All right.
A recent survey indicates that Canadians, on average, won't pay more than $100 to permanently eliminate climate change. Citizens will not tolerate reductions in their standards of living, and that is why those who suggest hair shirts and bicycles will not prevail. South Coast Air Quality Management District discovered this more than 20 years ago, and its answer was to focus on forward-looking regulations, such as vehicle emissions standards. Mark Jaccard loves those and has an effective explanation of them in his book. This is what got Ballard Power funded: send the right signals, and capital will react.
I like the idea of increasing the proportion of hydrogen to carbon for all Canadian hydrocarbons delivered to the border or to the refinery.
Another plan is tax shifting, where we make deliberate decisions to introduce, over time, higher and higher new consumption taxes on carbon-based products, offset by reductions in other consumption taxes and corporate and personal income taxes. We should assure the public the net change will be revenue neutral. The key is that people will be able to make choices about where to spend their money and will gain economically.
Finally, let me commend prizes. For example, you might consider joining up with Sir Richard Branson and doubling his $25 million prize for GHG extraction techniques, but payable by Canada only if Branson's winner's work is done here.
Select other far-out radical targets, maybe such as fusion or very deep drilling for geothermal power. Don't think for a minute that capital markets won't pay attention.
Humans are at a crossroad. Future generations will fault our leaders if they do not recognize the importance of the situation. But to say we should do everything we can is a gross oversimplification, unless we study better what the impacts will be and when they will occur. Technology is not at fault. Getting the fiscal and regulatory conditions right for capital markets to do their thing is the critical issue now. That, as I see it, is your job.