Liberal Leadership Candidate Bob Rae's plan to fight Global Warmin

[gerryhatrick]

Liberal Leadership Candidate Bob Rae Outlines

Comprehensive Plan on Global Warming

Toronto - October 13, 2006 - Today the Honourable Bob Rae, candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada unveiled his comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming.

"Climate change is the gravest environmental challenge facing our planet this century. It is both a global responsibility and a Canadian opportunity. We need to learn from some of the false starts on this file, and commit to a plan that will achieve meaningful reductions in our emissions. We owe it to all regions of this country, to our children, to their children, and to our fellow inhabitants of the planet", said Bob Rae.

"Investing in alternative energy and innovative green technologies will help ensure Canadian businesses become more competitive in the global economy. Prosperity and sustainability do go hand-in-hand," said Mr. Rae

He added: "Stephen Harper's Conservatives are ignoring the number one environmental issue we face. Their so-called "Clear Air Policy" fails to address the warming issues that lie behind the increasing number of smog days we see. The Harper plan is nothing but "smog and mirrors."

Mr. Rae's plan consists of the following elements:

1. Establish a hard cap regulation on the CO2 emissions from Large Final Emitters (LFES). Allow LFEs to buy and sell emissions credits in a domestic carbon exchange, with opportunities to participate in international carbon trading. Reduce the total number of credits at a pace that ensures emissions targets are being met, including the 2012 Kyoto targets, and targets set thereafter;

2. Commit to coming as close as possible to achieving Canada's Kyoto objectives for 2012, and establish firm targets for subsequent periods, including matching the European Union targets of 15-30% below current levels by 2020. Commit Canada to the long-term target recommended by the National Roundtable on the Environment of a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050;

3. Establish a system of tracking spending and results against stated targets, and report publicly and regularly on progress, as recommended by the Commissioner of the Environment. As part of this effort, pass Bill C-288, the Liberal-sponsored Bill (Rodriguez and Godfrey) currently before the House that is designed to help "ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol", and includes annual reporting to Parliament on progress;

4. Create a long-term, federal "Green Infrastructure" Program for partnering with provinces and municipalities on projects that contribute to a reduced-emissions economy. This would support the development of alternative energy sources, an East-West power grid, with more distributed and diverse sources of energy, improved transit, and infrastructure designed to withstand the pressures of a changing climate;

5. Implement regulated standards for vehicle emissions standards to match and even improve on what is being achieved by other leading jurisdictions, following the expiry of the voluntary code for emissions standards in 2010.

6. Re-establish the climate change programs recently cancelled by the Harper government and commended by the Commissioner of the Environment, including the Energuide for Houses and Low Income Household Programs, the Wind Power Production Incentive and Renewable Power Production Incentive, and the One Tonne Challenge;

7. Provide tax incentives to encourage builders and buyers of new homes to meet the R2000 standard for energy efficiency. Provide tax incentives to encourage energy retrofits of existing homes. Over time, amend the Canada Building Code and work with Provinces to include a regulated standard for high energy efficiency for homes and businesses;

8. Provide incentives to encourage the purchase of high efficiency appliances for homes and businesses. Over time, introduce through the Energy Efficiency Act a regulated standard for high efficiency;

9. Strengthen assistance to the agriculture sector to assist in the expansion of production and availability of biofuels, including ethanol and biodiesel;

10. Expand the size and the focus of youth internship programs, such as Katimavik and Canada World Youth, to provide Canada's young people with the opportunity to work on diverse environmental remediation and alternative energy projects here and abroad. Start with a doubling of the size of the current programs to accommodate this "green focus";

11. Increase overseas development assistance with a focus on "green projects" in developing nations to help them develop low carbon emission economies, and position them to participate fully in future rounds of Kyoto. Such initiatives would be designed to count towards Canada's obligations for emission reduction under the "Clean Development Mechanisms" of the Kyoto Protocol. These increases would be part of Canada's attaining the Pearson target of .7 of GDP for Official Development Assistance by 2015;

http://www.bobrae.ca/en/pressreleases.php#47

I imagine Dion will be Environment Minister in Rae's government.

[Charles Anthony]

I imagine Dion will be Environment Minister in Rae's government.

What a fascinating idea for a highly unique and brand new topic!

Come on. Dion is not even mentioned in your quotation.

There are buckets of threads dealing with the politics of global warming in Canada. What is the big deal about a hypothetical minister of a hypothetical party leader whose party hypothetically gains power in the next election?

Should we have a separate thread if news breaks out that some back-bench MP happens to read a newspaper from which a flyer falls out onto the ground -- a flyer which advertizes a local Global Warming fundraising party?

