This article is part of EcoWorldly’s week-long spotlight on Politicians You Can Believe In. To read more, subscribe to our RSS feed, or view our posts about politics.
(Kittens make everything cuter.)
Stephen Harper, Conservative Party leader and newly re-elected Prime Minister of Canada, isn’t many people’s ideal of an environmental hero. He once famously called the Kyoto accord “job-killing, economy-destroying,” and a “socialist scheme.” Understandably, many Canadians look disapprovingly on his environmental record.
However, for a society to achieve sustainability it must have the support conservative leaders as well as liberal leaders, especially when a conservative leader like Harper begins to take interest in the environment. Over the last several years, the Harper government has been making efforts to turn over a new, greener leaf. Despite his continued foot-dragging on Kyoto emissions targets, Harper has been at the head of some important achievements.
- The ecoEnergy Renewable Initiative (2007) set aside $1.5 billion (Canadian) for the development of renewable energy.
- Canada’s Clean Air Act (2006) was the first bill to implement nationwide standards on air pollutants and greenhouse gases. The act leaves something to be desired, but it was a significant legislative accomplishment.
- The National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA, 2007) established the world’s largest freshwater marine conservation area. The protected area includes over 10,000 square kilometers of Lake Superior. It should be noted that Harper did not spearhead this effort–it had been in the works for about a decade.
- Action Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Air Pollution (2007) strengthened energy efficiency, set a date to begin increasing fuel efficiency by 2011, established a market price for carbon, set up a carbon emissions trading market, and imposed industry targets of 150 megatonnes of greenhouse gas reductions by 2020.
- In 2008, the Harper government added to the above plan by banning the construction of “dirty coal” plants by 2012 and mandating carbon capture and storage at oil sands operations by the same year.
Nobody will argue that Harper’s commitment to environmental sustainability is as strong as Green Party Leader and longtime Sierra Club executive director, Elizabeth May‘s. Harper’s green image also falls short of his chief political rival, Stéphane Dion, the Liberal Party leader who served as Minister of the Environment from 2004 to 2006.
Yet Harper’s turn-around from environmental do-nothing to green-hopeful should be an important take-home lesson: The government is ultimately responsive to popular will. If people make enough noise, an effective government will follow. Moreover, environmental successes are possible under both a conservative and a liberal government.
Image credit: Government of Canada, website.
If you want to read about actual experience with the Residential Retrofit portion of Stephen Harper’s ecoENERGY Retrofit program, visitors can go to the http://dailyhomerenotips.com/ecoenergy/ page to read about our experiences with the first energy audit as part of this program.
Additionally, what is the progress after 18 months of the program? 1.9% participation. That’s right, one point nine percent. If this program is go good why is it that after 18 months only 1.9% of Canadian home owners are participating? You can read about the first 18 months of the program here:
http://dailyhomerenotips.com/2008/10/12/ecoenergy-after-18-months-participation/
Dan
DailyHomeRenoTips.com
Dan, that’s a valuable link. Thanks!
How come skyscrapers windows are not used as solar power collector panels, that would generate their own source of power?
Why can’t we have refilling stations in grocery stores for all liquid cleaners, like bleach, dish detergents, shampoos, washing detergents? Wouldn’t that make less garbage if we were to keep using the same containers for these detergents, thus less garbage in the landfills. The same with cooking oils. That is my vision for the future. We are just borrowing the future and the earth from our children after all.
This is a guy who won’t put an end to the tarsands. He’s only done what he’s had to so his previous minority government wouldn’t be dissolved by the opposing parties. His new minority government will be as much of a lame duck if not more. He and his party only received 37% percent of the votes and only 50% of the country voted – the lowest turn out ever. Any other party would have been better for the planet – NDP, Liberal or Greens. Harper government = bad for the environment.