It's a challenge that's facing all levels of government
The huge problem of global warming is clearly emerging as a challenge that, like it or not, faces all levels of government everywhere.

And as 2007 began, with scientists predicting the year will be the warmest ever, it was likely no coincidence that Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose the time to make a radical change in his government's approach to the challenge by moving Treasury Board President John Baird to the sensitive Environment portfolio, so ineffectively handled by Alberta's Rona Ambrose.

"We've clearly determined we need to do more on the environment," the prime minister told reporters after the cabinet shuffle was announced. "We recognize that particularly when it comes to clean air and climate change, that Canadians deserve a lot more."

In fact, he placed the environment on a list of five top priorities for his government's second year in office, and insisted his government will be spending a lot of time on the issue.

Baird said he will be able to work with other parties to reach compromises that can pass through the Commons, noting he steered the Accountability Act through as Treasury Board President.

Noting that he had worked well with the opposition parties in making the new federal Accountability Act law, he pledged to try co-operation instead of confrontation as his tool in dealing with the much-maligned Clean Air Act.

The appointment presents some interesting challenges for all three opposition parties, all of which seem determined to "outgreen" the Green Party in the next federal election campaign.

In the circumstances, it will be interesting, indeed, to see how the Liberals, New Democrats and Parti Québecois respond to a government bid to achieve a consensus on how to turn the Clean Air Act into legislation that includes at least the appearance of fast action on reducing greenhouse gases.

In an obvious swipe at the federal Liberals' record on the issue over the previous 13 years, Harper told reporters Canada has one of the worst environmental records in the developed world, and his government will thus have a great deal of work to do.

Meanwhile, environmentalists say they will wait to see whether the Conservatives' new rhetoric translates into action. Several told the Toronto Star that with the Clean Air Act now before a Commons committee, the government's willingness to accept strong amendments and targets to the legislation will be a key test.

As we see it, one of the greatest challenges facing the government lies in the need to achieve co-operation well beyond that of the three opposition parties. Because of the limitations imposed by the nature of our federal system, any action taken by Ottawa is likely to have little impact on the problem without full co-operation from the other levels of government.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Alberta, where the rapid expansion of oilsands extraction is being accompanied by huge increases in carbon dioxide emissions.

It remains to be seen what weapons, if any, are realistically available to the Harper government that won't be seen as an invasion of provincial rights akin to the Trudeau Liberals' imposition of the National Energy Program in the 1970s.

It will be interesting to see whether the seriousness of Harper's concerns will be demonstrated by his calling of a first ministers' conference on the subject of global warming, and in particular the stance taken at such a conference by the Alberta Conservative government, newly led by Ed Stelmach, a former intergovernmental affairs minister from the northern Alberta riding of Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville.

In Ontario, we have a government that has been forced to backtrack on its promise to shut down the province's coal-fired power plants - one of the biggest single sources of the emissions - by the end of this year.

We see a crying need for immediate approval of two new nuclear power plants, one a doubling of the Darlington Generating Station and the other a third station at the Bruce Nuclear Power Development. That alone would give Ontario a lot more generating capacity than would be lost by closing the coal-fired stations, allowing the province to export huge amounts of electricity to coal-reliant U.S. utilities.

It may have a lot of shortcomings, but wind is surely a far preferable source of electrical energy to burning fossil fuels.