With Kyoto dead in Canada, Tories come out with their own green planApril 26, 2007 - 18:11
By: JENNIFER DITCHBURN
TORONTO (CP) - The door was firmly closed on the Kyoto treaty Thursday as the Conservative government heralded its own wide-ranging environmental plan, one that it says will save billions in health costs and only marginally affect the Canadian economy.
Dubbed "Turning the Corner," the strategy focuses equally on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality - a favourite issue of Prime Minister Stephen Harper who suffered from childhood asthma.
Everything from the efficiency of household dishwashers to the carbon dioxide emissions of Alberta's oil sands will fall under new regulations over the next several years.
Canadian households will also get hit in the pocketbook, with prices for appliances, cars and electricity expected to rise slightly.
Still, the government promised the plan would mean only a 0.5 per cent dip in the GDP, would raise gas prices by only six per cent and would have a negligible impact on jobs.
"Our plan strikes a balance between the perfection that some environmentalists might be seeking and the status quo that some in industry seek to protect," said Environment Minister John Baird.
"Canadians demand leadership from their government for both a clean environment and a growing economy."
The measures represent months of work by the Tories, who realized by the end of last year that the environment had exploded in the Canadian consciousness. With former environment minister Stephane Dion as the new Liberal leader, and figures like Al Gore and David Suzuki achieving rock star status, nothing less than a complete overhaul of their policy was in order.
Their challenge now is to sell their scheme as one that is tough enough on polluters. They'll also have to persuade Canadians that moving away from the Kyoto treaty was unavoidable given the situation they found on taking office.
"What we're representing today does meet Kyoto, if today was 1997. But the reality is that I didn't decide to do nothing in 1997," Baird said. "I can't take responsibility for 10 lost years, but I can fully accept our responsibilities today and we're doing just that."
The strategy has two major components: dealing with the major industrial emitters of greenhouse gases, and clearing the air of smog and other pollutants. The government predicts that improving air quality will save the country $6 billion annually in health costs.
Companies that belch smog-producing pollutants will face tougher regulations than those that emit greenhouse gases. Reductions of sulphur oxide, for example, will have to attain a reduction of 55 per cent by 2015 and the targets will be firm limits. The provinces already largely manage such pollutants.
Meanwhile, industries that emit a lot of carbon dioxide will face a reduction of 26 per cent by the same year, and targets will be based on their level of production rather than a firm limit.
That so-called intensity target is one the main differences between what the government proposes and what the opposition and environmentalists have railed against.
"This means that pollution can go up as long as the intensity goes down," said Aaron Freeman of Environmental Defence. "Well the environment doesn't care about intensity, it cares about absolute amounts of pollution."
The other major difference is Kyoto.
The Tories' promise is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over 2006 levels by 2020. The Kyoto commitment was to reduce by six per cent over 1990 levels by 2012. The gap is between 40 and 50 per cent, according to environmental groups. The government did not endorse those figures.
Opposition parties will not have an opportunity to vote on the new scheme: it will be undertaken purely through regulatory changes that do not require their support. Ironically, the government's first stab at going green last fall - the Clean Air Act - was studied by parliamentarians for months.
Industry will have choices for how it meets its reduction targets, and those options reflect a change of heart within the Conservative government.
After railing against carbon-credit trading schemes, where a heavy polluter buys credits from a cleaner company, a domestic market is now being advocated. Companies can also buy into a environmental technology research fund at a rate of $15 per tonne of carbon as a way of meeting their obligations - interestingly, the same rate that the previous Liberal government had promoted.
That is expected to be labelled a tax by big industry, who have been waiting anxiously to find out what the cost will be to its bottom line. Still, the $15 is what many industry players privately said they were hoping would be the ceiling.
"This announcement is just more hot air," Liberal MP John Godfrey said of the entire Tory plan. "They call it a plan, but they're really announcing that they believe nothing can be done."
NDP Leader Jack Layton was equally dismissive: "This won't get the job done. With this plan we fall further behind our international obligations."
Other measures included in Thursday's announcement:
-new car efficiency requirements in 2011 based on the "most stringent" North American standard - a standard that has yet to be worked out. The current standard on the continent is below that which California has been proposing.
-efficiency standards for products that have never been regulated, such as industrial washing machines and boilers.
-a stiffening of existing standards for household appliances like dishwashers and dehumidifiers.
-a future program for tackling indoor air pollutants, including more oversight over how buildings are constructed.
All of this will translate into some prices increases for consumers, Baird acknowledged, but those will be "manageable." "It's a small price to pay to ensure a lasting environmental legacy for future generations."
The sales job on the plan began in earnest with an announcement that was painstakingly stage-managed.
For the television cameras, a Lake Ontario pier with the Toronto skyline in the background was chosen to symbolize the happy relationship of environment and economy in the plan. Staff from the Prime Minister's Office watched over the event.
Environmentalists, the media and big business were summoned to three separate locations. The number of political aides and officials on hand rivalled that of a federal budget - the impact on the environment of bringing so many to Toronto rather than having it in Ottawa was not calculated, an official said.
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