Ignoring Climate Change Will Not Make it Go Away

British environmental activist and author, George Monbiot, gives Stephen Harper and the Conservatives a place of honour in his book Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning

Thanks to the efforts of Mr Harper and your environment minister, Rona Ambrose, Canada's global reputation is now beginning to catch up with its performance. When they say that Canada cannot reach its Kyoto targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, they mean that they do not intend to try. Their surrender within the first few months in office is an astonishing instance of political cowardice. Having presented himself to the Canadian people as a man who can make tough choices, Harper declared himself an irresolute wimp as soon as he was faced with a choice between upsetting a few industrial lobbyists or helping to save the planet. Keeping Canada's promise to cut emissions by 6%, he says, is just too hard. When I first heard that, I couldn't help bursting into bitter laughter. (1)

Stephen Harper didn't try because he doesn't believe in the science of climate change. In fact he doesn't believe in science at all. How else could you explain his appointment of a creationist to the science portfolio?

But denying climate change doesn't mean that it will just correct itself.

The image at the top of the page is from a billboard going into the climate change summit in Copenhagen in 2009. The world was taking notice and the world was not impressed. And in Copenhagen we won not only many Colossal Fossil awards of the day, but ran off with the top prize. The Colossal Fossil of the summit.



And not simply because of our inaction on climate change, but because Harper tried to sabotage the negotiations.

And in an attempt to rescue our reputation, the prime minister ... well ... did nothing. In fact he missed most of the conference, instead arriving with wealthy oil execs to have lunch with the Queen of Denmark.

And when he was reminded that smaller nations were being devastated by global warming, he made one of the most shocking statements ever to come out of a world leader, let alone a Canadian pm:

"This may be a shock," Harper said last month in the House of Commons, "but the negotiators Canada assigns to international negotiations (like Copenhagen) are there to represent the interests of Canada, not the interests of Mali."

With that statement he painted Canadians as cold and heartless.

We are a nation now being defined by the Tar Sands. And it is giving not only Canada but Alberta a black eye.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has often referred to Canada as an emerging "energy superpower" due largely to the development of the Alberta oil sands. But what has been the long-term legacy of fossil fuel development in Alberta -- the epicenter of the Canadian conservative movement and Harper's political powerbase?

Deficits, foolish giveaways to corporations at the expense of taxpayers, and environmental "carnage" without funds to fix it, according to Allan Warrack, a former minister in the Alberta government who nearly 40 years ago helped craft the province's plan for saving and intelligently investing its oil wealth.

And putting his entire focus on the Alberta oil patch has been misguided at best. Goldman Sachs is now warning their clients not to invest in Canada:

A Goldman Sachs strategist has told investors that it is time to dump their Canadian stocks, so they can avoid suffering losses in the short term as oil prices decline.Noah Weisberger told investors Tuesday that Canadian stocks "made new highs last week, even as growth jitters and higher energy prices were constraining equity markets elsewhere."

But he advised Goldman Sachs clients to drop their Canadian holdings as "risks to the forward view of economic growth are more balanced as are the risks to oil prices."

And Harper's pipeline plans will flow all the good jobs South, even though apparently they don't want them.

And his entire environmental platform is a fraud. It's why he appointed fraudster Bruce Carson to write copy for the Tar Sands and their so-called "ethical oil".

George Monbiot wrote a piece for the UK Guardian: Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling. In it he says of Canada:

When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world's peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country's government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee's tea party.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Kate Heartfield wrote last week for the Ottawa Citizen: John Baird rewrites history In it she calls out Baird for his flip-flop on cap-and-trade.

In her closing statement she says: "Granted, the Liberals have changed their carbon-pricing policy too since the last election (from the tax shift in 2008 to cap and trade now) but at least they're being honest about it."

The Liberals were left with no alternative. Stephen Harper, with the help of Jack Layton, made "carbon tax" akin to poison. Which is sad because a carbon tax is a much better initiative.

It is open, transparent and can be made revenue neutral, which is exactly what the Green Shift was. But sadly, in 2008, both the Conservatives and NDP campaigned against it, as a "tax on everything".

It helped them politically but greatly damaged our chance at reversing the trend.

Now the media is giving the Conservatives a free pass on the environment, simply because they are claiming they will do what Obama does, knowing full well that the Tea Party/Republicans are severely tying his hands.

One of the budget measures they insisted on was the gutting of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, mimicking our own government's gutting of environmental protection, under the guise of removing red tape.

