The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Finally, Canadians are getting the straight goods on global warming. But the information is not from Ottawa. Rather, it is from an advisory group that the government created to inform Canadians on the best ways to pursue the goals of a healthy environment and a strong economy. The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, comprised of businesspeople, academics and environmental experts released a report last week that offers a blunt assessment of what must be done to reach the governmentÕs climate change targets. Those targets call for a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and a 60-70 per cent cut by 2050. Under the governmentÕs current green plan, Canada wonÕt even come close to those targets, the panel says. ThatÕs because the government plan does not make Canadians pay much at all for the environmentally destructive emissions they pump into the atmosphere. The result is neither businesses nor consumers are making the changes needed to lower their emissions significantly. The most effective way to change behaviour and promote research and investments in clean technologies, says the panel, is to put a significant price on carbon emissions. And the faster that is done, it says, the lower will be the price needed in future years, and the lower the overall cost to the economy. The report suggests that the best way for Ottawa to build a price for emissions into our economy is through a combination of a Òcarbon taxÓ on consumers and a Òcap-and-tradeÓ system that allows companies that produce less carbon than their caps permit to sell their unused quotas to companies that exceed their caps. This is a sensible proposal because, while the purpose of a carbon tax would be to promote the use of carbon-free fuels and increased efficiency in the use of fossil fuels, it would also generate extra revenues that government doesnÕt really need. Accordingly, the introduction of a carbon tax should be tied to an offsetting reduction in income taxes, so that Canadians who conserve energy find themselves no worse off than they would have been without a carbon tax. And imposing definitive cuts for big polluters, or letting them trade their quotas in the marketplace, would allow some flexibility for industries that must make huge cuts in their current emissions. Because this approach is the best way to fight climate change, Ottawa should also be pushing for these ideas in negotiations on a new climate change treaty to go into effect when the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.
