Wait a minute. A federal study that shows Kyoto costing Canada 200,000 jobs and $16.5-billion in reduced economic growth? But it only shows the costs to the oil and coal industries and the costs to the heavy users of energy (aluminum, pulp and paper, iron ore). No wonder the numbers were reportedly removed from the cabinet document.

The study is a mugs game played on Environment Canada (which is advocating Kyoto) by the oil and coal advocates, led by Natural Resources Canada, Finance Canada and Industry Canada (which are against Kyoto).

Here's what's wrong. First, the study does not include the economic and job growth benefits created by taking another energy path. Second, it does not take into account the costs to the economy caused by extreme climate-change events as a result of accelerated global warming. Third, it does not calculate the ancillary environmental health benefits of associated pollution reduction caused by greenhouse-gas reduction.

A proper analysis done by qualified resource economists would include the entire spectrum of costs and benefits of meeting Kyoto. For example, if Canada signed Kyoto and pursued greenhouse-gas reductions vigorously, it would create a whole new industry. And it would facilitate the innovation of new technologies and maintain Canada's competitive advantage in the world energy market.

The environment industry has already become the fourth-largest industry employer in Canada, with 159,000 people. Its revenues in 2000, according to Statistics Canada, was $14.4-billion.

Jobs and revenues will be generated by Canada's meeting the Kyoto targets. They will be created as a result of the development of greenhouse-gas-reducing technologies, including wind and solar power, hydrogen-powered batteries, and the switch to cogeneration with gas power electricity. Kyoto will promote the manufacturing of low energy electric motors and pumps, and energy conservation retrofits and building design.

Future costs to Canada from global warming-generated destruction will be greatly reduced if we cut emissions. We should understand that, as the globe warms and the polar icecaps melt from human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions, there will be huge costs for the government to bear from increased forest fires, droughts in farm country, disaster relief from extreme floods and ice storms, and from having to build dikes to protect city lowlands on our coasts.

Talk to the insurance industry. In the first half of the decade, insurers paid out $57-billion for weather-related losses worldwide, compared with $17-billion for the entire 1980s. Worldwide weather-related losses (not all of them insured) reached a high of $38-billion in 1995.

The world's largest insurance and reinsurance companies have banded together to express concern about increased global warming. These guys don't embrace the environment lightly. Franklin Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, said: "The insurance business is the first in line to be affected by climate change. . . . [It] could bankrupt the industry."

It has been well documented that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will result in the substantial reduction of associated pollutants that come out of the same smokestacks and tailpipes as greenhouse gases. Some of these pollutants are toxic, such as benzene and xylene. Some cause long-term chronic lung ailments, such as sulphur and nitrogen oxides and small particulate matter.

The Ontario Medical Association, for example, reports that "air pollution costs Ontario citizens more than $1-billion a year in hospital admissions, emergency room visits, and absenteeism." What if we could cut that by $250-million a year by meeting Kyoto? We would save $3-billion in medical costs over 12 years.

Why weren't these costs and benefits factored into the half-baked study by some federal departments? Maybe because a proper economic study would have shown that there would only be a slight negative economic impact on Canada's future overall growth. Maybe it would even show that switching to clean energy and energy efficiency will result in a net economic benefit to Canada.

It appears that Canada is caught in the maw of the oil and coal industry. Their efforts and the efforts of their friends in the cabinet are holding back new economic development in Canada. We know that a changing economy is a healthy economy. We know that a stagnant economy can stall and tumble. In a healthy economy, old companies fade and new companies emerge. Jobs are lost in one sector and created in another.

Oil and coal are standing in the way of the creation of a new Clean Energy economy in Canada. As a result, Canada is losing its competitive advantage with Europe as it jumps ahead to new energy technologies. Canada will have to catch up. Otherwise, it will soon be importing its new energy technologies from abroad.

Jean Chrétien was right to reject the federal cost numbers on Kyoto. Like the lopsided studies out of Alberta, the federal report would not hold up to scrutiny.
Gary Gallon is president of the Montreal-based Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment.