First the EU, and now Canada. Will the US be shamed into action? Is Washington even capable of shame?

In fact Canada has huge auto industry and is the main employer in the largest province population and economic output. The North American auto industry is heavily international with assembly and parts suppliers in both the US and Canada and now add Mexico as a parts source and assembly area. This is quite a politically charged subject in Canada now since GM,Ford and today Chrysler have announced layoffs and plant closures. It seems we are also due for another election in the next year or so. It remains to be seen if this election will be fought on green issues versus traditional economic issues. Oh well the automaker will just lobby the government for some research grants to meet these new fuel economy guidelines. It's kinda funny that Toyota and Honda both receive much less Canadian government support but have pushed ahead to make improvements and have been profitable doing it. While the big 3 constantly beg for money and don't deliver.

Harper doesn't actally want to do anything, his ears are full of the sweet $$$ sounds of his oil buddies. He knows that he has to sound green if he wants a chance to win the next election. So he'll make all the right noises and try and pass legislation (minority government) that won't take effect for years. He's just trying to fool most of the people some of the time (until after the next election)

Surely it has to be done NAFTA wide, not just by Canada which has only 30M people.
The EU is a large enough bloc to have an effect - Canada alone would seem too small.

This is a joke.
1) Three years from now, gas prices will have organically raised the mileage on vehicles sold.

2) They can always change their mind before it goes into effect.

3) This might actually help sell the trucks that are waiting on dealor lots. "You mean I can't replace my big truck after 3 years? I better go do it now, I don't want no hybreed"

4) This is the same BS as bush's state of the union statement.

This is pure election talk. Canadian voters recently chosed pollution control as their number one pre-occupation. So........

Canada, with only 31 million pollutes more than 100 million Europeans do. We drive the most polluting vehicles (290 gr/CO2/Km) in the world. Gas gazzlers are still number one sellers in western + mid-Canada and Canadians consume more energy 'per capita' than all other 20 industrialized nations.

Alberta, with about 10% of the country's population will create 50% of the country's GHG by 2010-12.

With Alberta tar sands activities to triple or quadruple in the next 10-12 years, to satisfy south of the border and local demands, chances are that Canada will be 50% ++ over Kyoto by 2015.

The 100+ billion $$ being invested in the Tar Sands and associated activites will weight heavily on future pollution control laws + their application.

Politicians with promise all kind of pollution controls in an effort to gain votes, but very little will be done after the election.

Any improvement in the CO2 emissions of Canada's LDV fleet will be completely swamped by the rapid expansion of oil sands production in Alberta province. Mr. Harper needs to take a more holistic view, well beyond the transportation sector.

George -

Actually, Bush is sending a bill to Congress asking it to increase the CAFE average for LDVs to 34 MPG by 2017, corresponding to 166 g CO2/km, roughly where Europe is today - but only because 50% of new vehicles here feature diesel engines.

The head of the House Transportation & Energy Committee is Rep. J. Dingell (D-MI). He is close to the Big Three and the UAW and has called Speaker Pelosi's recent idea of a special congressional committee on climate change "as useful as feathers on a fish". The contract with the union needs to be renegotiated this year, in a very tough business environment for the North American auto industry and Michigan in particular. I therefore expect Rep. Dingell will do his utmost to prevent any increase in CAFE. Be critical, but of all your political leaders.

Killing a measure that would force higher fuel economy would be short-sighted, because ignoring the risk of rapid changes in the price of oil is what caused Detroit to go from bumper profits to junk bond status in the first place. Sadly, it's a well documented-fact all over the world that consumers by and large tend not to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to purchasing their vehicle: given the choice, they will always choose the largest, safest, most comfortable and most powerful car they can afford, climate be damned. The emerging consensus is that market mechanisms alone are not enough to overcome such selfish indulgence.

Unfortunately, in addition to climate change, the global auto industry is also extremely exposed to the gyrations of the world's oil markets, which can easily overwhelm their product cycles. To hedge against this risk, the US auto industry in particular needs broader product line-ups that permit profitable operations regardless of what happens in the Middle East, Nigeria, Venezuela and elsewhere. In addition to leveraging their global engineering expertise and supply chains, US auto makers need to invest more heavily in rapid virtual product development, in more flexible production lines and demand the same from its domestic supply chains - all of these add cost to each vehicle that will have to come out of payroll and overheads.

