When the Commons committee on Bill C-30 finishes its work, probably by the end of the week, the government’s centrepiece environmental legislation will barely resemble the notions that emerged from the Conservative policy shops just a few months ago. Contrary to the Conservative position, the revised Clean Air Act will include measures for carbon trading under Kyoto. Could this mark the moment for a confidence vote in Commons?

The UK has passed binding legislation to curb CO2 emissions. The government will need to “count the carbon, just as they count the pennies,” says Treasury chief Gordon Brown. The bill called for emissions to be reduced by 60 percent by 2050, and by as much as 32 percent by 2020. Targets were based on 1990 levels. The Green Party said emissions should be reduced by 90 percent by 2050.

Why wait until 2012? If the Kyoto countries are serious about fighting global warming (as they say they are, and if they already know that much deeper cuts will be required this time around (as they do), then we might as well get started. And if there is an election in the US before then, so much the better.

The World Bank is planning a US$250 million fund to aid developing countries to stop deforestation in return for carbon credits. The plan has attracted international support and the World Bank will chose five countries to launch the pilot stage of the project to.

Australian PM John Howard didn’t like it, but EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas criticized the two major Kyoto holdouts for slowing down the whole world.

COPENHAGEN – Completion of European deals to trade carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol will have to wait several more months as countries do not yet have UN approval to trade, a European Commission official said on Wednesday.

The Liberals have taken the lead in the race to be the greenest party in Canada. Just when John Baird announced that while India, China and the US should join the Kyoto process, Canada would not act to cut industrial emission, Stephane Dion has come forward with a plan to match ambitious EU targets of a 20 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2020 by capping industrial emissions.