Climate news

David Green, Kayhryn Harrison, John Richards and Nancy Olewiler, Special to the Sun Published: Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Last fall, 70 economists sent a letter to British Columbia's finance minister, Carole Taylor, calling for a revenue-neutral carbon tax. The list of signatories included some of Canada's top economists.

Since then, the B.C. New Democratic Party has attacked the carbon tax relentlessly, prices at the gas pump have skyrocketed, and now a poll suggests a majority of British Columbians are against the new tax.

VANCOUVER — In the effort to minimize contributions to garbage dumps and air pollution while on the road, or while staying at hotels for meetings or conferences, more Canadian companies are demanding green solutions and services when their employees travel for business.

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Carbon markets and climate change policy in general are gaining momentum in the US for complex reasons. Industry realizes that if they don't act that there may be legislation but I think there is a more complex reason. In a conversation with two researchers from the National Intelligence Office we sketched out three forces that overlap to drive climate policy: climate change, national security and energy independence. It is becoming clear that part of the backlash against the Iraq war has manifested as a concern about the geopolitics of oil.

Europe has led the world in the development of indirect taxation systems that seek to modify behaviour. A system co-ordinated across Europe would be more appealing as it would prevent consumers from simply purchasing in a jurisdiction that doesn't apply the same taxes. This already happens with tobacco and alcohol. But it also shows the extent to which a green agenda is being seen as a way of generating revenues in the course of modifying behaviour; part of a wider shift away from direct taxation of income and towards indirect taxation.