Ottawa Think-Tank Calls B.C.'s Carbon Tax Canada's "Most Effective"
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.
A recent book by Mark C. Henderson fully agrees. Carbon taxes would be a much better approach than cap-and-trade . This website, www.wavesofthefuture.net, provides a comparison between cap-and-trade and a strucutral strategy which includes a carbon tax.
Lots details about the strategy have been recently added.
From the Tyee web site:
Two top ecologists to vote NDP
Biologist Alexandra Morton and ecologist Bill Rees plan to vote for the New Democratic Party in next week's provincial election.
"I personally have always voted Green. But I feel partly responsible for Gordon Campbell getting in these last two elections, and so I'm voting for the NDP," Morton told a Vancouver press conference this morning.
"I'm absolutely with the Greens philosophically. On the other hand, I probably will vote strategically to avoid seeing the Campbell government return," agreed Rees, the UBC professor who devised the "ecological footprint" concept.
As to the group's contention that the NDP's cap-and-trade platform is the "weakest policy in Canada" - while no policy is perfect, it's a heck of a lot better than Campbell's cap-and-trade policy. The NDP platform calls for REAL hard caps on emissions by industry, and the oil and gas producers. Campbell's plan doesn't do that. Campbell's plan will allow a pulp mill in BC buy credits from a tree planter in Oregon, and make it look like it's reduced emissions, without doing a thing to actually reduce GHG.
Oh, and if the NDP's platform is the 'weakest in Canada', I suppose the group supports the federal Conservative Party's approach which will use the so-called "intensity-based targets", which will not decrease GHG emissions at all, but only possibly slow their rate of growth.
This is nonsense. Find a real, credible, objective source to support your partisan political agenda.