Clive Crook at FT.com isn’t impressed. In short:

“It proposes safety valves that will ease the cap if it threatens to have a noticeable effect on energy prices. It relies heavily on offsets – theoretical carbon reductions bought from other countries or other industries – so that big US emitters will not need to try so hard. It gives emission permits away, and tells utilities to rebate the windfall to consumers, so their electricity bills do not go up. It creates a vastly complicated apparatus, a playground for special interests and rent-seekers, a minefield of unintended consequences – and the bottom line for all that is business as usual.”

Joseph Romm at salon.com has a different take:

“It is worth noting that the original Clean Air Act — first passed in 1963 — also didn’t do enough and was subsequently strengthened many times. Similarly, the 1987 Montréal protocol would not have stopped concentrations of ozone depleting substances from rising and would not have saved the ozone layer. But it began a process and established a framework that, like the CAA, could be strengthened over time as the science warranted. The painful reality of climate change is going to become increasingly obvious in the coming years, and strengthening is inevitable.”

On Friday, by a vote of 219-212, the US House of Representatives narrowly approved the Waxman-Markey climate bill that would force US companies to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. The legislation’s primary aim is the introduction of a cap-and-trade system. It also includes a federal renewable electricity mandate and new mandatory energy efficiency standards.

The bill now moves to the Senate, though it remains unclear whether it will survive in its current form which, according to this chart, would impose an overwhelming 397 new federal regulations and 1060 new mandates.

By contrast, Canada’s national plan will amount to a set of regulations adopted under section 322 of CEPA, which empowers the environment minister to “establish guidelines, programs and other measures for the development and use of economic instruments and market-based approaches” for environmental purposes.

That said, adopting climate change legislation in Canada is also likely to be messy, not least because jurisdiction for the environment is shared between the federal and provincial governments, and every province in Canada has a different emissions profile. Alberta’s emissions profile, for example, is much more carbon intensive than Quebec’s. Their respective regulatory frameworks are also vastly different from one another. The challenge for Ottawa will be in developing a carbon trading mechanism, that can properly balance the needs of the provinces while working to meet Canada’s international obligations on climate change.

We are heavily influenced by others. And the more exposure people have, the more likely they will be tolerant and open minded. A recent article in Good Magazine outlines how social networks (Facebook, Twitter…) are makes consumers more responsible and less image conscience. When your online comments, photos and videos determine your reputation, you tend to adjust your behaviour towards the “right thing”.

Nate Silver, gave a great talk on why people are racist. This might not appear related, but it is. He breaks down demographics to show that racism is most prevalent in areas where the population is homogenous. When you grow up amongst different cultures, you are less likely to view them as alien or threatening. In effect, your peers change your views by simply being your peers.

A behavioural economics study (which I cannot find) recently found that providing reports to people with their energy consumption plotted against their neighbours had a dramatic impact. People would literally get into competitions to see who could cut their energy the most, social pressure worked.

Now with tools from Google, Microsoft and Twitter to broadcast and digest your energy consumption we should see a progressive move towards greater efficiency. As they say, if you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it. Or, if your friends don’t see it, you don’t care.

The Quebec government, Équiterre and Montreal International announced this week the creation of a new International Climate Secretariat in Montreal. These will be the headquarters of the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), a coalition of 20 key international organizations working to increase public pressure on the world’s governments (Canada being high on the list) to take action on climate change.

The group aims to mobilize that pressure in the months leading up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting, to be held December 7-18, 2009 in Copenhagen.