[B. Max]

Rae is insane. Alberta would be gone with in six months if he was ever elected.

[gerryhatrick]

Come on. Dion is not even mentioned in your quotation.

I don't understand your objection. Am I not allowed to speculate on the composition of a new Liberal Government?

[Canuck E Stan]

Come on. Dion is not even mentioned in your quotation.

Besides, doesn't she have a long range contract to sing in Vegas?

But what the hey, if he thinks she'll make a good environment minister........

[Charles Anthony]

Besides, doesn't she have a long range contract to sing in Vegas?

Yes but she also made a promise.

J'irai où tu iras

J'irai où tu iras, mon pays sera toi

J'irai où tu iras qu'importe la place

Qu'importe l'endroit

D'eux

But what the hey, if he thinks she'll make a good environment minister........

Indeed, she certainly sounds like she has done her homework.

Je veux des cocotiers des plages

Et des palmiers sous le vent

Le feu du soleil au visage

Et le bleu des océans

Je veux des chameaux des mirages

Et des déserts envoûtants

Des caravanes et des voyages comme sur les dépliants

D'eux

--or, at least she looked at the flyers! What the hell! She is probably just as prepared as Bob would need her to be.

Am I not allowed to speculate on the composition of a new Liberal Government?

Sure!

Be sure to remind us when somebody on Bob's campaign team has a kid who is presenting a Global Warming science project in school. We would not want to miss that news either.

[watching&waiting]

Well not only will Rae not do well in Ontario but with that plan he will be hated equally by all provinces. If that is his method and way he would proceed, then he does not stand a chance of leading the party. So I guess Iggy is going to be the leader.

[geoffrey]

Rae is insane. Alberta would be gone with in six months if he was ever elected.

I fear Ignatieff's insistance on the carbon tax even more.

If I were to vote for a party on environmentalist terms, I'd never choose the Liberals. They had 13 years and nothing in the environment whatsoever improved. Mulroney had acid rain at least... under the Liberals emissions have skyrockted... cancer causing agents in our food, water and air are many times higher.

Really gerry, or anyone else that thinks the Liberals are soooo environmentalist... please vote NDP or Green or even Bloc if in Quebec. The Liberals can't be trusted with our environment. If we followed their trends like you chicken littles follow a couple years of warming (in the big picture), we'll all be dead in a few short years.

[jbg]

What a steaming load of horseh** that program is.

The program will impose immense costs for a phenomena that is most likely cyclical.

It's a bureaucrat's full employment program.

[Argus]

1. Establish a hard cap regulation on the CO2 emissions from Large Final Emitters (LFES). Allow LFEs to buy and sell emissions credits in a domestic carbon exchange, with opportunities to participate in international carbon trading.

A hard cap like this means that individual companies which want to expand will be ordered to pay money to "buy" emission credits, either from other companies or from foreign countries. The certain result is that auto, aircraft, steel and other manufacturing companies will stop building factories in Canada and will build in the US instead. That refinery the Irvings are considering putting up out east will be relocated down south.

In fact, existing factories could be shut down and relocated.

In short, this accomplishes absolutely nothing for the environment, yet at the same time heavily penalizes the Canadian economy.

Commit Canada to the long-term target recommended by the National Roundtable on the Environment of a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050;

Didn't Harper already do that?

5. Implement regulated standards for vehicle emissions standards to match and even improve on what is being achieved by other leading jurisdictions, following the expiry of the voluntary code for emissions standards in 2010.

Which will add thousands to the cost of new cars. Well, at least this will act as a spur to the used car markets. Canadians will stop buying new cars but will continue to repair the old clunkers as long as humanly possible. Tough luck if you're in the auto industry. You get a dual whammy. Gee, I wonder what Dalton McGuinty will think of this!

8. Provide incentives to encourage the purchase of high efficiency appliances for homes and businesses. Over time, introduce through the Energy Efficiency Act a regulated standard for high efficiency;

Waste of money. As the older machines run down people will buy newer machines naturally. You don't have to encourage them to do it early to meet some artificial deadline.

[Canuck E Stan]

With everyone in a big flap over 2050 as a target date, looking at all the Liberal candidate's environment programs you'll see they all use the same date and basically the same kind of timetable as the Conservatives. The big losers in all this will be the environment when the program by the government gets rejected and we have to wait for it's implementation by another government.

The program should be accepted to get it moving if concern for the environment is really a concern.....which obviously to the opposition it is not.

All the Liberal candidates should condemn it as not being perfect and say we'll fix it up when we get in.

But to these hypocrites who sat on their asses for 13 years over this issue,it's not about the environment, it's all about politics.

