reputation -- as a country that blocks progress to environmental goals."

May also praised Dion five years later when the Liberals, with him as environment minister, finally released their greenhouse gas reduction plan.

By contrast, as Jamey Heath, former research director of the NDP notes in his book, Dead Centre, "eleven environmental groups, the Bloc and NDP condemned it as too weak."

Finally, in October, 2005, near the very end of the Liberals' 12-year reign, Canada's dismal environmental performance was ranked 28th out of the 30 industrialized nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. That evaluation, prepared by Simon Fraser University, was released by the David Suzuki Foundation.

So seriously, for anyone who cares about global warming, why would you ever vote Liberal?

---

Like Kyoto? Don't vote Liberal!

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Edmonton Sun
19-Apr-2007

Contrary to the advice of Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, anyone who cares about global warming should not vote for Stephane Dion and the Liberals in the next federal election.

The Liberals' record on this issue during their 12 years in power can best be likened to an arsonist returning to the scene of the crime and shouting: "OMIGAWD! WHERE ARE THE FIRE TRUCKS?"

The Liberals, first under Jean Chretien and then Paul Martin, were at least 30% behind their own Kyoto target of reducing man-made greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels, starting in 2008, when they were defeated last year. But even that figure grossly underestimates the extent of the Liberals' failure to address what they now insist is the number one crisis facing our planet.

In their 1993 Red Book, Chretien and Martin (who co-authored the document) promised to reduce Canada's man-made greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005.

Thus, the Liberal government's dismal record of steadily increasing greenhouse gas emissions from 1993 to early 2006 can fairly be described as one of repeatedly watering down its own targets.

For Liberals to complain now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper hasn't imposed mandatory reduction targets on the fossil fuel industry, after 15 months in office, is rich.

Here's then Liberal natural resources minister Anne McLellan touting the merits of the Grits "Voluntary (yes, you read that right) Challenge and Registry" program -- VCR for short -- on climate change in October, 1996.

In a speech to fossil fuel industry representatives, she called it a "key element" of the Liberals' plan to reduce greenhouse gases while balancing "the needs of the economy with those of the environment."

She chummily advised them that "the more we can achieve through the voluntary approach, the less pressure there will be for other types of measures."

McLellan also assured the reps of Canada's major greenhouse-gas emitters that under the Liberals "a carbon tax is not on the table," despite the fact environmentalists wanted one, because "we must not depart so fundamentally from our southern neighbours, with whom we conduct 85% of our trade, for we would risk seriously damaging Canada's competitiveness, and as a result, our economy."

SHORT MEMORY?

While May praises Dion and the Liberals now on global warming, here's what the Sierra Club of Canada, when May was executive director, said about their environmental record in the fall of 2000: "On issue after issue, in the last eight years, Canada has moved from a leadership environmental position globally, to being a laggard and international embarrassment. Whether in negotiations to control persistent organic pollutants, or to reduce greenhouse gases ... Canada is now achieving a new reputation -- as a country that blocks progress to environmental goals."

May also praised Dion five years later when the Liberals, with him as environment minister, finally released their greenhouse gas reduction plan.

By contrast, as Jamey Heath, former research director of the NDP notes in his book, Dead Centre, "eleven environmental groups, the Bloc and NDP condemned it as too weak."

Finally, in October, 2005, near the very end of the Liberals' 12-year reign, Canada's dismal environmental performance was ranked 28th out of the 30 industrialized nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. That evaluation, prepared by Simon Fraser University, was released by the David Suzuki Foundation.

So seriously, for anyone who cares about global warming, why would you ever vote Liberal?

---

Baird bites back

Care about the Kyoto accord? Don't vote Conservative!
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
TORONTO SUN
20-Apr-2007

Yesterday, I wrote about why no Canadian who cares about global warming should vote for Stephane Dion and the Liberals.

