2006 Archives

You know there are some people who don't believe we have a serious global climate issue. Some of those people are actually reasonably well educated and some are not. In Canada, there are some educated people who believe that Canada has to find a way to "reduce" greenhouse gases emissions by 240 million tonnes a year by 2010 to meet the Kyoto commitment. Now wouldn't it be nice if Canada could do just that?

Today... while sipping on a coffee at Starbucks, I noticed a headline in the local paper that mentioned something about Quebec wanting to introduce a Carbon Tax and thereby becoming the first Province in Canada to do so despite the political whinings that the very words will no doubt inflame.

Now... what the bloody hell is a Carbon Tax? Well it works a bit like this.. it could be any number of proposals that would likely increase the cost of burning fossil fuels and that way change consumer behaviour and create a fund to help clean things up a bit. If it's aimed at industry then costs might hit consumers and there'll be a lot of moaning.

Quebec seems to be going for the direct levy on all non-renewable fossil fuels sold in bulk to retailers. It has asked the Quebec Energy Board to help work out the exact tax rates and perhaps a sliding scale in which home heating oil might be taxed at a greater rate than natural gas, which is less polluting, in order to encourage homeowners to switch. Now Quebec has stated that they want to pass the costs on to oil and gas companies who are mega-profitable filthy rich industries and are hoping that these guys won't pass on the costs to consumers.

Ultimately folks, the Quebec government plans to levy a broad carbon tax against oil and gas companies as a way of financing what it calls a $1.2 billion Green Fund over the next six years to help control the province's greenhouse gas emissions and meet its Kyoto target.

In the United States, Al Gore (the ex next President of the US) is waving the climate change banner and some large utilities, notably Duke Energy Corp., a giant gas pipeline and utility operator in the U.S., has publicly called for a national carbon tax as a way of sharing the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy.

Either way... I'm all for anything that reduces emissions as quickly as possible and I look at it like this.. all those whingers that screamed 'increase the taxes on smokers cos they're smoking and we're not and we don't like it' have much bigger clouds of second hand smoke to worry about now... but I don't hear that many of them screaming 'tax the oil and gas industries!'

Maybe with Quebec's proposals we'll have a cleaner Canada and maybe if the rest of the planet got it's Kyoto targets sorted we'll have a cleaner world.

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