Last week I attended a very useful workshop on climate change and green jobs bringing together about 25 people from labour and environmental ngos, in a generally successful attempt to find common ground around climate change policies. I think there was real momentum around the centrality of “green job” creation to moving the climate change agenda forward. There was less […]
Read moreGwyn Morgan, retired founding CEO of EnCana Corp., makes some interesting points about the BC carbon tax in this Globe article. But he also misses the point by focusing his analogy on transportation, as many of us do because it is most what we relate to. While transportation is characterized by highly inelastic responses, the economic equation changes at much […]
Read moreNational Post Dinosaur-in-Chief Terence Corcoran has nothing but bile to spew at the David Suzuki Foundation and its recent report on carbon pricing. With characteristic bombast, he still seems to think that global warming is a vast left-wing conspiracy to overthrow capitalism. But Terry is right about one thing. All of the modeling for greenhouse gas reduction scenarios comes from […]
Read morePatrick Brethour in the Globe and Mail writes: Consumers will pay about one-third of the new carbon tax, but will receive close to two-thirds of tax rebates, totalling $338-million in the 2008-09 budget year. B.C. businesses, which will pay two-thirds of the new tax, will receive only about half of that money back from reduced corporate and small-business income taxes. […]
Read moreSince the provincial Liberals came to power in 2001 I have seen a lot of BC Budgets and not been too happy with any of them. Until now. Today’s 2008 model is a very interesting budget, and while I have a number of quibbles, I support the overall direction. And as in the recent past on climate change I find […]
Read moreOne of the big challenges in reducing greenhouse gas emissions comes from transportation. Here in BC, for example, transportation accounts for 40% of our annual emissions. Of that more than a third (14% of the total) is from personal transportation. So any serious emissions reduction plan has to eventually come to grips with cars. To date, the low-hanging fruit has […]
Read moreI note that the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called for a carbon tax on imports into the EU if Europe’s trading partners do not take actions to reduce emissions similar to those of the EU. (text follows.) The aim is to ensure that jobs in European heavy industry are not lost to lower-cost imports as costly nvestments are […]
Read moreDave Sawyer, one of the authors of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy report, and blogger at EnviroEconomics.ca, makes some pertinent insider comments on the efficacy of a carbon tax in reducing emissions from personal transportation, a major source of emissions: While the carbon tax will “drive†some reductions in vehicle kilometers traveled, we can’t expect much from […]
Read moreThe National Round Table on Environment and Economy made the news this week with its report to the federal government on how the feds’ own climate change targets could be achieved, and with minimal impact on the economy. The NRTEE was established way back when by Brian Mulroney, who a couple years ago was dubbed “Canada’s Greenest Prime Minister†(little […]
Read moreDown in Seattle, at the Sightline Institute, Clark Williams-Derry chews on those bones of cap-and-trade and carbon tax options. Clark gets it that the Devil is in the details when it comes to design of such instruments to avoid adverse distributional impacts. Carbon Taxes: The Good and The Bad Last week’s Washington Post carried an interesting op-ed that argued for […]
Read moreCarbon tax or cap-and-trade? Oh, my ass gets sore sitting on this particular fence. Each has its pros and cons, and for each the Devil is in the details of implementation. And maybe it does not have to be either-or. With data now telling us that things (like arctic ice cover) are worse than the most pessimistic scenarios of a […]
Read moreA group of BC-based academic economists have joined together to call for a carbon tax in a letter to BC Finance Minister Carole Taylor. BC is taking suggestions towards a climate change action budget this February. I’m not holding my breath that a carbon tax is likely; from what I’m hearing out of Victoria this stage of the game is […]
Read moreThe Seattle-based Sightline Institute offers this tidy and accessible overview of carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade (in two flavours), with some scoring as to who supports what. Canada’s New Harperment supports none of the options below, and Harper has been on the international stage telling everyone else to be “flexible”. Climate Pricing 101 A primer on cap and trade, carbon taxes, […]
Read moreStatements like this drive me nuts. This quote is from an otherwise excellent article in The Tyee by Matt Price of Environmental Defence, speculating on the meat for the climate change action bones, expected from BC Premier Gordon Campbell later this week. Price falls into the same simplistic trap a lot of environmentalists get stuck in: On the revenue side, […]
Read moreIn my post yesterday, I lamented the fact that the Jaccard modeling of carbon tax impacts for the federal government assumed uniform carbon tax rates applied immediately and held constant over time. But in the real world, some phase in period is going to be necessary. Enter the Interim Report of the National Round Table on the Environment and the […]
Read moreLast week, the Green Party issued a press release claiming that a “secret government study backs $50 carbon tax”, which is convenient since the Green Party recently endorsed a $50 carbon tax. My initial response to the Green’s carbon tax was one of skepticism, mostly in regards to the likely non-impact on driving, and the flawed emphasis on tax shifting. […]
Read moreThis oped by Daniel Sperling in the LA Times appears to bridge, via California, my and Andrew’s positions on the impact of the Green’s proposed carbon tax: The one sector where carbon taxes will work well is electricity generation, which accounts for 20% of California emissions (and 40% of U.S. emissions). The carbon tax works because electricity producers can choose […]
Read moreElizabeth May and the Green Party can take credit for putting forward a serious climate change plan, based on a $50 per tonne carbon tax, with some revenues from this directed to a reduction of other taxes. http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/06.06.2007?origin=redirect Today, they placed in the public realm a study by Marc Jaccard suggesting minimal economic disruption from such a strategy- which I […]
Read moreIn New Left Review, Clive Hamilton writes a review and critique of George Monbiot’s Heat. There are a number of interesting passages. First, he gives this doozy as an indicator of how grave the issue is in the USA: In recent years wealthy Texans have discovered the joys of sitting in front of a log fire. As it is usually […]
Read moreChalk up another gimmick for Elizabeth May, with the Green’s carbon tax plan that promises, literally, the world, but falls apart upon examination. Don’t get me wrong: carbon tax may well be the way to go, because of its ease of administration compared to other schemes. But a major issue is that we have little idea empirically on how large […]
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