Today, let's examine why this also holds true for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

Few can approach the hypocrisy of the Liberals these days as they yap at Harper for doing nothing to combat man-made global warming. The Liberals had more than 12 years in power to do something -- and did squat.

But they are matched every time Harper and Environment Minister John Baird fire back that the Liberals did nothing while they were the government. True, but beside the point.

The point is that had the Liberals ever reduced greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels, instead of allowing them to increase faster than even the United States, the Conservatives would have gone berserk.

Anxious to protect their Alberta political base -- the province leads Canada in emissions because of its energy-based economy, particularly the oil sands -- Harper and Co. never demanded the Liberals do more to combat global warming while in Opposition. In fact, they wanted them to do less, arguing the Grits should never have signed the Kyoto accord on climate change in the first place.

Not only did Harper, while Alliance leader, rail against Kyoto in a 2002 fund-raising letter as a "job-killing, economy-destroying ... socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations," he also dismissed the science behind "this so-called 'accord'" as "based on tentative and contradictory ... evidence about climate trends." He warned it would cripple the fossil fuel-based economies of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C., arguing (in capital letters, no less) "THERE ARE NO CANADIAN WINNERS UNDER THE KYOTO ACCORD." Clear enough for you?

In the 2004 election, Harper vowed to scrap the UN treaty in favour of "realistic pollution control measures." After winning last year's vote, Harper's first version of his Clean Air Act, which has now been completely rewritten in committee by the opposition parties, didn't even mention Kyoto.

Harper's so-called concern about global warming and the environment has precisely mirrored its recent rise in the polls, as it moved from being a very low priority for Canadians, to the top one.

Yesterday, Baird unleashed the Conservatives' latest bid to undermine Kyoto, a report endorsed by several independent economists, which argued to implement the treaty at this late date (next year) would soon send Canada into a severe recession costing 275,000 jobs, hike electricity bills by 50%, up the price of gasoline by 60% and double the cost of heating a home with natural gas.

The opposition called it fear-mongering, but after blasting them yesterday for passing an earlier motion that would theoretically require the Conservatives to implement Kyoto, Baird hilariously added, "please, however, don't take my criticism of Bill C-288 as a condemnation of Kyoto." He said the Tories remain committed to it ... short of actually doing anything it says. (I swear, you can't make this stuff up.)

What Baird and Harper were really doing was countering the apocalyptic, "climate porn" rhetoric of global warming fanatics (if we don't implement Kyoto, we're all gonna die) with some apocalyptic, "fiscal porn" rhetoric of their own (if we do implement Kyoto, we're all gonna go broke).

Anyway, with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May now endorsing Dion over Harper on global warming (yeah, like that's a choice!) you should probably vote for the NDP or, in Quebec, the Bloc, if you really do care about climate change. Sorry.

---

Failure to act on environment a crime against future generations, Suzuki says

Guelph Mercury
Apr 20, 2007

MONTREAL
Political and business leaders who fail to act on climate change are committing a crime against future generations and the courts may be the way to force them to change, says David Suzuki.

The environmental activist said leading scientists around the world have been sounding the alarm over global warming for more than two decades.

"If our so-called leaders ignore the warnings, I would think that this is a crime against future generations and I'm wondering if there's a legal basis for taking action against people who run corporations or who run government, for their inaction on global warming," Suzuki told reporters yesterday ahead of a speech to the Quebec Bar Association.

"I happen to think it's a crime, or perhaps we can call it a sin."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has effectively abandoned Canada's commitments under the international Kyoto Protocol, promising instead homegrown solutions and more realistic reduction targets.

Environment Minister John Baird released a federal study yesterday suggesting the treaty's emissions-cutting targets could be met only at a massive economic cost.

Suzuki was not impressed.

"First of all, let's stop listening to the goddamn economists," he said.

Suzuki said Baird has not taken into account the cost of ignoring global warming.

"Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear," Suzuki told reporters.

"It will cost more than World War I and World War 2 put together. We'll go into a kind of depression we've never, ever had in all of history."