It's fitting that Monbiot referred to the Harper government as "a chimpanzee's tea party". The Canadian version of the Koch Brothers Tea Party.

You do the math.

And when you're done make sure you vote on May 2, and vote wisely. Our reputation depends on it.

Sources:

1. Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning, By George Monbiot, 2006, Random House, ISBN: 13-978-0-385-66221-5

Were Jack Layton and the NDP Behind the "Flash Mob" Protests?

It would appear that the NDP may have been behind the "Flash Mob" protests on Parliament hill yesterday, that resulted in a violent showdown with security.

I have no problem with protests, but it's rather hypocritical for Jack Layton to be pushing his aggressive environmental bill now, demanding that the other parties adopt it without sufficient review. He knew, and has since admitted, that the Carbon Tax was the best thing for this country, but capitalized on the Reform-Conservative attacks during the last election.

The above video shows that yesterday's "mob" leader is an NDP activist. I respect the message, and we do need to hold this government's feet to the fire, but Mr. Layton is a little late coming to the table with any kind of viable alternative.

Boisterous climate-change protest hits the Hill
By David Akin,
Canwest News Service
October 26, 2009

OTTAWA — Six people were arrested and released, and two were injured — one bleeding from his mouth — after more than 120 people were forcibly removed from the House of Commons on Monday after interrupting question period with a climate-change protest.

The demonstrators hollered at MPs and chanted slogans, urging legislators to pass Bill C-311, an NDP bill that would commit Canada to meeting aggressive targets to cut the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. The protesters said they were not affiliated with, or organized by, the NDP.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff were not in the House.

One of those arrested, Jeh Custer of Edmonton, was seen bleeding from the mouth after his head struck the concrete walls inside the House of Commons. Custer was observed with his hands handcuffed behind his back, being escorted by two uniformed RCMP officers into the basement in Parliament Hill's Centre Block.

Protest organizers at the scene identified the six people arrested: Custer, affiliated with Sierra Club Prairies; Eriel Deranger of Fort Chipewyan, Alta., affiliated with the Rainforest Action Network; Chelsea Flook of Ottawa, Dave Vasey of Walkerton, Ont., Ian Brannigan of Ottawa, and Adam MacIsaac, who is from Prince Edward Island.

All those arrested were said to be aged 21 to 30.

Parliament Hill security authorities said the arrested individuals would be released after being given written warnings not to return to Parliament Hill.

Protest organizers said they would continue with protests — what they called "Flash Mob Mondays" — until a key climate-change conference begins in December in Copenhagen. They would not say if they would protest in the House of Commons or elsewhere.

The protesters said they wanted to pressure Ottawa to do more to battle climate change.
The protest began shortly after 2:30 p.m. local time, as NDP Leader Jack Layton rose to ask his first question of the government.

At that point, a young man stood up in the public gallery behind the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons and shouted at MPs. As soon as the blue-shirted parliamentary security guards removed him, another protester stood up and did the same thing. A third and a fourth followed in quick succession.

Then, once all those individuals had been removed, another man, who later identified himself as Joe Cressy, stood up and led about 120 people in a series of chants. Security guards physically evicted the entire crowd.

Flook, one of the protesters, was seen being dragged, kicking and screaming, through the Centre Block's normally quiet corridors and down granite stairs.

Veteran parliamentarians said they could not recall a protest in the House of Commons that had ever involved so many people or which seemed as well-orchestrated.

Access to the public galleries in the House of Commons are provided on a first-come, first-served basis and those who wish to enter must pass through a security checkpoint to be screened for weapons. No one, though, is required to present identification or receive background checks to watch proceedings in the House of Commons.

A Video Kingston's Brian Abrams Should Watch Because He Was Wrong About Carbon Tax

This is an important video for Kingston's Brian Abrams, Conservative candidate for the upcoming federal election. Last time around he joined the lies of his Party and tried to claim that the Carbon tax would hurt the economy and raise the price of everything.

However, the fact is that the Carbon tax would have been revenue neutral, while the Conservative 'Cap and Trade" will be paid for by the consumer. In other words, US.

I hope he gets his act together and does a little research before just making stuff up.

We need immediate action on climate change, and if he's not prepared to provide answers, then the question becomes, why vote for him?

If I want to hear lies I'll go straight to the mouth of the horse; his boss, Stephen Harper.

Back to: The Brian Abrams Story: I Want to be a Potted Plant

Rob Clarke and Brian Abrams Not the Only Conservatives Who Lied About Carbon Tax

But they still lied.

