More Gas from Ottawa

Government to buy greenhouse gas cuts
Climate-change plan relies more on incentives than industry reductions

ANDREW MILLS STAFF REPORTER
OTTAWA—The ads may feature Rick Mercer but the government wasn't kidding about the One-Tonne Challenge.
Canada's latest climate change plan is going to shift much of the load of reducing greenhouse gas emissions away from the 700 companies that produce half of those gases — and closer to you.
The federal government's updated climate change plan, due to be released today, is counting on groups like small businesses, farmers, municipalities and the provinces to pull more weight in the struggle to meet Canada's Kyoto targets, the Toronto Star has learned.
The old plan, presented in 2002, asked some heavy emitters, like oil and mining companies and steelmakers, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by unreasonable amounts that would have put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Not anymore, said Industry Minister David Emerson.
"I think you will find that, in fact, (the plan) is not a threat to competitiveness," he said in a committee meeting yesterday. "If anything it's an opportunity for industry to become more competitive." (ed)
The updated plan being called "Moving Forward on Climate Change," will outline how Canada plans to meet its Kyoto targets by 2012. The government has pledged to cut Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to be 6 per cent below emissions in 1990 by 2008-2012.
Today's plan, estimated to cost taxpayers about $10 billion, will rely heavily on groups like communities and farmers to take financial incentives in return for cutting their own greenhouse gas emissions.
Since late last year, comedian Mercer has been appearing on TV ads promoting the One-Tonne Challenge asking consumers to cut emissions by using less energy, conserving water and reducing waste.

My God, are they really going to try to roll this out? Kyoto is a mythical creature to the left but to the rest of us it is an unproven utopian goal based on increasingly shaky ground. It is also an invitation for the free west to commit mass economic suicide, desperately trying to meet goals that China and India will scoff at.

Further more, as the Liberal Party's goose continues to simmer, large business interests in Canada who did not approve but played ball to grease the wheels will be looking more and more to their own political brothers, the Conservative Party. Perhaps its time for them to come out of the wilderness