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The Senate should gas over-the-top environmental bill

Editorial
The Province
April 20, 2007

The Senate -- unelected and overwhelmingly Liberal -- is largely irrelevant to the lives of ordinary folk, who can only marvel at the perks and privileges lavished upon its members.

In the current debate over climate change, however, the Senate is considering a potentially ruinous piece of legislation that could affect the livelihood of every Canadian.

We refer to Bill C-288, a private member's bill put up by rookie Quebec Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez.

Most private members' bills melt away like June snowflakes. But in the overheated atmosphere in Ottawa, C-288 was approved by the House of Commons and is now before the Senate.

If passed, this bill would require the government to meet limits on greenhouse-gas emissions established under the Kyoto protocol.

There are loud and insistent voices saying this is necessary -- that Canada has an obligation to abide by a treaty it signed.

Other voices, though, are starting to make themselves heard.

First, Canadian Auto Workers Union president Buzz Hargrove, no friend of the Tories, spoke of the "insanity" of the environmental movement targeting Ontario's auto makers.

As Hargrove pointed out, Canada is responsible for a meagre two per cent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, and shutting down the entire economy would have a negligible effect on the environment.

This week, Don Drummond, the respected chief economist of the Toronto-Dominion Bank -- a man whose advice the Liberals have sought in the past -- has issued a damning opinion on Kyoto compliance.

Rejecting C-288 as unworkable, Drummond raises the spectre of a deep recession whose effects might be comparable to the economic collapse of Russia. The only way Kyoto can be met, he says, is through the imposition of an insupportable $195-a-tonne carbon tax.

Under that scenario, Environment Minister John Baird predicts 275,000 Canadians would lose their jobs, gasoline prices would jump 60 per cent and natural-gas prices would double.

Are Canadians really ready to gamble their prosperity on an obscure backbencher's Alice-in-Wonderland obsession?

We agree with Baird that it's no time for "reckless extremes." Let the Tories introduce their promised plans and go from there.

In the meantime, the Senate, chamber of sober second thought, should gas Bill C-288.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Leave a brief comment, name and town at: 604-605-2029, fax: 604-605-2099 or e-mail: provletters@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007

CO2 Tax Proposed As Long Term Solution For Greenhouse Gas Reductions

By Elsie Ross
Nickle's Daily Oil Bulletin
19 April 2007

A properly designed, broadly-applied carbon dioxide tax would be the most effective way in the long run to tackle the global issue of greenhouse gases, an industry spokesman said Wednesday.

"We need something that will allow decentralized decision making across the world -- across the economy within Canada, across other economies in the industrialized world and even across the economies in the developing world," Rick Hyndman, senior climate advisor for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, told a CIBC World Markets energy conference in Toronto.

A carbon tax with an escalating rate that is harmonized across all major emitting countries would be the best policy to effect the change to lower emissions, he said. To avoid transfers of wealth, each country would levy the tax. Within Canada, the provinces would levy the tax which would apply to emissions from electricity generation, heating fuels and the resources industries that vary widely from province to province.

The idea would be to start at an acceptable level of about $15 per tonne while serving notice to society and industry that the price will escalate to as much as $50 per tonne or more over the next 15 or 20 years, eventually getting to a price that on its own will drive the transformation of the energy system, said Hyndman.

However, it is too early to adopt that approach, he told the conference. One reason is the uneven effort in reducing greenhouse gases internationally.

"We have to be very careful about how we would implement a carbon pricing or carbon tax in particular to avoid undermining the competitiveness of Canadian industry."

There also is a lack of policy understanding among politicians, bureaucrats, industry and the public, said Hyndman. "The word tax has a stigma which has caused governments to say they are not going to introduce new taxes so it is very difficult to have a rational discussion about how you would implement this in a way so that it would work effectively and not cause redistribution of wealth effects," he said.

