“We will end the cycle of federal parties — of all stripes — setting arbitrary targets without a real federal/provincial/territorial plan in place.”

That’s from the Liberal party’s election platform on climate change. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tells us he has delivered a “historic” deal on climate change action with the provinces (with a couple of exceptions) and we now have an “achievable sustainable strategy” that the Toronto Star claims will help us meet or beat our Paris commitments.

Except we don’t, and it won’t. We have no specific plan to achieve a 30 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030; that target remains every bit as arbitrary as it was the day Stephen Harper set it. Nowhere in the impressively-titled ‘Pan-Canadian Framework On Clean Growth And Climate Change’ do we see an accounting by sector of reductions to meet or beat Paris. It’s a beautiful looking document that is top-heavy with platitudes and largely empty of real analysis.

There’s a reason for that. Alberta’s plan is to hold at best to 2005 emissions levels. B.C. just had an LNG facility approved that will increase its emissions by over 20 per cent. Saskatchewan doesn’t want to play. The West represents 60 per cent of our emissions today — which means that if the region even managed to hold its emissions flat, the rest of Canada would have to cut their emissions by 75 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 to hit the overall national goal of 30 per cent.

That’s not going to happen. Ontario will be lucky to hit 30 per cent. So how can the government keep saying it’s going to hit our target even as it approves investments that only serve to increase emissions?

There’s a clue in a recent Globe and Mail article. The suggestion is that the federal government may have to purchase “costly” international carbon credits to meet the Canadian COP21 commitment.

Think about that for a moment. In order for Western Canada’s fossil fuel growth to be accommodated under our Paris commitments, the Canadian taxpayer will have to purchase carbon credits to make up the difference. In other words, we’re going to be subsidizing the energy industry again.

The Trudeau government, with its we-can-grow-production-of-fossil-fuels-and-still-meet-Paris-COP21-commitments mantra, doesn’t want to admit to the relationship between increasing fossil fuel production and the need to purchase credits. And as long as the government doesn’t actually show anyone the numbers, it can pretend two mutually exclusive things — growing emissions and cutting emissions — can happen at the same time.

Simply pricing carbon is not the magic bullet our PM seems to think it is. Simply pricing carbon is not the magic bullet our PM seems to think it is.

So let’s just accept that we’re all going to have to pay the fossil fuel industry’s Paris tab. Now, what about all those good things Environment Minister Catherine McKenna keeps talking about? For example, aren’t carbon taxes going at least help solve our problem?

Here’s an exchange between Trudeau and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall from that federal-provincial conference, as reported in that same Star article.

Wall: “So if I can give all the money back that individuals have paid in carbon taxes, what’s the point? How does that change behaviour?”

Trudeau: “There’s a lot of good analyses on how impactful carbon pricing is and I recommend it to everyone.”

If the PM is talking about the B.C. carbon tax, he should be careful. Some of those studies are based on seriously flawed StatsCan data and use theoretical models of what might have been instead of looking at actual absolute reductions — which have been non-existent recently.

Premier Wall has an excellent point; ironically, he’s putting forward a strong argument for a tougher, more effective national carbon tax. Simply pricing carbon is not the magic bullet our PM seems to think it is. It’s the level of pricing, and what the revenue is used for, that together determine the effectiveness of a carbon tax.

Then there’s the plan to phase-out coal-fired electricity generation by 2030 — which, despite what you’ve heard, isn’t really being eliminated everywhere by the stated deadline. The plan to power all government offices with 100 per cent non-GHG-emitting electricity in a country where 80 per cent of our electricity is already non-emitting isn’t much of a stretch, really (one call to Bullfrog Power should do it).

And finally, there’s the most recent announcement: a low carbon fuel standard for transportation fuels. It isn’t clear if, when McKenna talks about taking into account the full life-cycle carbon emissions for fuels, she realizes that the oilsands produces fuel with some of the highest full life-cycle carbon emissions on the planet when petroleum coke is properly accounted for. The Harper government lobbied hard against such a standard when the European Union was proposing it.

Now it appears McKenna is looking to implement that standard here. Or will she? What happens when when it becomes clear to her how bad oilsands emissions are when they’re accounted for accurately? Doesn’t really fit with the Trudeau government’s pro-oilsands messaging. Maybe Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr needs to have another talk with her.

The best you can say about the Trudeau government’s approach to climate change is that it’s trying to do something. But it would be nice if he and his ministers could actually admit the truth — that we aren’t going to get anywhere near our goal without buying credits. And that the energy projects they keep approving (assuming they actually go ahead) are going to make the problem worse.

Instead, we’re given pretty framework documents and empty words like ‘achievable’ (where are the measurable achievements versus our COP21 commitments?) and ‘sustainable’ (what does that mean given we’re going to be buying credits?). That’s what you get with a prime minister who’s half eco-warrior and half fossil fuel fan — a whole lot of confusion.