Stephen Harper, the recently reelected prime minister of Canada, is including plenty of environmental items in his government’s $40 billion (about $33 billion U.S.) economic stimulus bill, including tax credits and grants to support homeowners fund energy efficiency improvements.
Here’s the government’s own rundown of the plan’s green items:
Action to Build a Greener Canada — Budget 2009 targets investments that improve Canada’s environment. These include:
* $1 billion for green infrastructure projects.
* $1 billion over two years for renovation and energy retrofits to social housing.
* $300 million over two years to the ecoENERGY Retrofit program.
* $1 billion for clean energy research, development and demonstration projects.
* $87 million over two years for key Arctic research facilities.
* $245 million over two years for the cleanup of federal contaminated sites.
* $10 million to improve government environmental reporting. (Unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in Canadian dollars)
Harper’s conservative government is also saying the right thing about climate change. According to the CBC, the “government said it’s committed to reducing greenhouse gases by 20 per cent by 2020, pledging over the next five years to give $1 billion in support to projects that encourage sustainable energy.”
But cutting those emissions seems to hinge on the successful development of carbon capture and storage technology. Harper’s budget would “provide $15-million over five years towards research, and another $850-million over the same period for clean-energy demonstration projects, including large-scale carbon capture,” according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.
