Where are the details on the Liberal plan to fight climate change?

The Liberal prescription for dealing with climate change is remarkably spare.

The governing party promises that, if re-elected, it will effectively eliminate net carbon emissions from Canada by 2050. But other than a vague suggestion by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that someone plant more trees, it doesn’t say how.

It promises to not only meet but exceed the carbon reduction targets it agreed to in Paris in 2015. But it doesn’t say how it will get there either.

It says it will write into law a schedule for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. But it doesn’t say what penalties, if any, would be imposed if such a law were broken.

Nor does it say who would pay any penalty. The government? Industry? Individuals?

According to Liberal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, a road map for reaching a so-called net zero position — where greenhouse gas emissions are balanced off by carbon reductions — would be decided on later with the help of an as yet non-existent panel of experts.

One new wrinkle is that the Liberals are also promising to help insure those whose homes are threatened by flooding. But on their own, these types of measures are not enough to deal with the climate crisis.

Trudeau’s Liberal government used to understand this. That’s why it worked so hard to create some form of national carbon tax. It calculated that the climate benefits of the new tax outweighed the costs.

Taxing carbon, or as the Liberals euphemistically prefer to call it, putting a price on pollution, is one way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regulation is another. But whatever method is chosen, there will be a cost — at least in the short run. Nothing is free.

So it will be if Canada moves toward net zero by 2050. The benefits are unlikely to be visible for many years. Indeed, insofar as eliminating greenhouse gases might merely stop the climate crisis from worsening, they may not be visible at all.

The costs, on the other hand, will be both immediate and visible.

Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives have made it clear where they stand on all of this. They have in effect, decided to abandon the climate.

The Greens and New Democrats argue that beefed-up government programs can protect those hurt by the shift away from a carbon-based economy.

But even Green party leader Elizabeth May understands the transition will be tough. That’s why she uses the Second World War as an analogy for the fight against climate change.

So where do the Liberals fit in all of this? Do they have something in mind that would allow Canada to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050?

Or are they just blowing smoke? Were this week’s announcements by Trudeau and McKenna simply an effort to piggyback onto the latest United Nations climate conference?

For a while after they were elected in 2015, the Trudeau Liberals seemed serious about battling climate change. True, they never came to terms with the problems caused by the Alberta oilsands. But they did put in place new methane emission regulations. They didn’t back away from a carbon tax.

Are they serious now? That’s not at all clear.

Thomas Walkom is a Toronto-based columnist covering politics. Follow him on Twitter: @tomwalkom