The above video shows Conservative MP Rob Clarke reading a message from the PMO (and not very well I might add. Kind of reminds me of grade 4 public speaking exercise), one of many, many delivered by Conservative MPs and candidates alike, who put winning an election above doing what was best for the Canadian public.

Most environmentalists and economists alike, agree that the carbon tax is the best defense against climate change. The Green shift was revenue neutral meaning that any taxes paid would have been returned in the form of tax credits. Even the NDP are now admitting that they should have been more supportive of Mr. Dion's plan.

But what did the Conservatives do and are still doing? They lied, lied and lied again, then when they got tired of simply lying, they started to make stuff up.

Now usually our Kingston candidate Brian Abrams just cuts and pastes from the Conservative website for his 'thoughts' but when he did try to wing it he should have turned off the TV. Apparently Sesame Street that day was brought to you by the number 12, so that was his fabricated statistic for the German unemployment rate, when in fact it was 7.6% in September and 7.7% in August of 2008.

Canada's Sarah Palin also made stuff up, as did most of the gang who have no idea how to address climate change, which is why we are now in last place for action on global warming.

But here's what Brian had to say:

Only you can stop the carbon tax
Saturday, 11 October 2008

"Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative Government developed and implemented a plan based on keeping the budget balanced, lowering taxes, protecting Canadian jobs and keeping inflation low. Our plan has been in place for two years. Our plan has worked. Our plan is the reason why Canada is in good shape today.

In three days time, Canadians will choose between a real plan for the economy and a carbon tax that will drive up the cost of everything:

Higher fuel prices.
Higher food prices.
Higher costs for business.
Higher costs for hospitals, schools, municipalities and transit systems.
Undefined carbon tariffs.

The choice is clear. With Dion, Canadians will see higher taxes and deficit spending. With Harper, Canadians will continue to see lower taxes and balanced budgets.

That's what this election is about. Harper Conservatives are on the right track. The Dion Liberal carbon tax track is the wrong way to go.

Only you can prevent this train wreck. Vote NO to the carbon tax.

More Postings on Rob Clarke:

1. Conservative Rob Clarke Abuses RCMP Connections

I Am So Damn Mad at Jack Layton and the NDP NOW flogging the Carbon Tax!

The NDP will be holding their convention in Halifax this coming weekend, but are starting to roll out a potential platform.

One of their new policies will be to try to get Stephen Harper a majority, because in a scorched earth scenario, they feel that if the Conservatives completely destroy the country, we will beg the NDP to fix it. (If there's anything left to fix)

That must be it anyway, because they are apparently now devoted to cutting and pasting from the 'Ignatieff Me' website for their next election campaign.

However, that is not what has me the most upset about the whole nonsense. It's the fact that they are now claiming they only supported cap and trade because Harper did, and instead feel they should have gone with the carbon tax. Duh!!!

"In the last federal election, the NDP took the simple route of favouring cap-and-trade over carbon taxes. It ignored the fact that climate change will only ever be controlled by an across-the-board system of carbon pricing that includes both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax of some kind. A better approach would have been to support the intent of Stéphane Dion's proposal ..."

Now who's just in it for himself?

I thought Jack Layton and the NDP cared about this country and Canadians. Clearly they do not if they hid in the background while the Conservatives hammered away at the Carbon Tax, a policy that most environmentalists and economists agree is the only plan that will work to address global warming.

Well Jackie boy. Will your campaign include 'Michael Ignatieff can't run from the carbon tax?' You're already stealing Conservative rhetoric ... '34 years ... torture ... Iraq' ... without learning the facts.

What a disappointment. Tommy Douglas would be so ashamed.

The Carbon Tax Explained in Language Even a Conservative Can Understand

Dr. Arthur Laffer was the author of the famous 'Laffer Curve' that promotes the theory that lowering taxes will increase spending, thereby keeping the economy afloat.

Those great economic wizards, George Bush and Jim Flaherty followed the Laffer curve, but no one's laughing now.

However, the good doctor appeared on an episode of Bill Mahr this past winter, and when hammered about his theory, which many believe contributed in part to the economic crisis; he defended himself by saying that the Bush Administration (and Harper Government) only followed his theory in part.

You need to reduce taxes, but you also must reduce government spending, he stated. OOPS! I guess they should have read the rest of the book.

Another economist's name that is being bandied about recently is John Keynes, and the term 'Keynesian' has become part of our vernacular. However, again only a portion of his theory is being used. That of borrowing to spend on infrastructure to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

But Mr. Keynes also said that war should be largely financed by higher taxation, rather than deficit spending. Another OOPS! Modern wars are being funded with massive debt, because heaven forbid a Conservative would swallow his pride and bring out the 'T' word.

