Carbon tax could raise billions, lower emissions and cut income taxes: Suzuki
Several countries including Germany, Norway, Britain and Sweden have imposed prices on carbon and successfully lowered greenhouse-gas emissions, the report said. Since we cant count on the canadian government to do anything unless there is huge pressure from the press lets hope this will "convince" Harper to get back to reality...
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/science/080226/g022604A.html
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| Environmental crusader David Suzuki is appealing to naysayers' wallets with a carbon-tax pitch that he says could shave billions off income taxes while penalizing dirty industries.
On the eve of the federal budget, he urged Ottawa to follow B.C. and Quebec with pollution levies or trading systems that scientists and a growing list of economists say would cut greenhouse gases better than Conservative regulations. "Right now, the atmosphere is treated like a free dumping ground," Suzuki told a news conference Monday. Canadians who try to use less energy aren't rewarded, while carbon-intensive industries face few consequences. Despite widespread political loathing of a new tax, Suzuki says his cross-country tour last year confirmed average consumers are ready for one. "They care passionately about (climate change) and they're prepared to act. They're prepared to pay, but they want a carbon tax. They want efficient public transit. Most of all, they want government and corporations to do their share." Continue Article Gradually phasing in a levy of $100 per tonne of carbon would raise at least $50 billion a year by 2020 and could lower emissions 20 per cent from 2006 levels, Suzuki says. That extra cash could be used to cut personal income taxes in half for average taxpayers. A portion might also be used to promote renewable energy and to lessen the carbon-tax impact on oil, gas and coal producers, Suzuki says. The B.C. government just made waves by announcing that starting July 1 it will introduce an escalating carbon tax of $10 per tonne of carbon or about 2.4 cents on a litre of gasoline. It will be applied to most fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel, coal, propane, natural gas and home heating fuel. The levy will rise to $30 per tonne of carbon - about 7.2 cents on a litre of gasoline - by 2012. About $1.8 billion expected from the new fees over three years will be returned to businesses and individuals in tax cuts and environmental rebates, B.C.'s finance minister stressed. Suzuki also said that a federal measure could include special rebates to protect low-income Canadians. He commissioned an economic analysis released Monday: "Pricing Carbon: Saving Green - a Carbon Price to Lower Emissions, Taxes and Barriers to Green Technology." It forecasts that a carbon tax of $100 per tonne would slow economic growth only slightly, resulting in gross domestic product lessened by 0.5 to 1.3 per cent in 2020. That's less than one year of delayed economic growth according to historic annual trends, said the report. Co-author Mark Jaccard, an economist at Simon Fraser University, argued that relying on regulations to force polluters to pay will cost more than using a tax to change market behaviour. Federal Environment Minister John Baird quipped last month that a new carbon tax "sounds like a Liberal idea to me." He says provinces can go that route, but the Tories will proceed with a mixed emissions-cutting effort of consumer incentives, funding for the provinces and industrial crackdowns. Companies that fail to sufficiently reduce their greenhouse gases must pay into a technology fund. Liberal Leader Stephane Dion doesn't favour a politically dicey new carbon tax either, although Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has embraced the idea. The influential National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy said last month that federal and provincial governments should start hammering out a national price on carbon. It stopped just short of recommending a carbon tax, but suggested that's the preferred option along with an emissions trading system for industrial polluters. Pierre Sadik, senior policy adviser for the David Suzuki Foundation, said the Conservative hands-off approach is "an abdication of responsibility at the federal level." He said the Tory intensity-based cap and trade proposal "allows emissions to rise without any absolute limit on the level of greenhouse gases being emitted." Ottawa "has not stepped up to the plate." |
Several countries including Germany, Norway, Britain and Sweden have imposed prices on carbon and successfully lowered greenhouse-gas emissions, the report said. Since we cant count on the canadian government to do anything unless there is huge pressure from the press lets hope this will "convince" Harper to get back to reality...
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/science/080226/g022604A.html
