(Lars Hagber/Canadian Press)

On the surface, Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon's pledge in January 2008 that Canada will mandate fuel efficiency standards for new cars that are "at least as stringent" as the U.S. should be good news for the environmentally concerned.

Never before has a Canadian government actually had the guts to regulate car emissions.

Canada's cars: By the numbers

Annual new vehicle sales 1.7 million

Cars 54 %

Pickups and vans 29 %

Current average fuel efficiency by Canadian passenger vehicles 8.6 L/100k

Proportion of total CO2 emissions by passenger vehicles 12 %

Estimated actual amount this year 88.1 million tonnes

Successive Liberal regimes have deigned only to negotiate voluntary standards with the auto industry and it has often been very hard to determine whether these have been met or not. (A case in point: The current five-year arrangement signed in 2005 has three annual progress reports posted on the Natural Resources Canada website, as mandated by the memorandum of understanding. But none of these say what annual cuts to greenhouse gases have actually taken place, which was the point of the agreement in the first place.)

Still, there appears to be an important caveat to Cannon's commitment: Which U.S. standard is he referring to?

As anyone who follows this issue knows, there is a huge legal and political fight underway in the United States as to which car emission rules should take precedence.

On one side stand the administration of George W. Bush and its Environmental Protection Agency. Until it was told otherwise by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2007, the EPA had been denying that it even had the power to regulate carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas emission, from cars.

On the other is California and at least 12 other states (including other big ones such as New York and New Jersey). This group had been in the midst of implementing what almost everyone agrees are much more stringent fuel and, for the first time, greenhouse gas emission standards for the auto sector — seven years in the making — to begin with the 2009 manufacturing year.

In December 2007, the EPA stunned California by rejecting its law and maintaining that only Washington could set fuel emission standards. California has since counter-sued and the matter seems headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That can only delay a resolution and confound Canada's position, as it is hard to imagine too many different sets of emission rules for an auto industry that is so continentally integrated.

Choosing Bush?

Cannon appears to have tied Canada's cart to Bush's horse: He is promising a target — the average for all passenger cars and light trucks — of 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres by 2020, which corresponds exactly to the EPA's target for that year of 35 miles per gallon. The Canadian regs would begin with the 2011 car year.

In the metric world, 6.7 l/100 km is a bit of a mouthful but it might make a catchy election slogan as it amounts to a (just over) 20 per cent cut by 2020 from the current average of 8.6 l/100 km.

California's target for 2020, by the way, is 44 mpg (5.3 l/100 km), which is 25 per cent better still than the EPA/Canadian goal.

However, Cannon also left himself some wiggle room. He said that after a 60-day consultation process, he might introduce made-in-Canada targets that are more stringent than the EPA's.

Is he thinking of California's? Quebec says it is ready to adopt the California rules, regardless of what the feds do. So, too, may be B.C., Manitoba and Nova Scotia, which have all touted the more stringent California regs in the past.

Cannon wouldn't commit himself. But the differences are significant and not just for automakers, who have fought California legislators all the way down the line.

According to the California Air Resources Board rebuttal to the EPA in early January 2008, its standards are 16 per cent more stringent than the EPA's when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions for 2016 models and 18 per cent more stringent for 2020 models.

What's more, these reductions in carbon dioxide are cumulative. If the California rules go ahead as planned with the 2009 car year, they will lead to a reduction of 167 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2020, compared to only 76 million tonnes by that date under the EPA plan.

The politics of car exhaust

Smog and auto pollution have long been preoccupations in California, so it is not surprising it has taken the lead in this area, especially when confronted with a Republican administration in Washington that hasn't been much interested in climate change.

Nor is it surprising that Canadian politicians have looked to California themselves from time to time, if only as a club to beat the Canadian automakers with.

Former Liberal environment ministers Stéphane Dion and David Anderson both extolled the California plan at length, even going so far as to visit key legislators there to generate more publicity for the idea. But in the end, they couldn't convince their respective cabinets to go along.

The New Democrat and Green parties both favour the California model. Stephen Harper's Conservatives may also have done so at one point: it is not clear. While still environment minister, Rona Ambrose hinted broadly in Parliament in September 2006 that the government was considering the California system and federal officials leaked that information to the Globe and Mail before nothing more was heard on the topic.

However, comparing the Canadian situation to California is not that far-fetched, as California regulators have noted from time to time, usually when prominent Canadians arrive for a visit.

The populations are similar, 38 million in California compared to 33 million here. So is the car mix, roughly 70 per cent passenger cars and light trucks, including vans. California consumes proportionally more gas (more air conditioning?) than Canada.

But the GHG savings would be similar and, more importantly, if Canada does buy in to this model, along with the other states that are considering it, that would mean more than half of the North American new car market would be covered by the most stringent rules on the continent. That would have to be some kind of tipping point.

Tougher standards overseas

Of course, even if Canada does go California — and the California rules are based on equipping cars only with already available technology — we would still not be the best on the planet when it comes to fuel efficiency or GHG standards.

Both Japan and Europe have carbon dioxide standards of 140 grams per kilometre, though Europe's is voluntary at this point. In December 2007, the European Union proposed a mandatory 120 g/km target for 2012, though certain performance-car makers may be exempt.

By comparison, Canada and the U.S. are in the 200 to 220 g/km range at present.

The California rules would take these numbers to 168 g/km for carbon dioxide by 2012 and 126 g/km by 2020. The EPA equivalents would be 210 and 155.

The thing to keep in mind about carbon dioxide emissions is that there is no technologically feasible way to capture this gas at the tailpipe, as there is with other pollutants.

The only way to reach the targets being espoused is to build lighter cars with more efficient transmissions and different fuel sources.

Oh yeah, and drive slower (or less often). Reducing speed limits on highways was the technique governments introduced during the OPEC oil spike in the 1970s and early '80s.

Europe is thinking of going that route now. But it is a debate we haven't had yet on this continent.

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