In addition, there is a lot of confusion about emissions trading which Hyndman described as a "privatized carbon tax." Those who are selling permits under an emissions trading system and stand to benefit are keen to get this system in place, he said. "The others who will be on the paying side haven't really woken up to the fact that this is really going to in the end discriminate against them much more than a carbon tax would which had everybody paying in proportion to their emissions."

After 10 years of arguing over climate change policy, the Canadian government simply needs to "take the step and get going and signal where Canada is going, provided the rest of the world is coming along," he said.

The federal Conservative government is expected to release its long-awaited climate change plan regulations April 26. The government has already said it cannot meet Kyoto Protocol targets that called for emissions six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Last October, it unveiled the Clean Air Act Bill C-30 that proposed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by between 45% and 60% of 2003 levels by 2050. The bill, denounced by opposition parties as too weak, was then sent to a parliamentary committee which added new provisions for greenhouse gases, air pollutants, vehicle regulations and energy efficiency.

The executive directors of 10 of Canada's largest environmental organizations have urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to ensure the new regulations either match or exceed the standard set by the rewritten Bill C-30 (The Clean Air and Climate Change Act).

According to Reuters, a government document leaked to environmental activists indicated the government was proposing to cut emissions by 45% to 60% of 2006 levels by 2050. Emissions rose steadily between 2003 and 2006.

Environment Minister John Baird earlier indicated emission reduction targets for large emitters such as oilsands operators would be intensity based. The leaked document also suggested the government will rely heavily on carbon sequestration to reduce emissions, according to a Canadian Press report.

The Alberta government is proposing legislation based on intensity improvement targets with a 12% reduction from the 2003-2005 base period. "They offer a clear price signal for the industry sector and they are also designed with a cost burden that would not undermine competitiveness in this initial step," said Hyndman.

With the improvement target higher than the expected actual emissions, companies initially would make up the difference with a payment of $15 per tonne into a technology fund in each sector to help advance technologies so that emissions will be lower in the future.

At another conference this week, participants heard from an environmental activist as to what they should expect from the federal Tories in terms of the upcoming climate change legislation. For starters, it likely will be tougher than Alberta's legislation, Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute, told a Canadian Institute midstream conference. "It just would not be acceptable nationally to have a made-in-Alberta target as weak as it is now."

Industry also should plan for an absolute cap on emissions, he said. "I think there is a strong enough case to be made for that." Intensity limits provide no guarantee of reduction whereas all the environment cares about is absolute reductions, said Raynolds. "It doesn't care if a company does slightly better per cubic metre of product."

The intensity approach also makes it extremely difficult to compare across jurisdictions and raises questions about transparency, the conference was told.

Companies should start preparing for a 20% reduction from 1990 levels in emissions by 2020, he said.

Raynolds predicted that initially the price of CO2 will be set in the range of $20 to $30 per tonne before shifting to market prices. In Alberta, that would add $1 to $2 per bbl to oilsands production and two to three cents per kilowatt hour in the price of electricity to meet Kyoto obligations.

There also likely will be some form of domestic trading among large scale emitters. "It took a year and a lot of lobbying to get this government to the point where there is value in a trading system," he said.

In some ways, a carbon tax might offer advantages in terms of simplicity such as in rewarding early action on emissions and in dealing with uncertainty, Raynolds suggested. "It's pretty quick and simple; you know what you're planning against," he said.

The Pembina Institute executive also noted that while Canada likes to consider itself an "energy superpower" it is one of the few OECD countries in the world that has no strategy or vision on energy. An energy policy has to be tied to a climate change strategy because they are so interconnected, said Raynolds.

He wrapped by recommending that companies begin to mobilize their engineers to engage them in the issue of greenhouse gas reductions. "The time for lobbyists and lawyers is quickly passing," said Raynolds.

www.nickles.com

Baird says Kyoto will lead to economic collapse

CTV.ca News Staff
Apr. 19 2007

Environment Minister John Baird attacked the Kyoto accord on Thursday as a costly measure that lead to economic collapse.

