Report From Parliament Hill

By Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill

Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:53 PM

The Kyoto Accord is a well-intentioned international agreement. Signed in 1998, its objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is commendable and desirable.

Yet we would have to shut down every fossil-based automobile, plane and train in the country to meet Canada's Kyoto emission targets. OR, we could make a minimum payment of $10-BILLION in taxpayers' money to foreign nations. Even if we came up with this cash, we would only meet half of our Kyoto target. Nor would we have done anything to reduce emissions either here in Canada or elsewhere.

How did we get so far off our Kyoto targets that we'd have to decimate the economy of our nation to comply?

First, Kyoto allows so-called "first world" countries, to "pay to pollute". This means that instead of actually reducing our emissions, Canada, for example, would pay what Kyoto classifies as developing nations, such as China, for "emission credits". Buying these credits is the basis of the Liberal Party of Canada's environmental plan.

Second, throughout the past decade, Canada's emissions didn't drop ... they skyrocketed!   Kyoto committed Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012. However, over 13
years of Liberal-style environmental policy, our emissions soared by 27 percent and the gap between Canada's Kyoto target and our actual emissions grew to a whopping 35 percent.

We have some very real 'catching up' to do! Yet we haven't wasted any time. Our Conservative Government has already taken aggressive measures to increase public transit use, increase renewable fuels and biofuels and reduce energy use.

And while there had been a great deal of criticism about timelines in the Clean Air Act, legislation introduced by our Conservative Government to take action on our environment, these comments were misleading as they focussed on the Bill's long-term initiatives only.

What these critics won't tell you is that the Clean Air Act's immediate initiatives are set to launch as soon as the bill is passed and throughout the next three years. This is the most credible and tangible action ever taken by a federal government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as air pollution, something Kyoto does not address.

The Clean Air Act's immediate initiatives (2007-2010) will amend existing, or create new, regulations for key industrial sectors. It sets new rules for off-road diesel engines, marine engines and recreational vehicles.

It tightens requirements for commercial and residential equipment to reduce 80 percent of energy used at home and 88 percent of energy used commercially. The manufacture and use of cleaning products, personal care products, paints, coatings and printing inks, which play a major role in smog formation, will also be regulated.

The Clean Air Act's Short Term Initiatives (2010-2015) will put many of these new regulations into full effect and industry will be required to meet fixed cap reductions on air pollution and intensity reductions on greenhouse gas emissions. Medium-term Initiatives (2015-2025) and Long-term Initiatives (2025-2050) will simply finalize these measures.

It's all part of a realistic approach that will protect our environment and the health of Canadians.

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Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:53 PM in Views by Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill

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Comments

Posted by: Chester on February 22 2007 1:07 AM

Interesting how quiet people are when the rest of the story is told. I sure didn't know the details of what was expected and the consequences of this. Easy to criticize when only part of the information is told. Why is that? Maybe the media would prefer to let us jump to conclusions based on the limited info we are allowed to hear. Chester

Posted by: Chadermando on February 22 2007 2:42 AM

I have never been able to figure out the merits of an 'emissions credit' trading system. I agree it sounds like socialist wealth transfers. First question is who sets the quota's, can quota's be manipulated prior to valuation date, do reductions from valuation date make fake profits for companies that can 'play the game'?

Serious concerns about something so disconnected from something that fairly measures performance and punish/reward for performance.

I think it would be far more fair and easier to implement an emission tax to large polluters, and legislated manufacture emission reductions for consumers products. The only problem with this proposal, is the tax could then go to general revenue just like the EI, fuel taxes, and CPP does. It would have to be a dedicated tax that goes into providing incentives for clean energy usage for it to make any kind of sense other than just another socialist or corporate welfare transfer system.

The scary part is we already have an emission tax in the form of road taxes on our gasoline and that account only sees 5 cents on the dollar returned to roads. If the conservatives see no problem with the road tax fiasco, then we have no hope for any kind of proper management of an emission tax on large industrial polluters.

Ideally we could have a system where pollution is the cost driver (taxed) for a reserve fund that could be allocated to pay for pollution reduction technologies within the largest polluters managed by an independent authority tasked with pollution reduction.

Not a system where X company sells his fake pollution reductions to Y company to pollute on X companies behalf thereby implementing a taxation of pollution, but rather than allocating that taxation though government to pay for pollution reductions we would under an emissions trading system allocate the pollution tax to the company x�s of this world who gamed the system and have no obligation how to spend the emission trading profits, meanwhile company y�s of this world continue to pay to pollute anyways.

Posted by: diplomat on February 22 2007 8:28 AM

"Second, throughout the past decade, Canada's emissions didn't drop ... they skyrocketed!"

"However, over 13
years of Liberal-style environmental policy, our emissions soared by 27 percent and the gap between Canada's Kyoto target and our actual emissions grew to a whopping 35 percent."

The rapid development of the extraction of oil from the Alberta tar sands would have happened one way or the other, no matter whether the Liberals or the Conservatives had been in charge in Ottawa.

It is the cause for most of the increase of GHGs and it made it impossible for Canada to meet the targets set with the best intentions.

Perhaps Mr. Harper's friend George W. Bush can assist us by mandating higher fuel standards for American vehicles? Oh, I forget, GWB doesn't believe that global warming is happening!

It is high time to stop the tiresome party
line blah-blah-blah blaming and start working across party lines to solve this problem!

On another note: I wish to express my extreme disappointment with the decision of Mr. Harper to introduce vicious American style attack ads into Canadian politics!

Sad day, indeed.

Posted by: caranmacil on February 24 2007 3:59 PM

You know, there isnt really any reason ( i hesitate to use the word 'excuse') for people not to know about the emission credit system as it was reported when Kyoto was first described to us. The truth is that people just didnt care. We probably wouldnt care now either if the media were not telling us we absolutely have to. Global warming is a political issue these days, period. The opposition is looking (both federally and provincially) for SOME lever to use against the ruling govts. What else can they do with the economy going so well? So we have a lot of debate on afghanistan (and shameless exploitation of dead soldiers if you ask me) and a sudden interest in fighting the great 'threat' of global warming. The sad part is that once again we are the patsies, running around like the people on Southpark, crying that the sky is warming up, presumably as a prelude to it falling.
Whether the current warming trend is due to man or not, the fact is that kyoto is as good for canada as is most of the UN resolutions. I for one am not interested in meeting Kyoto targets just to please people in other countries. We can reduce our emissions without the Kyoto accord if that is what we want to do. When i see people buying smaller houses and cars and voting to pay some big eco-taxes then i will believe that people are serious about the whole global warming thing and are not just being lead by their noses.

Posted by: caranmacil on February 24 2007 4:00 PM

PS
Though i didnt vote for him, kudos to Mr Hill for actually trying to explain his govts side of this issue rather than just letting it fester. Lets see more of thesame.

Posted by: diplomat on February 24 2007 7:21 PM

I have no problem with Mr. Hill explaining his government's side of the story, but he can NEVER resist bashing, demonizing and denigrating the governments of Canada that were in charge before his time.

Many countries are already actively engaged in carbon credit trading and sooner or later we will also have to step up to the plate.

Canada is part of the global community, we import from and export to other countries, we have cultural and historical ties and WE ALL BREATHE THE SAME AIR!

I really don't care very much whether or not global warming is all fact, or part fact and fiction.

If the debate and the resulting efforts lead to cleaner air, cleaner water, a cleaner environment and more responsible management of all our resources - then, not only us will be better off but all the generations that follow us.

Canada cannot go it alone in this developing global effort. We can arrogantly try to do so, but the rest of the world (except for the USA and Australia!) will not look upon us very kindly.