Canuck Politics

Prime Minister Harper says the world must recognise the economic impact of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the short term, while driving technological innovations that will reduce emissions in the long term.

It has to be recognized that the current technological mix leads to a certain levels of emission, and that is what has to be changed. And that is going to take some time.

It has to be done, but it will not be done by simply trying to pretend economic imperatives don’t exist, because all that happens when that happens is people set targets, and then don’t meet them.

- Stephen Harper

President Obama and Prime Minister Harper answer questions from the media during Obama’s first foreign visit to Ottawa.

Afghanistan

Climate Change

Free Trade  and Economic Integration

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion announced details of the Liberal Party’s Green Shift carbon tax at a party rally in Ottawa.

The plan includes a tax on carbon emissions against big polluters with tax cuts and rebates for individuals intended to offset increased energy prices caused by the tax.

Dion later challenged Harper to a public debate saying he wants a substantive discussion on the issue.

Related Videos:

• Video: Harper promotes Canada’s emission reduction plan in Europe
• Video: Stéphane Dion proposes carbon ‘tax shift’

Links:

• Liberal Party website: The Green Shift

Prime Minister Harper promotes Canada’s plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce in London, England.

Links:

• Canada’s Environment Plan: Turning the Corner Regulatory Framework
• Video: Stéphane Dion proposes carbon ‘tax shift’
• Video: Stephen Harper’s economic plan

Stephen Harper says Canada will be a world leader in the fight against global warming and in the development of clean energy technology.

Harper chose climate Change as the topic of his address to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney, Australia.   He stressed the need for an inclusive approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that involves all countries working toward common targets.

Harper outlined Canada’s approach, saying the plan could be model for a new international agreement. The plan includes:

• Mandatory targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18% per unit of production over the next 3 years, and then a further 2% reduction in intensity each year thereafter
• Macro GHG reduction targets of 20% by 2010 and 50-70% by 2050 over 2006 levels
• Domestic carbon market and emissions trading regime
• Clean Technology Fund for developing new technologies
• Use of international credits such as the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism

We want to be a world leader in the fight against global warming and the development of clean energy technology, we want to lead not by lecturing but by example, we want to share our knowledge and experience, and we want to work with the entire international community in the quest for clean energy.

APEC leaders agreed to common “aspirational targets” at the close of the summit the following day, representing the first time both the United States and China have participated in an international climate change declaration. However, the declaration quickly rejected by environmental groups for not including legally binding targets.

Links:

• Transcript: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Address to the APEC Business Summit
• Key Points of APEC’s Sydney Declaration on Climate Change

Stéphane Dion responded to speculation the government may prorogue the current session of parliament in order to set a new agenda with a Throne Speech this fall. Any progress on un-passed bills would be lost, unless the government took steps to reintroduce the bills into the new session.

Dion asked the government to carry forward Bill C-30, The Clean Air and Climate Change Act, should they decide to prorogue. Dion also re-stated his demand that the Canada immediately notify its NATO allies that it will end its combat mission in Afghanistan when it expires in 2009.

However, Dion would not commit to defeating the government over these issues, or to supporting a Bloc Québécois threat to bring down the government over Canada’s role in Afghanistan.

May 28 to June 8, 2007 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes Canada’s climate change plan to the G-8 meeting in Berlin, saying it can be an example to other nations of how a country can reduce greenhouse gases outside the Kyoto framework.

Harper pressed for an inclusive approach that would allow nations currently without Kyoto targets, who together produce 70% of the world’s greenhouse gases, to participate in an international agreement in the post-Kyoto round of negotiations.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, NDP leader Jack Layton, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, environmentalist David Suzuki continue their opposition to the government’s plan, saying Canada must meet its Kyoto targets beginning 2008.

Leaders at the G-8 agreed for the first time to work toward absolute cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

February 5, 2007 – Stéphane Dion, Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and John Baird in Question Period on the Opposition motion to force the government to honor its Kyoto Accord commitments, and whether Canada’s Kyoto targets can be met.

In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto but I will say to the world I don’t think I will make it.

- Stéphane Dion

Links:

• National Post article: Stéphane Dion’s Kyoto Problem

Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion debate in Question Period on whether Harper is a climate change denier.

This government has made it clear, in the election campaign and since, that we accept the science and that’s why we’re acting.

- Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper describes his plan to make Canada a leader in environmental technology as the single largest industrial initiative in Canada’s history, promising details by the end of March 2007.

Harper’s plan favours domestic investments into new technologies over the purchase of carbon credits under the Kyoto protocol.

Its necessary to have environmentally sustained growth in the long-term. And there is a tremendous opportunity for Canada, with its energy super-power status, to use that to become a leader in environmental technology.

That will not be achieved … if the other parties had their way and simply transferred money overseas as a way of saying they are dealing with greenhouse gasses.

We have a plan that would put those investments here in Canada and apply Canadian technology to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

We think in the long term that will balance economic growth and environmental sustainability.

- Stephen Harper