Tweet

One only has to go a few miles northwest of B.C.’s capital in Victoria to see what governments are really doing about global warming.

While provincial Finance Minister Carole Taylor was finalizing her “go green” budget, governments at the federal, provincial and local level were taking steps that guarantee sprawl, gridlock and greenhouse emissions will continue to spiral.

Tweet

The (right-of-centre) government of the Canadian province of British Columbia broke ground Tuesday, becoming the second Canadian jurisdiction to implement a carbon tax to address climate change.

The tax, which will eventually apply to all fossil fuels, starts small - amounting to 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline (around 0.6 cents per US gallon) in its first year - but quadruples in four years and will bring in a total of $1.8 billion Canadian over that time, according to Finance Minister Carole Taylor. It is also designed to be revenue neutral, and the government has promised to account for the offset so people will be able to see where exactly the increased revenue is being returned to taxpayers.