Thursday, January 25, 2007

Harper Promises Nothing, Maybe Less

BCer in TO quotes this Canada Press story:

OTTAWA -- Canada won't follow the Bush administration's lead in setting hard targets for reducing oil consumption but will instead impose tougher emissions standards on the auto sector and other industries, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

He comments:

I’m all for toughening emission standards and other measures, but why the heck shouldn’t we also encourage people to use less energy? Come to think of it, that’s the first of the three Rs. Reduce.

Harper's refusal to consider such reductions is particularly striking when you realize how little Bush is asking. From The Washington Post:

The fine print: Administration officials said that the goal is 20 percent below projected annual gasoline usage, not off today's levels.

[...]

Using projections means that carbon dioxide emissions from transportation fuels will drop only slightly from today's levels...

So the Bush plan demands almost zero in the way of reductions, and Harper is determined to do even less than that.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I still think Harper should mandate the immediate closure of all the coal fired electrical plants in Ontario so all the champagne socialists and latte Lieberals in Torrana get a taste of the real impacts of drinking the Kyoto Kool-Aid by giving up the 30% of their electrical supply.

Please enjoy your sweltering summer without air conditioning.

Put your big fat social Kyoto conscience into action and DO SOMETHING instead of blaming Alberta.

Talk is cheap buddy.

Walk the walk or STFU.

bigcitylib said...

Or he could copy the Libs, bring back Energuide, and we could all reduce our heating costs 30%.

wilson said...

How many homes were retrofitted under the Libs Energuide, BCL??