Having ceded important parts of Canada's climate-change policies to the United States – or, to put matters more mildly, having decided to wait on the United States – the Harper government can hardly take a lead in North America on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
With climate-change talks resuming in Copenhagen in December, the U.S. remains a long way from developing a coherent position – which means Canada is stalled, too.
Today, as yesterday, the U.S., Canada and other key industrial countries are in Washington discussing their pre-Copenhagen thinking, knowing there's no consensus and huge differences between them and developing countries. For the U.S., as so often is the case, climate change is tied up in congressional politics. Until the dust settles, it will be difficult for U.S. negotiators to make commitments at Copenhagen.
On Capitol Hill, a House committee has reported out a bill of a thousand pages that proposes a cap-and-trade system, with many exceptions and exemptions, especially for the politically powerful coal industry. In the Senate, however, six committees have a piece of the climate-change file, although one, chaired by California Democrat Barbara Boxer, seems to be the most important. Chairmen of the other committees have been meeting among themselves to give advice to Ms. Boxer, but the Senate remains far from any agreement.
Moreover, the Senate is ensnarled in an acrimonious debate over national health care that is preoccupying senators, their staffs and the American people. Climate change is taking a back seat.
This week, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, conceded that climate change might have to wait until 2010 – that is, until after the Copenhagen negotiations. Even when the Senate does produce a bill, the body will have to negotiate a compromise with one already adopted by the House.
The Harper government has said it will propose a cap-and-trade system for industrial emissions. What remains unclear – Canadian officials say the government is considering all options – is whether Canada's system would be parallel to what emerges from the U.S., whether it might be integrated with the U.S. system, or whether it might even be enlarged to include Mexico.
Environmental advocates in Washington are unclear just what priority Barack Obama gives climate-change legislation. He has spoken often and passionately about the perils of climate change – in contrast to Stephen Harper, who has not used an ounce of political capital on the file.
But his abiding legislative objective remains health care. In a speech on Wall Street on Monday, he suggested that reform of financial regulation comes next, with climate change somewhat later.
As often happens in the U.S., early hopes for strong action have been diluted by political reality. Mr. Obama's first targets for greenhouse-gas emission reductions have been whittled back. His idea to auction pollution permits to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for health care went nowhere.
The reduction targets set by the House committee are almost certainly steeper than what the Senate will accept, so the eventual U.S. target will almost certainly be less than the Harper government's stated goal of a 20-per-cent reduction by 2020 – a goal, by the way, that almost no expert outside government believes can be met by the government's approach. If the U.S. target is lower than Canada's, will the Harper government weaken ours?
One piece of excellent news did arrive this week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published regulations requiring a 5-per-cent annual improvement in fuel efficiency for vehicles by 2016, bringing the average rating to 35.5 miles per gallon, compared with today's 27.5 miles.
Since Canada's industry is fully integrated with that of the U.S., Canada will have no choice but to follow these U.S. measures that the EPA estimates will prevent greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to the output of 42 million cars. Amazingly, both auto manufacturers and environmentalists hailed the changes.
Now if industry and environmentalists could agree on a climate-change bill, something would soon emerge from Congress. Don't hold your breath. Meantime, Canada's policies remain in limbo.
