Why Libs Shouldn't Walk Away From Green Issues

...because people haven't, although though here in Canada they have walked away from the Green Shift in particular.

...which is why Iggy's answer here isn't bad, if a bit rote (from James Curran's notes):

Iggy: proud of Stephane's leadership on it. (Should be he wanted a carbon tax shift). Must remain faithful about enviromental sustainability. Gotta get the retail politics of this issue. Gotta figure out how to sell it. Has to work in the air, on the land on the sea where deisel fuels are used. We have to listen to cdns.

I have only vague memories of Ignatieff's 2006 green plan, but I recall it as involving a fairly aggressive cap & trade system. More generally, I think it was a good exercise for all the 2006 candidates to have been required to produce a fairly extensive statement of their environmental principles, and I hope that the same expectation applies this time around (although of course nobody expects them to lean as extensively on their environmental creds as Dion did).

Hint: it might make Iggy more palatable to Left wing of the party, who often look upon him as a Conservative in Liberal dress.

Link to Iggy's old platform paper. Thanks, James Curran.

Quebec Leads The Way

Quebec's 0.8 cent per litre carbon tax will be going into effect within hours. It is the first of its kind in Canada, and here's hoping it goes off smoothly. One thing. The article suggests that:

It's also not clear if the carbon tax will be passed to consumers.

"It's a $150 million question," said Montreuil of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, vice-president of the organization in Eastern Canada.

"And the honest answer is no one knows," he said.

I think that, frankly, everyone knows. Of course it will be passed on. That doesn't mean the tax is not a good thing. It just means that, when trying to change human behavior, the tax code can be a bit of a blunt instrument.

Everyone's Proposing A Carbon Tax

In mid Blo-vate, Sun columnist Neil Waugh notes this morning that Stephane Dion's recently announced "carbon budget" is:

... basically the same deal Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach will impose on what he calls the province's "specified gas emitters" starting July 1. They will have to reduce their "emissions intensity" by 12% or start paying a $15-a-tonne carbon tax into a technology fund.

So if the Dion plan is a carbon tax, which Waugh insists it is, then the Alberta plan is a carbon tax, and Ka Ching Ka Ching, Dion has political cover. Because, just as you can't be holier than the Pope, you can't be more Conservative than Alberta. So if a carbon tax is okay with Alberta, then Conservatives elsewhere in Canada should be prepared to eat a carbon tax. It will be very difficult to tar Dion's proposals as radical (although no doubt many will try).

And guess what? Environment Minister John Baird has been making Kyoto-like noises recently! We're apparently not pulling out of the treaty! We will "honour" our responsibilities! And now Canadian companies may be able to meet their targets through foreign investment, a la something like Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Furthermore, while there is no word yet on how Baird will enforce his "mandatory" emissions targets for industry, unless he intends to rely on harsh language, you can bet it will be through some scheme very much like Alberta's. So the Federal government will, over the next couple of weeks, propose a carbon tax.

Whoo hoo, baby, the Socialist in my heart is dancing naked through the streets!

But here's the thing. If everybody is going to be proposing a carbon tax, what's the difference between the various plans? Well, Dion is proposing hard, absolute emissions caps. After burnishing his law and order credentials, he is now getting TOUGH on polluters. Meanwhile, Harper's intensity caps, which will kick in a few decades down the road sometime, has gone SOFT on the people who are murdering our planet!

Not bad positioning, should an election be called in the next couple of weeks.

The Brits Talk Carbon Trading

An enlightened discussion of U.K. carbon emissions policy by Robert Peston of BBC News. One of his conclusions:

One of the less visible consequences of Government policy on climate change is that it would lead to a massive transfer of wealth from the developed world to the developing world.

He is of course talking about the purchase of "carbon credits" abroad:

The transfer results from the mechanism laid down in the draft Climate Change Bill for achieving a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

It allows the purchase from abroad of “carbon credits” to hit the five-yearly targets for CO2 cuts along the way. What this means is that if the UK invests in projects in China, or India or Africa - for example - which would reduce their emissions, than those reductions in CO2 can be counted in an assessment of whether the UK has met its targets.

