Carbon fee would be predictable

The StarPhoenix published a letter Dec. 19 by Dustin Duncan, Minister of Environment, stating that the people asked Saskatchewan not to deal with climate change by putting on a tax.

The Ministry might consider revenue neutral, carbon fee and dividend, as advocated by the non-partisan international grassroots movement, Citizens Climate Lobby, and by the right-leaning U.S.-based Climate Leadership Council. Rationale is on each of their respective websites. As Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz put it, “It’s not a tax if the government doesn’t keep the money.” Instead, the revenue raised from charging fossil fuels for their social costs (air pollution, water pollution, climate change) would be distributed equally to citizens.

It is fair for polluters to pay and citizens to be compensated. And the fee can be raised transparently and predictably until emission reduction goals are met, yet consumers will be protected.

Domestic industries will be protected by Border Carbon Adjustments, encouraging other countries to enact similar policy. The shift to clean energy, and all manner of conservation and efficiency measures, as well as necessary reconfigurations of process industries, will become more feasible, the higher the avoided cost of emissions, including the carbon fee.

The economics of carbon capture and sequestration will be improved after credit for the avoided carbon fees.

Adaptation to improve resilience will still be necessary, but less costly to taxpayers the sooner the world curtails emissions. And the world won’t reduce if we don’t. John Stephenson, Toronto