And speaking of the 'T' word, Dr. Laffer is also promoting a Carbon Tax, as the best solution to fight climate change. He is a conservative, who believes that all conservatives should be on board with this because it puts money back in their pockets, rather than taking it out with a hidden 'Cap and Trade' tax, that only helps big business.

An Emissions Plan Conservatives Could Warm To
New York Times
By BOB INGLIS and ARTHUR B. LAFFER
December 27, 2008

CONSERVATIVES don’t support tax increases that are veiled as “cap and trade” schemes for pollution permits. But offer us a tax swap, and we could become the new administration’s best allies on climate change. (Mr. Dion offered a tax swap called the 'Green Shift' and our so-called Conservatives made him out to be the devil)

A climate-change bill withered in Congress this summer because families don’t need an enormous, and hidden, tax increase. If the bill’s authors had instead proposed a simple carbon tax coupled with an equal, offsetting reduction in income taxes or payroll taxes, a dynamic new energy security policy could have taken root.

Even if the United States extracts more of its own oil — something it needs to do — it will still have only 3 percent of the world’s known oil reserves, and OPEC will still be the cartel with 70 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. Conventional discoveries and unconventional extractions (like shale oil) would improve our standing somewhat, but OPEC’s easily extracted oil makes its members the undisputed kings of crude.

If they’re the kings, we’re the vassals. As long as national security risks aren’t factored into the cost of gasoline and as long as carbon dioxide can be emitted without penalty, oil will continue to have an advantage over emerging fuels in the marketplace, and we’ll continue our ruinous addiction to it.

We need to impose a tax on the thing we want less of (carbon dioxide) and reduce taxes on the things we want more of (income and jobs). A carbon tax would attach the national security and environmental costs to carbon-based fuels like oil, causing the market to recognize the price of these negative externalities.

Nuclear power plants would then compete with coal-fired plants. Wind and solar power would have a shot against natural gas. Trains would compete with trucks. We would clean the air, create wealth and jobs through a new technology boom and drastically improve our national security.

The market-driven innovation that brought us the Internet and the personal computer could quickly bring us new, cleaner fuels. A carbon tax that was fully offset (with payroll or income taxes cut by a dollar amount equal to the revenues generated by the new tax) would be as bold as the threat that we face.

Conservatives do not have to agree that humans are causing climate change to recognize a sensible energy solution. All we need to assume is that burning less fossil fuels would be a good thing. Based on the current scientific consensus and the potential environmental benefits, it’s prudent to do what we can to reduce global carbon emissions. When you add the national security concerns, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels becomes a no-brainer.

Yet the costs of reducing carbon emissions are not trivial. Climate change may be a serious problem, but a higher overall tax rate would devastate the long-term growth of America and the world.

It is essential, therefore, that any taxes on carbon emissions be accompanied by equal, pro-growth tax cuts. A carbon tax that isn’t accompanied by a reduction in other taxes is a nonstarter. Fiscal conservatives would gladly trade a carbon tax for a reduction in payroll or income taxes, but we can’t go along with an overall tax increase. (Not our Conservatives)

The good news is that both Democrats and Republicans could support a carbon tax offset by a payroll or income tax cut. Former Vice President Al Gore has argued for eliminating all payroll taxes and replacing them with “pollution taxes.” He said in a speech at New York University’s law school two years ago: “It would be, in other words, a revenue-neutral tax swap. But, instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.”

The United States can’t solve climate change alone. The Kyoto climate treaty was rightly rejected by the Senate because China and India weren’t subject to its provisions. If China and India join the United States in attaching a price to carbon, their goods should come into this country without a carbon adjustment. But if they do not, every item they place on our shelves should be subject to the same carbon tax that we would place on our domestically produced goods, again offset by a revenue-neutral tax cut.

If World Trade Organization rules entitle members to an unwarranted exemption from such a carbon tax, then we should change them. Outliers should not be allowed to frustrate the decision-making of the countries that are trying to prevent the security and environmental train wrecks of this century.

As president, Barack Obama, by working with conservatives as well as the members of his own party, can at once clean the air, create jobs and improve the national security of the United States — a triple play for the next American century.

Bob Inglis is a Republican representative from South Carolina. Arthur B. Laffer was a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1981 to 1989.

