Column: Gun registry was supposed to have a net cost of just $2 million

Column: Gun registry was supposed to have a net cost of just $2 million
Date: Apr 24, 2005 11:06 AM
PUBLICATION: The Edmonton Sun
DATE: 2005.04.24
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion
PAGE: 16
BYLINE: LICIA CORBELLA, CALGARY SUN
DATELINE: CALGARY

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PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

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The federal government says Canada can and will meet its Kyoto targets. Not to be
indelicate, but that is a lie.

If Canada were to remove every plane, train and automobile from service and were
to shut down every manufacturing plant in the country, we would still not meet our
Kyoto target.

After waiting more than eight years for a plan from the dithering Liberal government
on how Canada is going to meet the impossible targets set out in the Kyoto protocol,
the feds have come up with yet another incompetent and wildly costly plan.

The plan, called Moving Forward on Climate Change: A Plan for Honouring our Kyoto
Commitment can be downloaded by going to www.ec.gc.ca or to www.climatechange.gc.ca.
But I urge you to go to the Environment Canada site, the first site mentioned, and
then poke around the site that has numerous tables and graphs of Canada's current
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and our projected emissions.

The Kyoto protocol was established in order to reduce so-called greenhouse gases,
like CO2 - a gas as necessary to life on the planet as oxygen. Some scientists believe
that greenhouse gases trap heat inside the earth's atmosphere, causing the earth
to get warmer, which they say will cause catastrophe. While many of the world's
most respected climatologists and physicists do not agree with this hypothesis,
Canada officially ratified the protocol in 2002.

The international treaty, which came into effect on Feb. 16, requires Canada to
reduce GHG emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But because the country's
output of greenhouse gases has increased by some 30% since 1990, dramatic cuts in
energy output are needed in short order.

As the plan states on page 42: "Since our emissions in 1990 were about 596
megatonnes (Mt), this means that over the 2008-2012 period our emissions should
not, on average, exceed 560 Mt." (A megatonne is one million tonnes.)

On page 38 of the plan the feds claim that the plan could reduce emissions by about
270 Mt annually in the 2008-2012 period.

But consider these numbers from Environment Canada. In 2002, Canada's entire manufacturing
sector, which includes the construction industry and mining as well as manufacturing
plants, spewed out 62.9 Mt, or 8.6% of Canada's total GHG emission for 2002.Then
comes the transportation sector, which includes all those planes, trains and automobiles,
pipelines and Paul Martin's Canada Steamship Lines freighters. Ground, park and
dock them all and we would remove 190 Mt of GHGs from our air. Combine these two
sectors - manufacturing and transportation - and that makes up 252.9 Mt, leaving
us 17.1 Mt short.

Don't believe me? Log onto: http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventories_e.cfm and http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/data_reports_e.cfm
and http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/ghg_home_e.cfm

The government's "One-Tonne Challenge" that the feds have been advertising
on television has a reduction goal of 5 Mt. That apparently will be reduced by Canadians
insulating our homes better, changing our lightbulbs to compact fluorescents and
boosting our manufacturing sector by purchasing more efficient refrigerators!

But don't despair. If the feds can't meet the Kyoto target by reducing emissions,
it can always buy "offsets" from other "developing" countries
(most of which are much worse polluters than us) to meet our commitments.

That will help some despot somewhere buy a few more Mercedes for his fleet and a
few more rocket launchers for his troops who keep him in the money but will do nothing
to reduce global GHGs.

On page 42, our federal government boasts: "Canada's target is the most challenging
GHG emission reduction target among Kyoto signatories."

That would be significant, except Canada only produces about 2% of the world's GHG
emissions.

And the price tag? It's just a cool $10 billion over seven years.

As the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pointed out, when the federal budget was tabled
- only eight weeks ago - the government unveiled a five-year plan that would cost
$5 billion.

Remember the gun registry. It was supposed to have a net cost of just $2 million
but has surpassed the $1-billion mark.

How much is one billion? One billion minutes takes us back to the time of Christ.

By the way, back then, the Earth was warmer than it is today.