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Last, dead last. That's where Canada stands among the G8 when it comes to climate-change policies.

In fairness, Russia gets a slightly better mark - finishing seventh - in the study by the World Wildlife Federation and the German-based insurance company Allianz only because it gets credit for the emissions that disappeared when the Soviet Union evaporated. So Canada should really rank seventh out of eight. So let's hear it for Canada: “We're No. 7!”

Canada's emissions have risen faster than those of any industrialized country since the Kyoto Protocol was ratified. At Kyoto, Canada pledged to reduce emissions by 6 per cent from 1990 levels. Instead, they have increased by 26 per cent.

Germany, Britain and France, by contrast, have met or exceeded their Kyoto-reduction targets, although Japan and Italy have not. (The U.S. did not sign the pact; its emissions have risen slightly less rapidly than Canada's.) Not surprisingly, Germany, Britain and France rank first, second and third in the WWF/Allianz rankings.

Okay, so that was the past. What about the future? Can Canada rise up the ranks? Not with current policies, although Prime Minister Stephen Harper undoubtedly will assert the contrary when he addresses the issue at this week's G8 summit in Italy.

Various provinces are taking action. British Columbia has its carbon tax. Quebec has ambitious targets. Manitoba has reduced emissions. Ontario is phasing out, or so it says, coal-fired plants. But Alberta and Saskatchewan remain wedded to “intensity based” reductions, which mean more, not fewer, emissions over time.

And yes, investments are being made: some wisely, some stupidly. Alberta has its $2-billion carbon capture and storage plans, although we're still waiting to see which projects will be selected. Ottawa has its $1-billion capture and storage budget, plus subsidies for alternative energy projects. Provinces, too, are subsidizing alternative energy.

But the $1.5-billion spent from 2008 to 2017 for corn-based ethanol is a complete waste of money, except as a farm subsidy. The tax credit for public transit is also money down the drain from a climate-change perspective.

The good news is that the Harper government has essentially handed over important parts of Canada's climate-change policy to the United States; the bad news is that some of the emerging U.S. policy isn't very useful.

Canada will follow the announced U.S. limits on auto emissions, a step forward, although not as aggressive a step as if the countries had followed California standards. Nonetheless, it is a step. Canada has also said it will create a cap-and-trade system for industrial emitters, although no details have been announced while the country waits to see what the Americans will do.

The House of Representatives narrowly passed a clean energy bill but proposes giving away 85 per cent of the pollution permits, thereby vitiating in the early years the effectiveness of the proposed cap-and-trade system.

If this becomes the U.S. policy - we'll see what the Senate does, and how the Obama administration reacts - the system will be a weak one. Undoubtedly, the business lobby in Canada will immediately demand a similarly weak system, just as the lobby always insisted, post-Kyoto, that Canada should do nothing unless the United States acted, in case we injured our “competitive position.”

The G8 discussion on climate change will be the last one before the December negotiations in Copenhagen toward a new international emissions reduction treaty. In the talks thus far, Canada has hardly been a leader, demanding consideration for “national circumstances” - that is, our particular characteristics of climate, distance, forest cover and so on.

In fairness, other countries are also moving away from more aggressive action. Japan recently presented watered-down policies, and Australia pushed back its measures by one year. Both came in response to the recession. Even Germany advocated extensive exemptions for its heavy industry in auctioning pollution credits within the European Union Emissions Trading System. The U.S. political system's ability and willingness to produce anything meaningful remains in doubt.

Climate change is not an issue that Mr. Harper feels passionately about, or at least reckons carries any political advantage. Neither he nor Environment Minister Jim Prentice try to educate or exhort Canadians to take action.

Mind you, given Canada's track record, silence might be the preferred option.