Experts Say Conservative 'Cap and Trade' is a Dead Policy Walking

The video reveals the scam of the Conservatives first environmental program; emission-intensity; but their expensive and confusing 'Cap and Trade' (fancy term for a hidden carbon tax) will be devastating both to the Canadian economy and the environment.

Yet they are once again trying to use the carbon tax against the Liberals, claiming that Michael Ignatieff is trying to run away from it. They use several quotes on their Ignatieff Me site:

The Facts on Michael Ignatieff’s Carbon Tax

He was the first to call for energy taxes:

“Taxes have to rise; there is no other way” — Ignatieff on using higher taxes as “solutions” for the environment (Kingston Whig-Standard, June 10, 1991)

He campaigned for leader on imposing a carbon tax:

“We’ve also got to have popular, practical, believable policies that may involve some form of carbon tax, for example, to increase the penalties on emissions. The time for action really is now” — Ignatieff during a Liberal leadership debate (Globe and Mail, June 15, 2006)

He took credit for pushing Stéphane Dion to embrace a carbon tax:

Craig Oliver: “Now you were the first leader, as a candidate [for] leader, to talk about a carbon tax and you took a little bit [of] heat for that. Do you still believe in a carbon tax? Of course you do.

Michael Ignatieff: “I do Craig. I learned that there’s no punishment more severe in politics than being the first guy with a good idea but I’m glad, I’m glad our party seems to be moving that way.” (CTV Question Period – May 25, 2008)

Well it seems that Mr. Ignatieff knew as long as 18 years ago, what experts are only now realizing.... "those who care deeply about climate change will find that a carbon tax system has become the last, reasonable policy standing."

Those are the words of Robert Shapiro, chair and co founder of the U.S. Climate Task Force and former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, who has lent his voice to countless environmental experts who say that the 'cap and trade' tax will not work. Energy prices will soar and corruption will abound.

That Michael Ignatieff is a pretty smart guy.

Tax vs. Cap-Trade

April 2009 updates: Robert Shapiro, chair and co founder of the U.S. Climate Task Force and former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, makes a compelling political case that “the costs and lessons of the financial crisis may effectively swamp the prospects for cap-and-trade. If cap-and-trade has become a dead policy walking, those who care deeply about climate change will find that a carbon tax system has become the last, reasonable policy standing.”

CTC regards carbon taxes as superior to carbon cap-and-trade systems for six fundamental reasons:

Carbon taxes will lend predictability to energy prices, whereas cap-and-trade systems will aggravate the price volatility that historically has discouraged investments in less carbon-intensive electricity generation, carbon-reducing energy efficiency and carbon-replacing renewable energy.

Carbon taxes can be implemented much sooner than complex cap-and-trade systems. Because of the urgency of the climate crisis, we do not have the luxury of waiting while the myriad details of a cap-and-trade system are resolved through lengthy negotiations.

Carbon taxes are transparent and easily understandable, making them more likely to elicit the necessary public support than an opaque and difficult to understand cap-and-trade system.

Carbon taxes can be implemented with far less opportunity for manipulation by special interests, while a cap-and-trade system’s complexity opens it to exploitation by special interests and perverse incentives that can undermine public confidence and undercut its effectiveness.

Carbon taxes address emissions of carbon from every sector, whereas some cap-and-trade systems discussed to date have only targeted the electricity industry, which accounts for less than 40% of emissions.

Carbon tax revenues would most likely be returned to the public through dividends or progressive tax-shifting (this was Mr. Dion's Green Shift if the Conservatives hadn't made it the grim reaper), while the costs of cap-and-trade systems are likely to become a hidden tax as dollars flow to market participants, lawyers and consultants.

Carbon Taxes Will Lend Predictability to Energy Prices. With carbon taxes ramped up through a multi-year phase-in, future energy and power prices can be predicted with a reasonable degree of confidence well ahead of time. This will make it possible for literally millions of energy-critical decisions — from the design of new electricity generating plants to the purchase of the family car to the materials used in commercial airframes — to be made with full cognizance of carbon-appropriate price signals.

In contrast, a cap-and-trade program will exacerbate the volatility of energy prices since the price of carbon allowances will fluctuate as weather and economic factors affect the demand for energy. The vaunted advantage of cap-and-trade — that future levels of carbon emissions can be known ahead of time — is mostly notional, particularly if the cap-and-trade system includes a “safety-valve” for auctioning off additional carbon allowances if the price of allowances exceeds a predetermined level. And even certainty in future emission levels is of questionable value, since there is no agreed-upon trajectory of emissions for achieving climate stability and preventing disaster. The real target for which the U.S. must aim is to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible, and then more.

