Dear Editor,
The time has come to help lobby for a carbon tax. Last year was the hottest year globally since modern record keeping began, and the 15 hottest years on record have occurred since 1998.
If the world continues on this “business as usual” course, the global temperature will increase by 3°C to 5°C by the end of this century. The world’s temperature has not been at the 3°C
level for three million years and has not seen
the 5°C level for 30 million years.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that to avoid catastrophic climate change, we will have to keep the increase below 2°C. In order to achieve this goal, global emissions must start to decrease quickly in the next few years and reach near zero by 2050.
However, as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest option they will continue to be the preferred energy source.
So, besides trying to reduce our individual carbon footprint, what can the average person do to help reach this overwhelming but achievable goal of a less-than 2°C increase?
James Hansen, a leading climate scientist, suggests the best thing the average citizen can do is to join the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL).
The CCL lobbies governments to try and create the political will to implement a price on carbon with the idea being to slowly price fossil fuels out of the market. Economists agree this would be the best way to eliminate carbon-based fuels.
Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist at the World Bank, says that to switch to clean energies would cost about one to two per cent of Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and that this would, of course, be a fantastic return on investment.
In order to put this price on carbon, CCL lobbies for a plan called Fee and Dividend. This plan would apply a slowly rising fee on the carbon in fossil fuels at the source of extraction or the port of entry into the country. The money collected would be returned to all the citizens of Canada in equal monthly payments.
This plan would be easy to administer and the money collected would not go toward making government bigger, nor would it go to the financial sector and their carbon trading schemes.
Fee and Dividend would be a concrete action leading to a clean energy future and not another meaningless target-setting exercise.
I would like to start a local chapter of the CCL. If anyone is interested, please come to a meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 7 pm in the Rotary Room of the Flin Flon Public Library.
If you can’t attend this meeting but would still like to join the group, call me at 204-687-4159.