[gerryhatrick]

With everyone in a big flap over 2050 as a target date, looking at all the Liberal candidate's environment programs you'll see they all use the same date and basically the same kind of timetable as the Conservatives.

You fail to be informed on the matter. It's in the topic post.

Rae's plan does not employ ONLY a 2050 target as the Conservatives do, he also embraces the 2012 Kyoto targets and 2020 targets.

The Conservatives only target is 2050. How convenient, let's them off the hook from doing anything.

Let's be accurate here, k?

[B. Max]

The Conservatives only target is 2050. How convenient, let's them off the hook from doing anything.

Let's be accurate here, k?

Two things, those ridiculous targets can't be met, and there is no proof that they need to be.

[Canuck E Stan]

The Conservatives only target is 2050. How convenient, let's them off the hook from doing anything.

Let's be accurate here, k?

Only a dufus who hasn't read the Conservative plan would make a statement like that.

[gerryhatrick]

Two things, those ridiculous targets can't be met, and there is no proof that they need to be.

You know nothing about the targets and what is required to meet them, so why pretend you do?

And the reality of Global Warming is no longer a question to any serious mind, so questions about the need to reduce greenhouse gasses are ridiculous.

[B. Max]

You know nothing about the targets and what is required to meet them, so why pretend you do?

And the reality of Global Warming is no longer a question to any serious mind, so questions about the need to reduce greenhouse gasses are ridiculous.

There is no proof of man made global warming, fact. Get that through your head. Six percent less C02 than 1990. In 1990 we were in recession, so you would have a recession six percent worse with no chance of getting out of it. It is a matter of simple math to figure out what would have to be done and the Alberta government did it a few years ago. Any government that tried it would be dragged out onto the streets and strung up to the nearest light poles.

[jbg]

There is no proof of man made global warming, fact. Get that through your head. Six percent less C02 than 1990. In 1990 we were in recession, so you would have a recession six percent worse with no chance of getting out of it. It is a matter of simple math to figure out what would have to be done and the Alberta government did it a few years ago. Any government that tried it would be dragged out onto the streets and strung up to the nearest light poles.

Europe was well aware, when setting the 1990 base in 1997, that Europe was at a peak in 1990 and the US/Canada were in a recessionary trough. The treaty's date base was no accident.

I believe some countries are using a 1986 base. Another evidence of the cynicism (sp) of the targets is the exclusion of an aluminum smelter in Iceland (recently constructed) from the Kyoto calculations.

[gerryhatrick]

There is no proof of man made global warming, fact.

And aliens live among us, fact.

Or how 'bout this one....George Bush ordered 9/11, fact!

You get the picture.

[B. Max]

There is no proof of man made global warming, fact.

And aliens live among us, fact.

Or how 'bout this one....George Bush ordered 9/11, fact!

You get the picture.

I would say your credibility was going to suffer but you don't have any.

[gerryhatrick]

There is no proof of man made global warming, fact.

And aliens live among us, fact.

Or how 'bout this one....George Bush ordered 9/11, fact!

You get the picture.

I would say your credibility was going to suffer but you don't have any.

Whatever B.Max. You trot out that one every third post. You're the guy who thinks Global Warming is a grand hoax perpetrated by socialists. There are labels for folks like yourself but I'd probably awaken the resident hall monitor if I tagged you with them.

[B. Max]

Ooops there's a problem with global warming.

http://www.leightonsmith.co.nz/Default.asp...ics&id=5201

[gerryhatrick]

Ooops there's a problem with global warming.

http://www.leightonsmith.co.nz/Default.asp...ics&id=5201

Yes there is a problem with it.....too many liars and deniers are unable to come to terms with it. Weak minds won't allow them to face the daunting reality, so they seek out any scrap of crap they can to hide behind and pretend it's not an issue.

Pretty sad, actually.

[B. Max]

Ooops there's a problem with global warming.

http://www.leightonsmith.co.nz/Default.asp...ics&id=5201

Yes there is a problem with it.....too many liars and deniers are unable to come to terms with it. Weak minds won't allow them to face the daunting reality, so they seek out any scrap of crap they can to hide behind and pretend it's not an issue.

Pretty sad, actually.

No it those brainwashed by the gloom and doom industry that don't want to face the fact they've been duped.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I love it! Both Liberal leadership frontrunners will promote the cause of Alberta getting out of Canada.

Go Bob or Go Iggy.....please be elected so Alberta can be free at last!!

[B. Max]

I love it! Both Liberal leadership frontrunners will promote the cause of Alberta getting out of Canada.

Go Bob or Go Iggy.....please be elected so Alberta can be free at last!!

I second that motion.