Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff announced his climate change policies and they include more of the same - more government, higher taxes and more regulations.

Don't worry, though, because Ignatieff has extensively consulted with "climate change experts and other stakeholders to pull together some of the best thinking on climate change policy in Canada."

Who fits under the category of "other" It's obviously not taxpayers or anyone who drives a vehicle.

Ignatieff's plan outlines 12 policies aimed at reducing green house gas emissions - an all of them include spending tax dollars, collecting more tax dollars, or creating more regulations to ensure proper environmentally-friendly behaviours. The good news is that Ignatieff is scrapping the former Liberal government's plan to reduce carbon emissions to 12 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. This is a reminder of how the original Kyoto plan was a mindless public relations exercise with targets that couldn't possibly be met.

Instead, Ignatieff wants to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, which should prove to be equally delusional. He intends to meet this goal by allowing private companies to pay other companies for the right to pollute under the often-criticized emissions trading plan. He proposes installing a cap on emissions from industry while selling pollution permits which would be collected by Ottawa and funneled back into provincial coffers.

Once again, taxpayers will wind up funneling hundreds of millions of dollars Moscow to heat our homes while Russia's emissions keep rising.

The plan calls for forcing car manufacturers to build a certain percentage of low-emissions vehicles, more subsidies for the bio-fuels industry and research and a "public engagement strategy," which is code for "advertising campaign." Get ready for a return of those Rick Mercer commercials.

And what happens if consumers don't want a hybrid vehicle Who can afford a $50,000 under-powered car And what do car companies do when nobody buys the electric cars, dump them in Lake Ontario It's always the little guy who winds up paying.

The real meat for consumers here is that Ignatieff wants to heavily tax regular gas, and cut taxes on ethanol or biofuel blended fuels -- which he calls revenue-neutral "tax shifting." He says if there is any surplus it would be "recycled" back to the provinces. Oh, there will be surpluses alright

In other words, if you don't use the Iggy-approved fuel, you'll be paying more. Problem with bio-fuels is they do more to artificially inflate the price of wheat, canola or corn than they do to reduce emissions. It takes more energy to make ethanol and biodiesel than it does to make gasoline from crude oil. Bio-fuels may make sense from a geo-political perspective (to reduce reliance on Middle Eastern oil) but don't rely on canola diesel to save the environment.

Ignatieffs plan is just more of the same. Ignatieff promises to "protect" Canada's biofuels industry from subsidized US competition. That "protection" can come in two ways: biofuel producers will be forever propped up by subsidies or Canadians will be forced to "buy Canadian." Either way, consumers pay more.

While Iggy assures us he has consulted all the experts to help him craft his vision for the future, it's clear he neglected to consult one significant group - taxpayers. If Iggy achieves his life-long ambition of becoming Prime Minister, we'll be paying through the nose.