"I think that we must strike a balance in order to act responsibly, we must take bold measures for the environment and we must let our economy go forward so Canadians can keep their jobs and build a promising future," Baird told a Senate Committee in French on Thursday.

The Senate committee is considering a bill put forward by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriquez that would force the government to comply with the Kyoto targets.

Baird told the committee that analysis from economists shows implementing the Kyoto Protocol would mean:

· Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre over the 2008-to-2012 period

· 275,000 Canadians working today will lose their jobs by 2009

· Job loss will cause unemployment rates to rise 25 per cent by 2009

· The decline of economic activity in the range of $51 billion

"Please, however, don't take my criticism of Bill C-288 as a condemnation of Kyoto. Our government remains committed to the principles and objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol," Baird said.

"We accept our international obligations and will make our best effort."

Toronto economist Don Drummond has said in a letter to reporters that it would be impossible to meet the Kyoto emissions-cutting target without a massive carbon tax of approximately $195 a tonne.

However, a study released in late February by the group Friends of the Earth and Corporate Knights magazine put the cost of Kyoto compliance at $100 billion over four years, which they said would be about $20 per week for a family of four.

Kyoto calls for Canada to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. As of 2003, those emissions had increased by 27 per cent above 1990 levels.

If Canada doesn't meet its treaty obligations, it faces a 30 per cent penalty under the next phase of the Kyoto accord.

In addition, the opposition parties have forced the government to rewrite its Clean Air Act, which didn't mention the word Kyoto.

Baird has said the government will adopt intensity targets, which require cuts in emissions per unit of production, but allow overall emissions to go up if production rises.

Environmentalists have blasted that approach, saying GHG emissions from sectors like Alberta's oil sands could rise dramatically.

With files from The Canadian Press

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Baird paints apocalyptic scenario of Kyoto compliance for committee

By Dennis Bueckert
The Canadian Press
Apr 19, 2007

OTTAWA (CP) Environment Minister John Baird has presented an apocalyptic scenario of what it would take to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, suggesting that prices would soar while thousands of jobs disappeared.

``There is only one way to make it happen, to manufacture a recession,'' Baird told the Senate environment committee Thursday.

He said 275,000 Canadians would lose their jobs, gasoline prices would jump 60 per cent and natural gas prices would double.

``The cost to maintain a home or business would skyrocket,'' Baird told the committee.

He said his predictions were based on studies by some of the country's leading economists, but environmentalists said they were based on assumptions chosen to produce frightening conclusions.

Baird said the government remains committed to the Kyoto Protocol even though it is opposing a Liberal private member's bill which would force Canada to comply with the treaty's emissions-cutting targets.

The bill, put forward by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez and passed by the Commons, would present the government with a huge conundrum if it is also passed by the Senate. The Conservatives would be faced with implementing measures they say are irresponsible.

Baird called on Canadians to support a Conservative plan to combat climate change ``without pulling every last penny from their pockets.''

Liberal Senator Dennis Dawson accused Baird of scare tactics.

``The sky is falling_ we've seen this before,'' Dawson said.

``Every time we talk about changes that protect the environment we would have people telling us they will destroy the economy.''

He said similar warnings were issued about the program to curb acid rain, yet it was implemented without difficulty.

Liberal Colin Kenny challenged Baird to provide a step-by-step explanation of how he arrived at his dire figures.

Baird referred Kenny to a document that he provided to the committee, but committee chair Liberal Tommy Banks said he could not find any arithmetic in the document that justified the figures.

A leaked letter by Toronto-Dominion economist Don Drummond supports some of Baird's warning, suggesting that Kyoto could not be achieved without a massive carbon tax of $195 tonne.

But that letter did not contain any detailed analysis.