Carbon Taxes Will Provide Quicker Results. The taxes themselves can be designed and adopted quickly and fairly. Cap-and-trade systems, by contrast, are devilishly complex and will take years to develop and implement. Thorny issues must be addressed intellectually and resolved politically; the proper level of the cap, timing, allowance allocations, certification procedures, standards for use of offsets, penalties, regional conflicts, the inevitable requests for exceptions by affected parties and a myriad of other complex issues must all be resolved before cap-and-trade systems can be implemented. During this time, polluters will continue to emit carbon with no cost consequences.

Carbon Taxes Are Transparent and Are Easier to Understand than Cap-and-Trade. A carbon tax is transparent and easy to understand; the government simply imposes a tax per ton of carbon emitted, which is easily translated into a tax per kWh of electricity, gallon of gasoline or therm of natural gas. By contrast, the prices for carbon set under a cap-and-trade system will vary with market fluctuations and be impossible even for big business (let alone small businesses or consumers) to predict. A cap-and-trade system will require a complex and difficult to understand market structure in order to balance the many competing interests and ensure that the trading system minimizes abuse and maximizes real carbon reductions.

A Carbon Tax’s Simplicity Inoculates it Against the Perverse Incentives and Potential for Profiteering that Will Accompany Cap-and-Trade. In contrast to the simple and straightforward process of implementing a carbon tax, the protracted negotiations necessary to implement a cap-and-trade system will provide constant opportunities for the fossil fuel industry and other invested parties to shape a system that maximizes their financial self-interests as opposed to an economically efficient system that maximizes societal well-being. If allowances are allocated based on some type of baseline reflecting past pollution (which has been the practice with NOx and SO2trading programs), rather than being auctioned, polluters will have perverse incentives to maximize emissions before the cap-and-trade system goes into effect in order to “earn” those pollution rights. (The voluntary carbon cap-and-trade system currently operating has already been criticized for questionable offsets that have produced huge profits but little environmental benefit. )

Carbon Taxes Address All Sectors and Activities Producing Carbon Emissions. Carbon taxes target carbon emissions in all sectors — energy, industry and transportation — whereas at least some cap-and-trade proposals are limited to the electric industry. It would be unwise to ignore the non-electricity sectors that account for 60% of U.S. CO2 emissions.

Carbon Taxes Can Produce a Far More Equitable Result than Cap-and-Trade. As discussed in our Issue Paper, Managing the Impacts, carbon tax revenues can be returned through dividends or can be used to fund progressive tax-shifting to reduce regressive payroll or sales taxes. (Again the Liberal Green Shift) The costs of cap-and-trade systems, both implementation and the costs incurred as more expensive technologies replace older and less expensive coal-fired combustion, are far more likely to be imposed upon consumers with less possibility of rebating or tax-shifting. Moreover, because cap-and-trade relies on market participants to determine a fair price for carbon allowances on an ongoing basis, it could easily devolve into a self-perpetuating province of lawyers, economists, lobbyists and other market participants bent on maximizing their profits on each cap-and-trade transaction.

General Electric, DuPont, Alcoa, Caterpillar and other industrial pigpens this week endorsed cap-and-trade limits on carbon dioxide, which would turn their established habit of using the atmosphere as a free waste disposal into a property right, worth billions. Talk about a low-hanging fruit. They are accustomed to treating carbon dumping as a gimme. Now they’d at least be in a position to get paid for dumping less.

The dollars that will be funneled into making the market work could be better spent reducing regressive taxes, protecting poorer households and/or helping consumers use less energy.

The Conservatives 'cap and trade' is a hidden tax which will only benefit industry; while consumers will pay the bulk of the costs. Gee. Where do I sign?

Wall Street Journal Says Harper's New Cap and Trade Tax Will Hurt Economy

The Wall Street Journal says that "Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name."

As most people know the plan now being flogged by Jim Prentice is a carbon tax, that will raise the price on just about everything.

Consumer guru Ralph Nader and Canadian environmentalist Toby Heaps, co-authored a piece for the Wall Street Journal, discussing why Michael Ignatieff's and Stephan Dion's and just about everyone who knows anything about the environment's, carbon tax is the only solution to address climate change.

They agree that the Conservatives' Cap and trade tax will be expensive, chaotic and ineffective in the long run.

We Need a Global Carbon Tax
The cap-and-trade approach won't stop global warming
Wall Street journal
By RALPH NADER and TOBY HEAPS

If President Barack Obama wants to stop the descent toward dangerous global climate change, and avoid the trade anarchy that current approaches to this problem will invite, he should take Al Gore's proposal for a carbon tax and make it global.

