The environment in the news monday, 26 May 2008
Layton raises carbon-tax alarm
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Layton raises carbon-tax alarmBy BILL CURRY The Globe and Mail Friday May 23, 2008 OTTAWA — NDP Leader Jack Layton launched a vehement campaign against carbon taxes yesterday and was quickly accused of alarmist pandering by prominent Canadian environmentalists. Speaking to a fundraiser for an Ottawa homeless shelter, Mr. Layton said carbon taxes would raise home heating costs and hurt Canadians living on the margins. He said big corporations should bear the lion's share of Canada's climate-change tab and a federal ombudsman should ensure those costs aren't passed on to consumers. "With energy costs soaring in Canada, we've got to ensure that the solutions to climate change don't aggravate an already dire situation for those who struggle to make ends meet," Mr. Layton said. He said he supports a cap-and-trade system, which imposes penalties on industrial emissions above a certain level, or cap. Liberals, meanwhile, are preparing to announce a plan built around carbon taxes, which is expected to apply to a wider range of emissions and raise money for environmental efforts. "Those advocating a carbon tax suggest that by making the cost of certain things more expensive people will make different choices, but Canada is a cold place and heating your home really isn't a choice," Mr. Layton said. "We shouldn't punish people, and that's what a carbon tax does." Mr. Layton's comments are clearly aimed at distancing the NDP from the Liberals before party Leader Stéphane Dion releases his latest environmental plan. They also come as some in the party have urged Mr. Layton to spend more time raising issues of poverty and homelessness. Environmentalist Stephen Hazell, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said Mr. Layton's comments are regrettable because a strong climate-change plan would include cap-and-trade measures as well as carbon taxes. "The carbon tax has a huge advantage over cap-and-trade in that it can be put in place very quickly and deliver results very quickly, whereas cap-and-trade, it's taken Europe decades to get that one figured out," he said. "It's just regrettable that he's focusing on the negative." Mr. Hazell said there are ways to ensure low-income people receive assistance so they are not hurt by carbon taxes. "It just seems a little bit like pandering to us," he said. "They're pandering to people who are afraid about rising gas prices, the folks who would typically support the NDP. But we think it's alarmist and it's not helpful." Mr. Hazell's comments come on the heels of remarks from environmentalist David Suzuki, who told CTV's Question Period last Sunday that he was "shocked" by the NDP's opposition to a carbon tax. "I thought that they had a very progressive environmental outlook," Mr. Suzuki said. "To oppose [the carbon tax plan], it's just nonsense. It's certainly the way we've got to go." Yesterday, John Bennett of climateforchange.ca wrote immediately to Mr. Layton, saying he was at a loss to understand why the NDP is ruling out carbon taxes. "We are hoping you won't follow the NDP in British Columbia and seek short-term political advantage by playing on the fears of people," he wrote. But one environmentalist who has strongly advocated a carbon tax was willing to cut the NDP some slack yesterday. Beatrice Olivastri, CEO of Friends of the Earth Canada, said experts such as the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy are still debating and researching whether a carbon tax is ultimately the best measure. "It's not categoric," she said of the debate over carbon taxes. "To me, it's distinguishing [the NDP] on machinery, certainly not on values. Because I happen to believe that all four parties, other than the Conservatives, hold a very high and important value for addressing global warming." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080523.wcarbon23/BNStory/energy/ All hail Carbonia!By PATRICK BRETHOUR pbrethour@globeandmail.com The Globe and Mail Friday May 23, 2008 There is a new nation springing up in North America, one that will be dictating environmental policy to the entire continent. Encompassing 71 million citizens, its borders are a bit irregular, running from California to British Columbia, then leapfrogging to Manitoba and Quebec. But this new nation has been busy at work this week, setting up a new trading bloc, complete with border tariffs. For now, the nation goes by the bureaucratic moniker of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), the umbrella under which three provinces and seven U.S. states are negotiating the tenets of a continent-wide carbon cap-and-trade system. A little rebranding is in order for this newborn state -- all hail Carbonia! The details of the negotiations are brain-numbing, but the broad effect of the proposed measures is startling. It is the first clear picture of what burdens business will face in coming years as governments attach a price to carbon. It is a stark warning to any government tempted to ignore the climate change file - hello there, Alberta - that inaction will very shortly become a significant competitive disadvantage. And the measures laid out by the WCI pose the threat that the policy inertia by the U.S. and Canadian federal governments will result in provinces and states erecting trade barriers in the name of fighting greenhouse gases. One of the most important points being negotiated this week in Salt Lake City is the question of how much of the initial grant of emissions permits should be auctioned - how much businesses should have to pay up front. Utilities companies have been pushing for a nominal amount, on the order of 5 per cent; environmental groups have been lobbying for much more. The WCI document this week is bad news for power companies: It recommends at least 25 per cent of permits be auctioned, and holds out the possibility that as much as 75 per cent be sold. Even the smaller figure means that major emitters in WCI jurisdictions will have to pay millions. For power plants burning fossil fuels in British Columbia, California or any other part of the WCI, electricity costs will increase considerably, although the precise amount of the jump can't be stated quite yet. But the teams negotiating the pact are well aware of this fact, and of the problem of saddling their own industry with significant costs while competitors in laggard jurisdictions continue to spew out low-price power and ample greenhouse gases. Without some sort of counterbalance, B.C. Hydro would find it far more profitable to buy cheap power from Alberta coal-fired power plants, in the process wiping out much of the province's progress in reducing greenhouse gases. That won't happen under the rules being drafted by the WCI. Instead, emissions from any electricity imports will have to be accounted for, just as with any locally generated power. In practical terms, that means a levy at the B.C.-Alberta boundary on electricity - a tariff, even though the B.C. government shies away from that description. This is not just a problem for Alberta's coal-fired plants. Given the nature of the electricity market, where generators sell into a pool, it won't be possible to distinguish between environmentally virtuous wind power and sinful fossil fuel outfits. Instead, Alberta's entire electricity sector will get hit, and renewable energy sources in Alberta will operate at a disadvantage compared to their B.C. competitors. It's not a theoretical problem: B.C. already imports large amounts of electricity from Alberta, where a large proportion of power comes from coal-fired plants - dirty power, at least when greenhouse gases are considered. B.C. Hydro doesn't give specifics on the matter, but the Suzuki foundation calculated that electricity imports from all sources carried a carbon tab of just over two megatonnes of greenhouse gases. To put that in perspective, B.C. is aiming to cut its emissions by 24 megatonnes by 2020. Given that math, it's clear B.C. will need to wean itself from dirty imports, a significant problem for Alberta, given that B.C. is its largest export market by far. That should be an alarm bell not just for Alberta, but for any government thinking it can't afford to take action on climate change - particularly since observers at the Utah talks are predicting that the agreement being hammered out there will eventually be the model for all of North America. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080523.RBRETHOUR23/TPStory/?query=climate+change Directory: cpi -> briefs briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news Download 461.99 Kb. Share with your friends:
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