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Canadian Climate Coalition
La Coalition canadienne sur le climat
For Immediate Release: January 17, 2006
Backgrounder on the Conservative
Party position on Climate Change
The refusal of the Conservative Party to respond clearly
as to its intentions regarding climate change action for Canada
makes it difficult for the public to assess its commitment
to any action at all.
In an effort to fill in the blanks, the Canadian Climate
Coalition has documented the following key positions of the
Conservative Party, with sources and references identified.
1) Bob Mills, M.P. for Red Deer and Conservative Environment
Critic confirmed that if the Conservative Party formed government
it would not use the Canadian Environmental Protection Act
(CEPA) to regulate greenhouse gases (GHG.)
2) The Conservative Party has announced two measures with
a bearing on climate change:
- A tax deduction for transit pass users; and
- A 5% average renewable content in Canadian gasoline
and diesel fuel, such as ethanol and bio-diesel by
2010.
The first measure is not a bad idea in itself, although it
makes more sense to do this through the deduction for employer
provided transit passes that the Green Budget Coalition has
been advocating for years, than through an individual line
item deduction.
The transit pass tax deduction is stated in the Conservative
fiscal plan to be $2 billion with the Climate Fund identified
as the source. The Climate Fund, announced last April as part
of Project Green, is currently funded at $1 billion over five
years. This part of the Conservative fiscal plan is an implicit
message that the Climate Fund in Project Green will be cancelled.
There is no explanation in the Conservative Plan as to where
the other $1 billion will be found.
The impact of the transit pass tax deduction will be negligible
in terms of carbon reductions. According to data from the
multi-stakeholder Transportation Table, tax deductible employer
provided transit passes would yield 0.2 megatonnes (200,000
tonnes) of carbon reductions . According to a statement by
Stephane Dion referring to Environment Canada sources, a blanket
tax deduction such as that proposed by the Harper Conservatives,
would yield 800,000 tonnes of carbon reduction. In order to
be very generous in estimating the carbon impact of the Conservative
tax deduction for transit passes, we are estimating one megatonne
of carbon reductions. The current Climate Fund is aimed at
a 100 megatonne reduction.
When one costs the price per tonne of carbon, (1 MT costs
$2 billion, therefore 1 tonne costs $2000), the Harper plan
to address global climate change, as far as he has said anything,
will cost 200 to 800 times more for each tonne of emissions
than Canada's current Project Green (which was also "made
in Canada"). Project Green costs break down as follows:
100 MT (100 million tonnes) costs $1 billion; 1 tonne costs
$10.
3) The Conservative Party answers to the Sierra Club of Canada
questionnaire avoided a direct answer on a specific long term
target for GHG reductions, but did hint that no agreement
without the U.S. should be pursued.
4) Harper was more explicit in an interview with the Calgary
Herald on Sunday, January 7, 2006 and confirmed that he would
not be bound to Kyoto targets in an interview in French with
Canadian Press in Halifax on Thursday, January 12, 2006. In
the Canadian Press interview, Mr. Harper erroneously stated
that China and India are not parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
Both China and India have ratified, but are not within the
Annex 1 group of countries with binding emission reduction
targets.
5) In the 2004 election, Mr. Harper made a number of statements
questioning the science of climate change. In this election,
it appears that Mr. Harper is being less transparent but has
not likely changed his views. In response to a question from
the anti-Kyoto Montreal Economic Institute, the Conservative
Party confirmed that it disbelieves the science behind the
so-called "hockey stick" graph. The Conservative
Party wrote that the graph "has been discredited and
should no longer be used as a tool to demonstrate the presence
of climate change." This position is at variance with
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change within the United
Nations system and the scientific academies of sixteen nations.
6) The Conservative Plan has committed to honouring the existing
agreement in the New Deal for Cities, but not beyond the initial
five year commitment. Notably, in terms of climate change,
the Harper Conservatives would change the criteria for the
New Deal to allow non-sustainable projects to be funded, particularly
for building new highways.
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Back
to release ...
Canadian Climate Coalition/la Coalition
canadienne sur le climat
CPAWS-Wildlands League - Greenspiration - Pembina Institute
BC Sustainable Energy Association - Manitoba Wildlands - Windfall Ecology Centre
World Federalist Movement Canada - Toxics Watch Coalition Québec-vert-Kyoto
Coalition for a Green Economy - We C.A.R.E - Sierra Club of Canada
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