Liberals grab FoE's proposal and run with it

Repeat after me - I love minority government. Sure, elections every year or two mean little gets actually done on climate change, but meanwhile the Liberals and Conservatives are one-upping each other to the point where radical environmental proposals transmogrify into mainstream policy!
In January, Friends of the Earth and Corporate Knights publicized a proposal to create an emissions tax at 30$/tonne CO2e for large emitters, with the catch that the tax revenues would actually be kept in special accounts for each emitter, who would have the option of getting the money back to spend on emissions reductions. Many, many orders of magnitude beyond any existing Canadian policy to date. I loved the idea but assumed it would be ignored within federal politics. (See my post for more details)
Last month, FoE and Corporate Knights released a more global proposal, with additional carbon taxes all over the place, tax shifting, the whole caboodle. Again, I thought, this is great, but we'll be lucky to get even absolute emissions limits for industry, let alone making them pay for every tonne emitted! (See my post for more details). Meanwhile, the Climate Action Network set out clear proposals for amending the Clean Air Act, including setting absolute targets for large emitters at our Kyoto target level ((1990 minus 6%). (Here's the post on that one)
NOW, the Liberals release their environmental plan, which first of all sets absolute targets for large emitters; even better, it sets them at our Kyoto target level. This is a much, much better idea than the intensity-based system that the Liberals built and the Conservatives are now recycling. (See this post for why). And on top of this, it brings in the FoE/CK idea of tax +emitter account, with a 20$/tonne tax with emitter accounts allowing emitters to reuse the money, with the tax rising to 30$/tonne in 2011. The key, unfortunate difference is that industry only pays for emissions beyond their targets, not for all emissions as per the FoE/CK plan. This is still an improvement over the old Liberal LFE system, which had a $15/tonne charge (much too low according to both environmentalists and economists). The Conservatives are rumoured to be sticking with the $15/tonne charge.

We'll have to see what the Conservatives come up with, but so far it looks like easy intensity-based targets starting in three years. If that's the case, the Liberal plan is much more effective, and fair (industry shoulders its share of the reductions burden). It'll be interesting to see how things go...

Meet Kyoto or Pay Up, Dion Tells Industry (Globe)
Liberal press release
Dymaxion World post on Liberal plan