The Conservative government has embarked on an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases. The target is a 20% reduction in Canada's carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 from current levels. To achieve this goal, the federal government estimates it will cost roughly 0.5% of national GDP, which amounts to $7-billion or $8-billion a year in lost economic output. Ottawa has not said what this means in terms of job losses.

Predictably, the environmental movement is angered the federal government will not fulfill the Kyoto Protocol. The international agreement calls on Canada to reduce the nation's average carbon dioxide emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Dramatic cuts in energy output are needed in short order to achieve this target because the country's production of greenhouse gases actually increased by 35% since 1990. While green maniacs might be willing to accept draconian cuts that kind of policy cannot win elections.

In this context it is very good Kyoto is being abandoned. Also positive is that the Conservative government will not subject Canadian taxpayers to a broad-based carbon tax. And thankfully, Ottawa will not spend tax dollars overseas to purchase foreign carbon credits to offset domestic greenhouse emissions, a policy described as buying "hot air" since nations that sell surplus gases need not reduce their current C02 output levels.

The criticism leveled at the Conservative Party is that it rolled over and swallowed the science rather than engaging the public in a debate. In opposition, Stephen Harper criticized Kyoto and questioned its science. In 2002, he wrote "Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations." The depiction was nothing if not accurate.

Today, Prime Minister Harper simply says Kyoto targets are unachievable. Fair enough, if only his environment minister was equally levelheaded. John Baird believes winter might disappear without government action. Equally loopy is his statement that Canada's air quality is deteriorating when his own department reports the exact opposite.

If Minister Baird's rhetoric was limited to hot air, his comments could be dismissed as parliamentary theatrics. Yet the Conservative "green plan" will impose higher costs on business and consumers. For starters, the 2007 budget imposed a $4,000 levy on SUVs and subsidies for fuel-efficient vehicles. Soon Canadians will pay more for energy-intensive appliances and incandescent light bulbs will be banned.

Yet the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has some sympathy for the Harper government. (Although we hope Mr. Baird will dump the unnecessary eco-sensationalism.) Our organization has long opposed Kyoto as being dreadful public policy. The C02 reductions could not be justified given the high compliance costs. Particularly when developing countries like China and India are exempt and others like Australia and the United States refuse to participate.

Our preference for the Conservative Party upon winning office was to abandon the Kyoto process entirely. The problem is the policy issue extends well beyond Canada's borders. It is an altogether different affair for any government -- particularly a minority one -- to defy world opinion. This is not to suggest the hapless United Nations with its army of bureaucrats must be listened to -- the body is normally ignored. Instead, it means opposing Canada's allies and trading partners. Australia announced it will ban light bulbs a year ahead of Canada. The U.S. is spending billions of tax dollars to reduce emissions and California along with 30 other states will measure and report industry greenhouse gas emissions. Europe drank the Kyoto Kool-Aid long ago hoping to profit on it.

It has become impossible to engage in a rational debate on the topic. The Sunday Times recently reported an eco-scare group believes to avoid climate change parents should have no more than two children. A spokesman for Optimum Population Trust said, "The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child." Kids are suddenly no better than long flights, SUVs and plastic bags. It is madness. So too is UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's statement that climate change is as big a danger to the world as war.

But taxpayers should not accept these policy prescriptions or statements. The earth's climate fluctuates and it is a natural phenomenon. With more and more people jumping on the bandwagon, the CTF will continue to run against "conventional wisdom." Of course, we know the path well -- calls for government to balance their budgets in the early 1990s were initially resisted as were arguments to topple the sacred cow of socialist medicine called medicare. (That second point, of course, is a work in progress.) It will be a lengthy campaign to change public opinion on global warming. It is important for politicians to nip in the bud extreme policies, something Prime Minister Harper appears to have done on this file.

Proof that "no policy defeat is permanent" came early this month in Germany's Der Spiegel of all places. The trendy liberal magazine featured an article concluding there won't be a "greenhouse hell" and climate change fears are overblown. The article, entitled Not the End of the World as We Know It, found that "countries like Canada and Russia can look forward to better harvests and a blossoming tourism industry, and the only distress the Scandinavians will face is the guilty conscience that could come with benefiting from global warming." How is this a disaster

The only crisis is how governments deal with this political landmine.