A tax on CO2 emissions -- not a cap-and-trade system -- offers the best prospect of meaningfully engaging China and the U.S., while avoiding the prospect of unhinged environmental protectionism.

China emphatically opposes a hard emissions cap on its economy. Yet China must be part of any climate deal or within 25 years, notes Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, its emissions of CO2 could amount to twice the combined emissions of the world's richest nations, including the United States, Japan and members of the European Union.

According to the world authority on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it will cost $1.375 trillion per year to beat back climate change and keep global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Cap-and-traders assume, without much justification, that one country can put a price on carbon emissions while another doesn't without affecting trade or investment decisions. This is a bad assumption, given false comfort by the Montreal Protocol treaty, which took this approach to successfully rein in ozone-depleting gases.

Chlorofluorocarbons are not pervasive like greenhouse gases (GHGs); nor was the economy of 1987 hyperglobalized like ours today.

Good intentions to limit big polluters in some countries but not others will turn any meaningful cap into Swiss cheese. It can be avoided by relocating existing and new production of various kinds of CO2-emitting industries to jurisdictions with no or virtually no limits. This is known as carbon leakage, and it leads to trade anarchy.

How? The most advanced piece of climate legislation at the moment, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, contains provisions for retaliatory action to be taken against imports from carbon free-riding nations. Married with the current economic malaise, the temptation to slide into a righteous but runaway environmental protectionism -- which Washington's K Street lobbyists would be only too happy to grease -- would almost certainly lead to a collapse of the multilateral trading system.
This scenario was presented to the world's trade ministers last December at the United Nations climate talks in Bali by David Runnalls of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

True, trade anarchy might reduce emissions via a massive global depression. But there would be a lot of collateral damage. Because of the sheer scale of the challenge and the state of the hyperglobalized economy, we will need the same price on carbon everywhere, or it won't work anywhere.

President Obama can define his legacy in the first 100 days by laying the groundwork for a global tax on carbon dioxide emissions that is effective, efficient, equitable and enforceable. An effective, harmonized tax on C02 emissions must stabilize the growth of atmospheric concentrations of GHGs by no later than 2020. The tax must also be adjusted annually, by a global body, according to this objective.

The IPCC has crunched the numbers and says this means a tax of about $50 levied on every metric ton of GHGs, or carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e to use their terminology). In the short-term, consumers would feel the pinch. But the tax would pave the way for cheaper, cleaner energy and ways of getting around.

The most efficient way to apply a carbon tax is at a relatively small number of major carbon bottlenecks, which cover the lion's share of GHGs. The key points where flows of carbon are the most concentrated include: trunk pipelines for gas, refineries for oil, railroad heads for coal, liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals, cement, steel, aluminum and GHG-intensive chemical plants.

Collecting and spending the bulk of revenues from a carbon tax must remain the sovereign right of participating nations. For instance, nations could decide to make the tax revenue-neutral (Dion's Greenshift would have done that) by reducing taxes on income or helping finance industrial retooling for a green economy.

However, we in the rich world must recognize our culpability for creating three-quarters of this global warming mess, as well as our greater capacity to finance industrial retooling. Thus, there could be a carrot for developing-world nations which commit to applying the phased-in carbon tax: Access to a portion of the carbon tax levies from rich countries to help preserve forests and to prepare for climate change through flood walls, improved irrigation, drought resistant crops, desalination facilities, and the like.

This is no small change: 10% of $50/metric ton CO2e carbon tax levied in all rich countries would be $100 billion per year. The stick for carbon free-riding countries would come in the form of incrementally severe penalties, leading up to countervailing duties on carbon-intensive imports.

A global carbon tax levied on a relatively small number of large sources can be monitored by satellite and checked against the annual surveillance of fiscal and economic polices already carried out by IMF staff. Thus, the accounting involved is much more precise and much less subject to the vagaries of corruption and conflict over which industries and companies get their free handouts of carbon credits -- carbon pork -- than in a cap-and-trade system.

There are three reasons why countries, such as China and India, that have traditionally resisted any notion of a common responsibility to make current polluters pay would do well to enlist in this effort.

First, while there is no limit on the downside for missing a hard cap, with a carbon tax you just pay as you go. If a fast-growing country like China accepted an emissions cap and then overshot it, they would have to purchase carbon credits on the international market. If they missed their target by a lot, carbon credits would be scarce, and purchasing them would suck dry their foreign exchange reserves in one slurp. That's why a carbon tax is much easier to swallow and, anyway, through the power of the price signal, it would produce the same desired result as a hard cap.

