The B.C. carbon tax is built on a simple tenet of human behavior: When the price of something goes up, people will consume less of it. It actually applies to not just gasoline, but to all sources of atmospheric carbon, including natural gas and propane, and is based on how much carbon they emit. For example, since natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline, it is taxed at a lower rate. This ensures emissions are priced in proportion to their impact on the climate. As a result, British Columbia’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are now nearly 20 percent below the rest of Canada’s. This put the province “within spitting distance” of its goal to reduce emissions 6 percent below 2007 levels by 2012 a year ahead of schedule, says Mary Polak, B.C.’s minister of the environment. ...... Such a show of international cooperation could be as important as the greenhouse gas reductions that result: When international climate change negotiations have failed to produce a global deal and when the European Union recently announced that it will back away from its emissions reductions targets, the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy has the potential to be a rare beacon of hope on bilateral climate action. The leadership of one Canadian province, and now western American states, is sending the message that if national governments won’t commit to building a sustainable future, smaller governments will take matters into their own hands. It will require action by more than one region in North America to slow climate change, but the closer we get to paying for the true cost of carbon and debunking the myth that doing so harms our economies, the faster other places are likely to follow suit. Whether we do it for the planet or the economy, the sooner the better. grist.org/climate-energy/b-c-put-a-price-on-carbon-what-happened-next-will-surprise-you/
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 02:09:32 +0000
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