After election defeat, a conscientious shift

In a surprising and impressive political about-face, BC New Democratic Party leader Carole James withdrew her party's opposition to the BC carbon tax today - committing to improving the tax, rather than trying to undermine it.

The only government in North America to implement a carbon tax to fight climate change has been re-elected handily in British Columbia.

Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell introduced a carbon tax in February 2008 and launched it officially in July, regardless that the introduction date coincided with the highest oil prices in history. The Premier, surprisingly, held his ground, The left-leaning (and traditionally environmentally conscious) New Democratic Party on the other hand opted to attack the tax, characterizing it as an unfair effort to pick the pockets of the poor. She campaigned on a promise to "axe the tax."

On Tuesday, British Columbians said, loudly, that they couldn't believe her. The carbon tax stands; Carole James falls.

"As citizens of the planet, it is our responsibility to put the planet before politics and urge the next B.C. government and federal politicians to do the same."

Mike Harcourt, et al, Globe and Mail Online, Saturday, May 9, 2009

At a critical time, B.C. New Democratic Party leader Carole James decided it was expedient to put politics first, and tomorrow, it looks like she will pay the price.

The B.C. election campaign that wraps up today has been  both shocking and inevitable. It was shocking, for example, that so many traditional New Democratic Party (NDP) supporters, from David Suzuki and Tzeporah Berman to (most surprisingly) former NDP Premier Mike Harcourt, should speak up in praise of Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell's carbon tax.

And it was inevitable that the NDP would dismiss THAT as politics, making a strained claim for environmental high ground on the basis of the party's other policies.

British Columbia has the best carbon pricing scheme in Canada. That's the conclusion of a national survey and analysis of climate policies compiled by Sustainable Prosperity, a progressive think tank based at the Univeristy of Ottawa.

According to a Globe and Mail report, the authors of the study invested a year speaking with top economic, business and environment leaders across the country before identifying eight key principles of a carbon pricing plan—think tranparency, reach, simplicity, and so on. The group then applied those principals to score Canada's existing carbon laws and proposals. B.C.'s carbon tax, introduced a year ago, scored an 87. It fell short in the areas of national reach and long-term impact.

The group also informally examined the limited cap-and-trade policy that B.C.'s New Democratic Party is presently campaigning on. Sustainable Prosperity's carbon-pricing director told the Globe that her group's "score card would rate [it] as the weakest policy in Canada.” With few details of that plan yet available, the group was only able to conduct a back-of-the-envelope analysis. It was enough, though, to suggest that New Democrat's plan would introduce "huge instability and doubt" to the market.

An editorial in the Ottawa Citizen today on the BC election and the issue of the carbon tax points out that:

"Instead of trying to create the best possible tax shift for B.C., the provincial NDP has chosen to follow the populist path blazed by the federal Conservatives, and portray the tax-shift as a cash-grab." (my emphasis)

The entire column is here: Watching the West Coast

A high profile group of academics, including Dr. John Robinson, UBC's top sustainability expert and a lead author on three reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), co-wrote a column in the Vancouver Sun today accusing the BC NDP of "intellectual dishonesty." The group goes on to compare the BC NDP and their leader Carole James to "'Climate “skeptics' — people who doubt, despite the mounds of evidence, that climate change is a problem worth addressing..."

Robinson and company write:

"Climate 'skeptics' — people who doubt, despite the mounds of evidence, that climate change is a problem worth addressing — are less prevalent today, but they been replaced by purveyors of a new myth: people who tell voters that we can solve the climate change problem without the need for any change in how we live our lives.

In B.C., Carole James and the NDP are these new mythmakers. The BC NDP promise to “axe the tax,” should they win the provincial election, while accomplishing all the same goals with no cost to BC taxpayers, is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty." (my emphasis)

Read the whole op-ed here: Debunking myths about the B.C. carbon tax