Second, administering billions of dollars of carbon credits in a cap-and-trade system in an already chaotic regulatory environment would invite a civil war between interest groups seeking billions in carbon credit handouts and the regulator holding the kitty. By contrast, a uniform tax on CO2 emissions levied at a small number of large sites would be relatively clear-cut. During the Montreal Protocol talks in the 1980s, India smartly balked at a suggestion to phase out CFCs in certain products and not in others because of the chaos that would result from the ambiguity.

Third, key people in China read our newspapers. They see the ominous clouds of protectionism under the guise of environmentalism in bills like Lieberman-Warner and they don't want to be harmed; neither should we, given the trillions of dollars of Treasury bills they hold. Showing compliance with a harmonized carbon tax at a small number of large bottleneck points would be child's play compared to the chaos of cap-and-trade.

If President Obama hits the ground running fast in the direction of a global carbon tax, he can usher in a new dawn that might finally make peace between man and climate.

Mr. Nader is a consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate. Toby Heaps is the coordinator of Option 13, a campaign to help broker a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that includes all major nations.

So the Conservatives might say that Ignatieff can't run from the carbon tax on their ridiculous Ignatieff Me website, but why would he want to run from it? Harper and Prentice might want to put on some running shoes, because soon they'll have to escape from their 'Cap and Trade' tax that would "....disproportionately hurt working families and seniors living on fixed incomes".

I, Me, Stephen Harper, Can't Run From the 'Cap and Trade' Tax

So the next bit of nonsense from the Ignatieff Me website posted by a desperate Conservative Government has to do with the Carbon Tax. They did such a great job turning it into the boogey man last election, that they are going to give it one more spin around the block.

However, while they claim that Michael Igantieff can't run from the Carbon tax, the rest of the world is running toward it, and most top environmentalists agree that it is the best answer to fight climate change.

In fact, some opponents of the "cap and trade" introduced by Barack Obama, have said that his "cap and trade" is a carbon tax, because permits will have to be purchased.

When asked the question: "Do you believe that we need a carbon tax in addition to a cap-and-trade program?"

Obama answered: "I believe that, depending on how it is designed, a carbon tax accomplishes much of the same thing that a cap-and-trade program accomplishes. The danger in a cap-and-trade system is that the permits to emit greenhouse gases are given away for free as opposed to priced at auction. One of the mistakes the Europeans made in setting up a cap-and-trade system was to give too many of those permits away. So as I roll out my proposals for a cap-and-trade system, I will price permits so that it has much of the same effect as a carbon tax."

Jim Prentice has stated that he will be following the model outlined by the U.S. "Canada's Conservative government, shifting positions in the wake of Barack Obama's election as U.S. president, said on Wednesday that it would work to develop a North America-wide cap-and-trade system to limit emissions of greenhouse gases."

However, many experts suggest that if Obama is altering his "cap and trade" to function as a carbon tax, why not just call it a carbon tax and go for the full package?

The Real Price of Obama's Cap-and-Trade Plan President Obama's budget numbers depend heavily on revenues from a proposed cap-and-trade program for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Under the plan, these revenues will come at the cost of higher energy prices ....

Before the last election, Harper was telling everyone who'd listen that cleaning up the oil sands would be costly and we could expect a rise in prices on gasoline and home heating, as a result. He brought forward a form of the 'cap and trade', that MacLeans Magazine said, when compared to the Liberal Green Shift, was 'just as expensive, twice as confusing and half as effective'.

From the Wall Street Journal: "Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups."

From BusinessWeek: "...Obama proposes that companies buy an allowance, or permit, for each ton of carbon emitted, at an estimated cost, to start, of $13 to $20 per ton. (Those permits could also be bought and sold.) Even at the lower range of $13 per ton, energy companies and utilities would likely pass along the added cost to consumers. It's estimated the price of gasoline would go up by 12 cents a gallon and the average electricity bill by about 7% nationally..."

I tend to agree with Green Party Spokesman John Bennett, when he says "I think the Canadian government is just trying to con the Canadian public into believing that it's going to do something about climate change".

I don't think they really have any intention of doing anything to fight climate change, but are just pretending to. Most of us believe they are just buying time, but if in fact they do adopt the U.S. 'Cap and trade' model; my friends - WE HAVE A CONSERVATIVE CARBON TAX!!!!!

Run, Harper, Run!!!!!