Yup, a price on carbon costs money

Green warrior politicians need better answers on how they will reduce carbon emissions if they oppose carbon pricing

What part of the phrase ‘a price on carbon’ don’t people understand?

From the time anyone bothered to pay him any heed, Justin Trudeau has said there will be a price – or because it is government-imposed, a tax – on producing carbon emissions in Canada.

That price by 2022 is supposed to be equivalent to $50 per tonne. A University of Calgary economics professor has done a bunch of calculations and come up with a scary bill of $1,120-ayear for an average Nova Scotian family. Ouch. But, it’s also a tad frightening that a typical Nova Scotian household accounts for more than 22 tonnes of the crud annually.

The provincial government likes to say Nova Scotia has already done its part in reducing carbon emissions, which is true, sort of. Nova Scotia has been an early leader in cutting carbon emissions but also had a longer way to go than most other provinces.

Nova Scotia Power, by far the single largest industrial producer of carbon emissions in the province, now generates almost 30 per cent of Nova Scotia’s electricity from renewable sources, which is better than a three-fold improvement over a decade ago.

Of course, the flip side of the coin is that about 70 per cent of Nova Scotia’s power still comes from burning nasty carbon-producing substances like coal, oil and somewhat more environment-friendly gas.

That combined with the overwhelming propensity of Nova Scotians to want a warm place to live and their use of oil-fired furnaces to achieve that objective makes us the nation’s carbon producing kings – per capita – and the math out of Calgary says the big losers when it comes to paying 50 bucks a tonne for the stuff.

The numbers are contained in a report done by economics professor Jennifer Winter and commissioned by the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. Professor Winter calculates that Nova Scotians would be hit hardest in the pocketbook by the carbon tax, followed by Albertans at $1,111 per household. At the other end of the spectrum, a typical family in British Columbia would pay an additional $603 annually, but there is already a provincial tax on carbon in B.C.

How the carbon tax will be extracted has yet to be determined, but if the past is any indication when the nation is asked to come up with 50-bucks-atonne for anything, the average Joe and Jane are going to pay a nifty chunk of it.

The feds have said the carbon tax will be revenue neutral, a phrase Canadians of an age associate most closely with Brian Mulroney and the GST, which somehow never feels neutral when it’s tacked on to the bill for darn near everything.

The magic of the cap-andtrade shell game is just a way to share the pain and Nova Scotia’s version of cap-and-trade shares the pain exclusively within Nova Scotia, so there will be a local price to pay unless the Trudeau government loses its nerve and the Prime Minister’s name on the Paris Accord suggests that’s not going to happen.

Meanwhile just this week, Ontario’s new Premier Doug Ford made good on his promise to remove that province from its cap-and-trade deals and Saskatchewan is looking for other provinces to join it in a court challenge of the federal government’s right to tax carbon.

Nova Scotia Tory leadership candidate Cecil Clarke says as premier he’d join in that challenge and he opposes any tax on carbon. Other leadership contenders – Tim Houston and John Lohr – have also rejected a carbon tax.

Opposing a tax is an easy thing for a politician to do. Offering an alternative to discourage the production of carbon that is choking the planet, changing the climate for the worse and melting polar ice caps is harder.

Tory leadership hopefuls mumble the usual platitudes about supporting innovation and alternative sources of energy. They challenge the effectiveness of schemes like capand-trade and claim there are better ways to reduce carbon emissions than through taxes, although if asked to elaborate on those they revert to the mumbling about innovation, etc.

European nations where carbon production comes at a hefty price, whether it’s to fill your gas tank or to fire up your pulp mill, are among the most successful on the planet at reducing emissions.

Politicians who want to be green warriors for the future of the planet need better answers on how they will reduce carbon emissions if they oppose carbon pricing.

The planet we leave our kids depends on it, so we can’t afford to let politicians get away with meaningless platitudes.

“European nations where carbon production comes at a hefty price, whether it’s to fill your gas tank or to fire up your pulp mill, are among the most successful on the planet at reducing emissions.”