A study last fall by Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, said costs of combatting global warming are manageable and would be much less than the costs of taking no action. Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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Ottawa rolls out 'validators' to bolster anti-Kyoto stand

STEVEN CHASE
Globe and Mail
19-Apr-2007

OTTAWA — The Harper government has secured a high-profile endorsement of its position that Canada's economy would be crippled if it was forced to meet the Kyoto accord's timetable for cutting greenhouse gases.

On Thursday, federal Environment Minister John Baird will unveil a new study by his department that suggests complying with the Kyoto Protocol would hit Canada hard, a report that is certain to draw swift criticism from environmentalists.

The Conservatives are trying to add credence to the report, however, by also releasing an opinion from Toronto-Dominion Bank chief economist Don Drummond that effectively backs their findings.

“I believe the economic cost would be at least as deep as the recession in the early 1980s, and indeed that is the result your department's analysis shows,” Mr. Drummond writes in a letter to Mr. Baird obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The Tories are expected to unveil additional opinions by experts, whom they call “validators,” as they attempt to refute Bill C-288, a bill opposition parties pushed through the Commons in February.

It attempts to force the Harper government to meet Canada's targets under the Kyoto accord for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Mr. Drummond's letter appears to be a political boon for the Tories, and a blow for the Liberals, as parties gird themselves for the possibility of an election campaign fought on hot-button issues such as Kyoto.

It will be difficult for the Liberals to attack Mr. Drummond, a senior Canadian economist whom political parties, including Mr. Dion's, have consulted over the years. He wasn't paid for this latest opinion, which the Tories solicited from him.

Thursday's announcement also lays the groundwork for the Tories' own plan to fight climate change: one outside the Kyoto accord timetable.

Kyoto's obligations would require massive action by Ottawa because under the accord, Canada is supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions an average of 6 per cent below 1990 levels in each year, 2008 to 2012.

Emissions have soared in recent years, making Canada's task that much harder — especially since Kyoto's so-called compliance period starts next year and Ottawa has never enacted a complete plan.

Mr. Drummond says he accepts the thinking that the only way to fulfill Bill C-288 and meet Canada's Kyoto timetable is to slap a carbon tax of about $195 on each tonne of greenhouse gas released by companies and other emitters.

“I grudgingly accept that a massive carbon tax implemented almost immediately is the only viable option to reach the bill's goals,” Mr. Drummond writes in his letter.

When fossil fuels such as oil and coal are burned, they release carbon that becomes carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas. A carbon tax is basically a levy on greenhouse emissions that seeks to restrict the burning of fossil fuels.

Mr. Drummond says the magnitude of Canada's required greenhouse-gas reductions under Kyoto is almost unparalleled.

“The policy shock analyzed is massive: a one-third reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for each of the next five years,” Mr. Drummond writes.

“Other than as a side effect of the economic collapse of Russia, nothing close to such a result has occurred anywhere.”

His letter dismisses Bill C-288 as unworkable, saying, “I sincerely hope no serious consideration is being given to implementing the policy.”

He warns that such a hefty carbon tax, designed to drive down emissions, would substantially hurt the economy even if Ottawa funnelled the revenue collected from the levy back to Canadians via personal and corporate income-tax cuts.

“This shock would represent a huge loss to Canadian competitiveness. Exports would plunge and imports rise.”

His only substantial quibble with the Environment Canada study is that he's not sure the carbon tax would have a relatively constant impact in later years.

The TD economist previously worked in the federal Finance Department for 23 years. He offers policy advice to politicians of all stripes, when asked, noting that the Bloc Québécois has never requested his help, and he has not shied away from criticizing Tory policies under the Harper government.

Mr. Drummond says his comments should not be interpreted as anti-environmental or suggesting that economic concerns should trump environmental needs. “The environment will also be a loser if rash policies are implemented because the course will be abandoned long before the environmental objectives are achieved.”

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Gov't to be fuelled by Exxon?