That is why the UAW ought to accept cuts in headcount and health care provisions for both members and retirees, but only in return for quality control authority in the product roadmap process. Representing your members does not mean maximizing their job security, wages and benefits at the expense of the viabiity of the business they work for. At the end of the day, you've got to turn a profit.

Much the same, btw, applies to Germany and its powerful unions.

Of course, the other proven strategy to insulate yourself from wild fluctuations of prices at the pump is high excise taxes on fuel. Over the past 3 years, Gasoline and diesel prices went up and the down in Europe as well but by less than half as much in relative terms. Public reaction was far more sanguine than in the US and, the auto industry did not suffer a shock to the system. It's unfortunate that US voters are unwilling to consider gradually shifting their country's tax base a little away from wealth creation and toward asset consumption, as part of a package of measures that makes doing so socially acceptable.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070207/BUSINESS05/70207020/1014/BUSINESS01

Shame on Bush for not setting targets and then missing them all? Tar sands seem to have brought economic arguments to the fore for Canada.Bush has emphasized meeting goals with technology{phev, bev, battery tech,future gen,bio fuels,nuclear,etc.}.Which has a better chance of making a difference,empty targets or research into world changing tech?The 2005 energy bill was delayed for four years by by the dems.The bill has energized the wind industry,bio fuels and to a limited extent solar.Dems and repubs alike are falling over themselves to expand on this bill.as Nixon to China ,perhaps it took an oilman to begin the end of oil.

Mark: Nobody is complaining about raising fuel economy. We may disagree on the method. My main point is that Harper's proposed regulations are weak, way too far in the future and simply a cynical attempt to look green while actually doing nothing. Nothing but Greenwash here.

Andrey -

your point is well taken, but perhaps Norway would be a good yardstick for comparison. It is also a major oil producer, industrialized, sparsely populated and a large Northern country. Like all comparisons, it is far from perfect, especially considering it is much narrower than Canada at any given latitude, its oil production is conventional and, it has the Gulf Stream.

Still, it may be informative to compare recent CO2 emissions per head of population:

Norway: 2.5-3 tons/year
Canada: 4.5-5 tons/year

I'd be surprised if Canada couldn't get below 4 if it really wanted to. Beyond transportation, that may take improvements in space heating (e.g. wood pellet ovens, Vuilleumier machines, district heating where feasible, electric heat pumps etc.) Obviously, reducing the net CO2 emissions from the booming tar sands industry would help as well.

Rafael:

Yes, 10% per capita reduction in CO2 emissions would be achievable for Canada. I believe it will be achieved sooner or later, just because of improvements in energy efficiency. But more reduction? I doubt it, unless drastic (and disruptive) measures will be implemented.

As for Norway, conventional oil is way less energy consuming that from tar sand. Note that Norway gets it electricity almost exclusively from Hydro, which is not the case in central Canada (Great Planes). Also Canada produces and exports vast amounts of VIRTUALLY ALL minerals, along with coal, NG, oil, and agricultural goods.

Harvey:

I am, actually, quite optimistic about improvements in energy and fuel efficiency use in Canada. Just because energy efficiency goes hand-in-hand with technical progress, and is economically beneficial. But carbon neutral economy is an utopia.

Interesting twist about carbon emissions per capita of world population. It peaked around 1975-80 at 1.2 ton of carbon equivalent, and than slightly declined to 1.15, and keeps steady for last 30 years, look at page 11 of the report:

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/Independent%20Summary2.pdf

Neil, it is quote from scientific article, included in official sources for last IPCC summary. I have seen its abstract on line, and it is published in some scientific journal.

By the way, all summary is no more then, well, summary. It is based on hundreds of scientific articles SELECTED BY IPCC to write their summary.

You can read IPCC summary and compare the two:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_02_07_climatereport.pdf

Fanny that IPCC is delaying for three months publication of their official sources “to make necessary changes to assure compliance with the summary”. Pier revived published scientific articles need to be “corrected” to comply with their summary, written by bureaucrats. Isn’t it admission that their summary is a fraud?