Harper: environmental laggard
Ignatieff: environmental leader
ISSUE
While the Harper government is isolated at the Copenhagen climate talks for their inaction and leaving the provinces to pick up the slack, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has committed to a national project for building a cleaner, more prosperous economy.
KEY MESSAGES
Canada’s hard-won reputation as a progressive, fair dealer is being destroyed by the Harper government.
Four years, three environment ministers and zero progress is the Harper government’s environmental legacy – and now the world is taking note.
Canada is being left behind on both environmental and economic fronts. In this leadership vacuum, provincial governments are taking matters into their own hands, with eight provinces setting tougher targets than Ottawa.
And there’s still no plan in place to achieve the Conservatives’ meagre targets.
As Canadians, we have all the brains, knowledge and know-how we need to lead in the new world economy. What has been lacking is the political will.
FURTHER MESSAGES – THE LIBERAL PLAN
In contrast to the Conservative record, Liberals are committed to ambitious carbon pollution reductions in line with other developed countries, with the goal of containing global warming to within two degrees Celsius.
Our verifiable and binding cap-and-trade system would be equitable to all regions and cover all industries, with hard caps leading to absolute reductions.
We are also proposing a historic investment in clean energy and energy efficiency jobs with an ambitious target of quadrupling Canada’s production of renewable energy by 2017.
Finally, our plan contains concrete initiatives to protect our air, water, forests and Arctic.
These are steps we can take right now. We can change course, restore Canada’s international reputation, and build a cleaner, more prosperous new economy that will create the jobs of tomorrow and improve our quality of life.
