Kenneth Green, a director of the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think-tank that receives some funding from the oil lobby, belittles a possible carbon tax in Canada as ineffective.
The purpose of a carbon tax is to curb greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging the more efficient use of coal, oil and gas. Green argues that, first, Canada produces only 1.8 per cent of greenhouse gases globally, so the effect on the climate would be negligible; and second, a carbon tax will make life more expensive and less convenient for Canadians.
Green must have missed that his home province of British Columbia has had a carbon tax since 2008. This tax has been a smashing success.
Because the tax is revenue neutral, B.C. now has the lowest personal income tax, and one of the lowest corporate tax rates, in Canada. Fossil fuel consumption has dropped by 16 per cent, and greenhouse gas emissions have declined by 10 per cent.
The province's GDP has not been negatively affected. So the carbon tax has delivered what it was supposed to do: it has been effective, and it has been good for the people of B.C. It has also been praised as a model for the rest of the world.
Alberta and Quebec have introduced their own versions of a carbon tax, and Ontario is considering it.
With respect to global impact, what is important is not Canada's modest contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, but the per capita energy consumption.
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