Federal Commissioner - Canadian Climate Policy A "Losing Battle"

[hatrack]

OTTAWA -- Canada's fight against global warming has been a losing battle with little accountability and could leave taxpayers on the hook for up to $1 billion in subsidies for polluting companies, according to the federal commissioner of the environment.

"On the basis of this year's work, I am more troubled than ever by the federal government's longstanding failure to confront one of the greatest challenges of our time," commissioner Johanne Gelinas states in a new report on federal climate-change programs.

Gelinas issues a call for the Tory government not to abandon progress the former Liberal government has made, however, and said "a massive scale- up of efforts is needed" to at least slow the growth of greenhouse-gas production in the country.

"It must stop playing in the margins and get to the heart of the problem," Gelinas said during a press conference. Gelinas' report spells out a litany of issues with the former Liberal governments' three major plans to reduce the country's emissions of greenhouse gases

EDIT

http://torontosun.com/News/Canada/2006/09/29/1917961-sun.html

[nam78_two]

1. recommended/nt

[Gregorian]

2. I don't advocate doing nothing. BUT, nothing is going to change.

Sorry. I know people don't want to hear that.

Humans only change when there is a crisis. Hearing about global climate change is not a crisis. Treading water is a crisis.

Who is going to stop driving first?
Who is not going to chop down their forest for lumber first?
Who is going to not go on that travel vacation first?
Who is going to limit their family size to one, or zero?

It's me, me, me. And until we are treading water, only those like you and I are going to be responsible. I'm sorry. And as for India and China, they are full steam ahead. And don't tell me about electric cars and solar energy. Those are just fractional differences. And they're negated by the increasing population.

[applegrove]

3. Thanks for posting!

[YankeyMCC]

4. Between the sensitivity of the arctic to climate change and

the US looking hungrily at her waters Canada is very much between a rock and a hard place. Seems to me their government would do well to heed Mr Gelinas' advice.