To save the world, Stephen Harper must be defeated

A few years ago, our household took advantage of a federal/provincial tax rebate program to upgrade the energy efficiency of our old house.

The money we got back as tax rebates didn't come anywhere close to what we spent on a new high-efficiency furnace, plus other less costly improvements, but the reductions in our monthly gas bill were immediately noticeable.

But only for a short time. In successive winters, I was back to gasping at our utility bills. Only during an office gripe session about the rising cost of everything did I discover that work mates with far newer houses than mine were paying more than double our bills for winter heating.

The lesson being that whatever your situation, you get used to it. If I got my friend's gas bill in one month, I'd hit the roof. If I got them for eight months, I'd probably see it as normal.

The program I participated in was ended by the Harper government a few weeks after I got in. It was an election goodie, and there was no election forthcoming, so the goodie was withdrawn.

The program did create some short-term jobs and no doubt created a lot of sales of more-expensive gas furnaces. But without the promise of votes, being energy efficient has always been a non-starter for Stephen Harper.

Really, he couldn't care less about energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, and he couldn't care less if you, I or the whole world say so.

So you have to chuckle a bit watching Harper give the news conference committing Canada to total elimination of all fossil fuels by the end of this century. We have a new word: decarbonization.

He's probably the only national leader in the world who can be pilloried for agreeing to that. Chiefly because nobody believes Harper's promises on climate change.

Back home, Liberal critic John McKay said Harper “has embarrassed Canada on the world stage,” with his agreement with the other leaders of G7 countries recently reached in Germany on the need for severe reductions in burning carbon for energy.

You could not get a more lukewarm endorsement of an earth-changing, economy changing goal, than that given by Harper after the G7. He probably won't even refer to it again until forced to, at the next international conference on climate change to be held in Paris in December.

Nobody is going to shut down the Canadian energy industry and turn out the lights, said Harper. No indeed.

This is about “milestones over decades,” he said. Milestones he has no intention of reaching for.

After committing Canada to becoming a “clean energy superpower” in 2008, there has been no significant federal initiative on climate change since. Not one.

By dint of a deep economic recession, and technological improvements that were coming on the the market anyway, Canada achieved a 4.8 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005-2011.

What was the goal? Thirty per cent? Fifty per cent by 2050? Or was that 70 per cent? Who cares? Certainly not Stephen Harper.

Mark Jaccard is a sustainable energy professor at Simon Fraser University. He says if the feds showed leadership on pricing carbon, so that the process of producing less of it becomes feasible, the first steps to the milestones Harper spoke of would be taken.

Jaccard says if Canada were to reach the 70-per-cent reduction goal Harper agreed to last time he lied on the world stage, getting the rest could be done in a decade — 40 years ahead of the schedule he lied about in this latest commitment.

“The more important thing, though, is that he hasn't done anything to reach the 2050 target,” says Jaccard.

Canadian Press reported word from anonymous sources in the discussion rooms that Canada and Japan both worked behind the scenes to water down the G-7 agreement on climate change.

As of January 2014, climate models by researchers in Australia showed a variety of outcomes for the world, given certain levels of greenhouse gas emissions globally by the end of this century.

The worst, most catastrophic of the possible outcomes were predicted to be the most likely. A rise in global temperatures by four degrees will be bad, but the more likely models predicted a rise up to eight degrees. That's if no bold ventures are taken to reduce climate-altering emissions.

The scientists and bureaucrats say efforts toward even modest GHG reductions will require federal regulations and a national program of carbon pricing.

The only voice our government heeds is that of the next poll of voting intentions.

If voters do not tell their MPs they want leadership on climate change, and convince them they are willing to pay an up-front cost to help save the planet, all our international commitments are just wind.

Either that, or Canadian voters must defeat this government.