B.C.’s New Climate Plan Misses the Point

A simple, economic-based plan should be considered instead

On Aug. 19, the B.C. Liberals unveiled their multi-faceted, overly complex plan to address climate change. The plan fails to acknowledge that profitability is the guiding force behind investment and production, and that there must be an economic incentive to make investment decisions that would help avert climate catastrophe.

In considering this, a simple, two-part solution is best.

Despite the promise Premier Christy Clark made in the B.C. Liberals’ 2013 re-election campaign to cap the province’s carbon tax at $30 per tonne each year, her government must unfreeze the tax. Her government has said it will not increase the tax until the federal government reveals its carbon-pricing framework and the other provinces match B.C’s tax level of $30 per tonne of carbon.

The carbon tax is revenue-neutral—meaning that every dollar generated is returned to B.C. taxpayers in the form of tax reductions—and has been proven effective in reducing emissions. Statistics Canada shows that, since B.C. introduced the carbon tax, fuel consumption in the province has dropped by 16 per cent, while rising by 3 per cent in the rest of Canada. Overall, it provides an impetus against the fossil fuel industry without favoring any one way of reducing emissions.

Unfortunately, even if the tax is allowed to increase as planned, relying solely on a carbon tax will not decrease emissions to our desired levels. As evidence suggests, B.C. will not meet its 2020 target of reducing emissions by one-third.

The other part of the plan is a Canada-wide cap-and-trade system, which would see the federal government put a firm limit on the overall level of carbon pollution from the industry.

That cap would be reduced every year to reach a set pollution target. As it decreases, the total greenhouse gas emissions would be cut to the limit set by federal regulations, forcing polluters that exceed their emissions to buy unused quota from other companies. These quotas would be created by the federal government and distributed by the provincial governments through an auction process in each province.

A cap-and-trade system would ensure that Canada’s total pollution decreases while providing businesses with economic incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support clean energy.

Once carbon emissions are capped and the cost of carbon is determined, then it must be taxed. The combination of these two systems would result in a carbon market, which could determine the cost of carbon by trading carbon offsets.

This tax-system combination is the most effective way to combat climate change, based on the available research. Both of these measures have proven results where governments have implemented them.

If the issue of climate change is indeed as urgent as many environmentalists have claimed it to be, then it’s in everyone’s best interest to use a proven solution and then improve on it, rather than continuing to delay in hopes of a better solution.