The green stuff

Now that the Conservatives are legally locked into Kyoto, researchers on both sides of the climate change debate are starting to look at the real costs attached to implementing it.

It would cost $100 billion over the next four years under a Robin Hood style plan by Friends of the Earth and Corporate Knights magazine that would tax fossil fuels and invest the profits in green energy.

Okay, that sounds like a lot. But it would only mean $20 dollars a week for an average Canadian family, the report says.

There are approximately 32,623,490 Canadians, according to the last survey by Statistics Canada.

That works out to $1.47 per person per week -- less than a cup of coffee at Tim Horton's.

The Stern report predicts the long term costs associated with climate change due to rising sea levels, increases in extreme weather events, negative health effects and displaced people. In comparison, it seems that less than a toonie a week per person is a wise economic investment.

But Baird and his Conservative government continue to deny the possibility of a carbon tax system.

They won't accept this plan to invest in combating climate change. Instead, they continue to invest in the destructive oil sands and watch the tab for climate change grow.

Kyoto clock keeps ticking, Conservatives keep kicking

Stephen Harper has 6o days to devise a plan for Canada meet its Kyoto obligations after a Liberal bill forcing his Conservatives to honour the international accord swept through the House of Commons today.

Immediately after agreeing to honour the bill, Harper implied that it will be ineffective because the bill has no plan of action in it (sounding like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black).

Speculation that Harper might try to circumvent the bill is mounting after his repeated attempts to kill it in its infancy and declarations that the Kyoto Protocol's six per cent emissions drop from 1990 levels by 2012 are unattainable and destructive to the economy.

Ironically, despite the Conservatives' reluctance to commit to the environment, the issue could actually help them in the next election, says pollster Greg Lyle.

The Conservatives and Liberals are neck and neck in the polls right now, but public concern about the environment, an issue the Liberals hope to make a top priority in the looming election, might actually help the Conservatives because it could split centre-left votes between the Greens, the NDP and the Liberals.

"They don't have to be seen as the best, they simply have to not be seen as bad. If they can do that with their target vote, then they're fine," says Lyle.

Now, the argument that John Baird was appointed Minister of the Environment to "neutralize" the issue, by giving the appearance that Conservatives are taking action on climate change seems to be even more persuasive. It seems that the Conservatives are poised to succeed in the polls by doing nothing but publicly blame the Liberals and hope voters defect to the Green party instead.

John Baird's Inconvenient Truth

Last week, John Baird cited Al Gore during question period, but yesterday Gore said Baird misrepresented his comments as praise for the Conservatives action on climate change.

"Canada [is] once again providing leadership in the world, fighting above its weight class and showing moral authority to the rest of the world. That's what Canada's known for," Baird read to the House.

Then he continued, "do we know who said that yesterday? Al Gore."

Today Gore clarified that the statement was not made last week, but last summer and that his words were designed to encourage Harper not to abandon the Kyoto process.

But the Tories say it would be impossible for Canada to meet its 2012 target of a 6 percent reduction below 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The country is currently hovering at 38 percent above its 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

While the Tories continue to deny their Kyoto obligations, they have decided to dole out $1.5 billion to the provinces, who have started taking action on their own.

The first $350 million has been earmarked for Quebec's Green Plan to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 2012. Premier Jean Charest said that the money places the province on track to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Today B.C's Premier Gordon Campbell announced that the province will aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent under 1990 levels by 2020.

Tomorrow the House of Commons will take a final vote on a Liberal private member's bill that, if adopted, will force the government to devise an action plan to meet Kyoto.

Inconveniently, Baird's wrongful invocation of the patron saint of climate change coincided with the harsh truth that his government will quite possibly be forced into action on Kyoto despite its reluctance to do so.

Public eye focused on John Baird's tie

Yesterday, John Baird dismissed carbon taxes and international carbon trading market as ways of dealing with Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead, he suggested the government would rather spend the money in Canada.

Only two days after calling for bipartisan action on climate change, he declared "we don't sit around the cabinet table dreaming up ways to increase taxes. That's certainly more common in the McGuinty family than it is in the Harper cabinet."

Today, a coalition of opposition parties pushed The Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act through its third reading in Parialment. The proposal calls on Canada to meet its Kyoto commitment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012.

Amidst the poltical tension, Canada's online community discussed the issues of the day.

Free Dominion, -the voice of principled Conservatism"- discussed the chances that John Baird was gay.

While two bloggers argued over his everpresent green tie.

Green politicking

Green action at the federal level is doing little to tap into the public's new found environmental consciousness.

In fact, our government has been so slow to act that, embarrassingly, even American bloggers are starting to blame Canadians for climate change.

In the wake of the IPCC global climate change report, Minister of the Environment, John Baird, asked parties to put aside their partisanship in the name of climate change.

But in a subsequent CTV question period, Baird violated on his own plea bargain by taking shots at Liberal leader Stephane Dion's environmental record.

"Voluntary good hopes and wishes really haven't accomplished much - we've seen that over the past 10 years with the previous Liberal government and Stephane Dion," Baird proclaimed.

Yesterday, Parliament passed a motion tabled by Dion's Liberals, that backed the minority government into a legislative corner to recognize that:

• our climate is changing because of human activity and is the most serious ecological threat of our time;
• that we must meet our international commitments to Kyoto; and
• that Canada must have a comprehensive plan to address climate change that includes strong regulations for industry and a cap and trade system

In response, Harper declared today that, “in the weeks ahead, for the first time ever, Canada's new government will move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sectors.”

Once again, the Conservative response to yet another indication that severe climate change is occurring now and increased pressure by the public and Parliament for action now was to declare that they are in the process of getting ready to act soon, instead of actually acting.

How can the opposition parties be expected to put partisanship aside when their role is to criticize the government, especially when the government declines to act on an issue as fragile as our environment?