By SEAN HOLMAN
24 HOURS
vancouver.24hrs.ca
April 4, 2007

DRILLING CONSENT

Exxon Mobil Corp. - the largest and one of the most powerful companies in the world - appears to have offered to help the provincial government lift the federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas development, 24 hours' Public Eye has exclusively learned. On Feb. 2, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Rich Neufeld met with Exxon Mobil executives while attending a convention in Houston, Texas. During that meeting, the executives told the minister their company "has new [offshore] technologies that are environmentally friendly." And they asked how Exxon Mobil can "help move the moratorium and public opinion." This, according to a government report obtained via a freedom of information request.

The ministry of energy mines and petroleum development declined an opportunity to elaborate on what went on at that meeting. For their part, Exxon Mobil media advisor Susan Reeves stated in an e-mail, "The offshore moratorium issue will be appropriately dealt with by the provincial government." She then added the company "has a longstanding public record of supporting policy efforts that provide greater access to resources worldwide, including non-traditional or frontier resources." And it's that record that has offshore drilling opponents concerned.

LASH-ING OUT

Speaking with 24 hours' Public Eye, Living Oceans Society executive director Jennifer Lash said, "Obviously, we'd be hoping that Neufeld would listen to the people of British Columbia and not to a company like Exxon Mobil when it comes to understanding what's in the best interests of British Columbia. And we also would be greatly concerned if the provincial government is going to start working in collaboration with Exxon Mobil to try to reach out to the public and try to do some sort of propaganda campaign to try and convince people from B.C. that offshore oil and gas drilling is safe when we know it's not ... One would hope [Neufeld] would just tell a company like Exxon that they're not welcome here to come and sway public opinion - that that's not necessary."

KINDER SURPRISE?

A government report prepared by the ministry of energy, mines and petroleum resources states Terasen owner Kinder Morgan Inc. wants to "discourage electricity" use in British Columbia and "replace [it] with natural gas." But a spokesperson for Terasen says "that would be an inaccuracy" - rejecting suggestions that Kinder Morgan wants the government to introduce a pricing system that could see some British Columbians who use electricity to heat their homes pay a higher Hydro rate than those who use other sources, such as natural gas.

The report summarizes a Jan. 31 meeting between Neufeld and Kinder Morgan chairman and chief executive officer Rich Kinder - as well as president Park Shaper and chief operating officer Steven Kean. According to the report, after the executives expressed a desire to replace electricity use with natural gas, "B.C. noted that electricity is cheap and competes with gas."

Kinder Morgan then suggested introducing "incremental prices" for residential electricity consumers. Under such a system - which has been in place for B.C. Hydro's industrial customers since 2005 - the more electricity you use, the higher your kilowatt hour rate will be.

That encourages energy conservation. And, in an interview with 24 hours' Public Eye, Terasen corporate communications manager Joyce Wagenaar said her company is simply working in co-operation with B.C. Hydro to make sure British Columbians "use the right fuel, at the right place, at the right time."

But incremental pricing also means those who don't heat their homes with electricity could receive a lower kilowatt-hour rate than those who do, depending on how much power they use.

Kinder Morgan is set to transfer ownership of Terasen to Canadian utility company Fortis Inc. sometime this year - having announced those plans on Feb. 26. Government declined comment on Neufeld's meeting with Kinder Morgan executives.

DEAD ARMADILLOS AND YELLOW LINES

More than a year ago, Premier Gordon Campbell "unveiled a comprehensive $3-billion plan to open up the province's transportation network in Vancouver" - also known as the Gateway Program. So it seems strange the provincial New Democrats still haven't decided whether to support that highway expansion project.

But could it be that some of the party's caucus members are getting a bit tired of standing in the middle of the road? This past Saturday, transportation critic David Chudnovsky addressed a mass rally in Delta organized by the Gateway 30 Network.

Asked whether that means the New Democrats are now opposed to Gateway, Chudnovsky explained the Lower Mainland needs a transit-based transportation strategy, not a road-based one. "That doesn't mean we never build another bridge or another road. But it does mean you've got to be going in the right direction."