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For release: February 28, 2008

Budget 2008 Fails to Provide Leadership on Global Warming


Ottawa - The federal government's 2008 budget made no progress on the most crucial policies needed to fight global warming, said Canada's Climate Action Network-Réseau action climat Canada.

“Canadians have repeatedly said that the environment is their top priority, but there's less for the environment in this budget than I've seen for years,” said Dale Marshall, David Suzuki Foundation. “I think Canadians are going to be very disappointed.”

In advance of the budget, the Climate Action Network called for a real price on carbon, either through a cap-and-trade system or a tax on carbon, and for major new investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Unfortunately, the 2008 budget provides none of those things, instead opting to maintain the government's wholly inadequate approach to global warming. The budget also provides new funding to environmentally problematic technologies like nuclear energy.

“Canada needs a massive scale up of effort in fighting climate change,” said Emilie Moorhouse, Sierra Club Canada. “The Prime Minister himself last year called global warming “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today.” If he really believes that, then the weakness of his policies in this budget is worse than irresponsible.”

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