We keep hearing that the environment is not a partisan issue. Now the Liberals and Greens are actually cooperating, proving that it is possible that something good can come out of the crisis of global warming.

Stephen Harper announced new funding for fuel cell research in British Columbia (days after announcing a handout for the tar sands). “What the government will not consider,” he said, just to dampen any speculation that his government might have been paying attention to the Stern Review, “is short-term damage to the economy or shutting down the economy in the short run to meet targets.”

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.

There’s no way around it: we’re committed to spending vast sums to save the planet (and avoid spending much vaster sums). It’s fair to ask, though, where the money is best spent. Björn Lomborg argues we’re better off investing in R&D than in Kyoto and Kyoto II emissions programmes.

By refusing to act decisively on climate change until Bush does, the Harper government has effectively given the industrial world’s biggest foot-dragger on global warming the final say on any intergovernmental effort. One wonders why anyone bothers holding meetings of environment ministers anymore.

The Harper government is taking two days to consider opposition amendments to proposed legislation, despite the fact that the committee is working against a self-imposed deadline. Meanwhile, John Baird continued to rail against the Liberals’ cap system, on the grounds that it allows companies to pollute as long as they pay fines. It would seem to follow that he has concerns about our legal system, which permits people to murder, just so long as they go to prison afterwards.

The Conservatives managed the near-impossible by reversing themselves on earlier pronouncements against participating in Kyoto, and still not figuring out a way to decisively cut emissions, hinting that Canadian companies may be allowed to take advantage of the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows rich countries to by emissions allowances from developing nations, but not to take part in a market like the European ETS. No doubt Canada’s corporations, which are eager to get into the carbon market, are delighted that Baird is telling them what they can and can’t do.