As an example, if carbon sequestration became a viable technology, then a British power generator could capture and bury the CO2 produced by a Chinese coal-fired plant and then count that CO2 against is own CO2 “budget” for carbon cuts.

And his other conclusion?

...this would not be dead money, handed over with no prospect of any financial return. If UK businesses were for example financing low-carbon power generation in China, those businesses would expect a share of the profits and dividends generated by the power generation.

And if you're wondering why the Europe is moving so aggressively on Kyoto and climate change policy in general, it is not due to some latent urge towards Socialism. Countries like Spain and Switzerland are already beginning to feel the negative effects of Global warming, the former nation quite severely.

Environmentalism And The New World Order

One of the more coherent formulations to be found in the Conservapedia comes from their article on Global Warming:

Conservatives who are opposed to the political proposals that flow from acceptance of the theory [of Global Warming], are properly skeptical of the motivations of the theorists.... Many believe global warming is simply a liberal talking point, aimed at shackling profitable oil and power companies, forcing them to pursue a "green" agenda that environmentalists agree with.

I think this is mostly wrong, and have written here that the Kyoto protocol, for example, has been explicitly designed to operate within the parameters of Global Capitalism.

So it doesn't really help when the likely next Prime Minister of England starts calling for a "new world order" to help fight climate change. Sheesh!

And, oh yes, carbon offsets amount to paying money NOW for the right to pollute NOW while hoping that the money paid goes towards emissions cuts somewhere down the road and around the bend. They're a crock.

Remember That Old Joke?

...about the farmer who claims to have the smartest donkey in the world. "I can teach this donkey anything," he tells a credulous city-slicker.

"Show me," replies the city-slicker. "Teach your donkey how to be environmentally friendly."

"Sure," says the farmer, so he takes up a big 2-by-4 and whacks the donkey across the snout with it.

"Why did you do that?" asks the city-slicker.

"Well, first thing you have to do is get the donkey's attention."

As I was reading the Calgary Herald's Saturday morning editorial, I was reminded of this joke, with Alberta standing in for the donkey. Because Ed Stelmach's new environmental plan, for all of its weaknesses (intensity rather than hard targets, a loopy sounding plan to build a CO2 pipeline), is essentially a home-grown Kyoto, with carbon taxes and cap-and-trade schemes and the whole magillah. As the Editorial says, who would have thought it possible?

And despite these weaknesses, the Alberta plan will be built so as to "interact" with forthcoming Canada-wide regulations, which will themselves eventually be linked up to a set of N.A.-wide regulations. I would not be surprised if we wind up with something very much like the Kyoto Accord functioning across a good portion of the planet in 10 years, even if politicians are careful to call it something else. And although it may start by regulating emission intensities, once a regulatory framework is in place it should become possible to tighten the screws until we are getting real emission cuts.

So I am allowing myself a brief moment of optimism on this issue.

And gratitude really ought to be extended to politicians like Mark Holland and Stephane Dion, who wielded the metaphorical 2-by4 that got donkey Alberta's attention. But do you think they'll thank us Easterners? Well, Chretien kept them out of that crazy Iraq war when folks like Ralph Klein were aching to kill for the American Empire. If there was any justice, Ralph and every cowboy in Calgary would have marched out to wherever in Quebec they kept J.C. and kissed his ass in gratitude. But did that ever happen? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo, it did not.

But its okay. We Easterners do it all out of Love.

Alberta Government Admits The Obvious

Specifically, that the tar sands projects around Fort MacMurray are stressing the Athabasca River. From now on:

All oil sands operators - whether new or existing - will have to work together to share water within prescribed limits. Companies are working closely with Alberta Environment and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to ensure they meet these new limits to water withdrawals.

Sucking up twice the water required to feed Calgary so you can run your oil extraction machinery is pretty obviously an unsustainable energy/environmental policy. Of course, if someone like Dion or Suzuki had suggested restrictions like those noted above, they would have been run out of the province.

h/t to Civitatensis.