Editorial: Provinces lead but Ottawa must act on climate

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When provincial premiers meet in Quebec City next week to discuss plans for combating climate change, they will be filling a leadership vacuum in Canada on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

With the federal government missing in action on this key global challenge, the provinces have been taking crucial actions on their own that help move the country toward its emissions-reduction targets.

Since 2008, B.C. has had a carbon tax for households and businesses that is based on the carbon content of the fuel they buy. It generates $1.2 billion in annual revenue that is plowed back into tax breaks.

Quebec is part of a cap-and-trade market with California, that sets a maximum emissions output, puts a price on carbon and allows companies who exceed the standard to buy credits from those that pollute less. The approximately $400 million a year this generates is reinvested in public transit and green energy.

Ontario recently announced a cap-and-trade plan. Meanwhile Alberta has a carbon tax for big industrial emitters that expires in June. The energy-rich province accounts for a growing share of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions but is struggling financially after the plummeting of world oil prices.

These actions are welcome and necessary. And a recent report by the Ecofiscal Commission, a group of Canadian economists and notables like former Quebec premier Jean Charest and former prime minister Paul Martin, concluded that each provinces setting its own course is more practical than a one-size-fits all solution imposed by Ottawa.

But that doesn’t excuse the Conservative government’s reluctance to address a pressing global issue. Canada is going to miss its Copenhagen commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. Since taking office, the Conservatives have not made good on a vow to set emissions standards for the oilpatch. And while the European Union, the United States, Mexico and other countries are busy filing their proposed new targets for the next major round of climate talks in Paris in December, the federal government is letting the deadline slip past.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s excuses for inaction — that Canada can’t act alone and that big polluters in the developing world need to make concessions — are fast running out. The U.S. unveiled a bold plan to slash its reliance on coal. U.S. President Barack Obama got China to agree to emissions targets for the first time.

Canadians are fortunate the premiers are working to protect the climate. But the provinces don’t represent Canada on the international stage where the real decisions that will help slow global warming are made. Canada needs to have a voice – and a plan.