There's a song with a line that goes:
“Everybody want to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” You
could add a verse to that which says: “Everybody wants to save the
world, but nobody wants to pay for it.”
Instead, I want to be paid. And so, I
think, might you.
So pay me already.
Last week, the Alberta government
announced it will double its levy on excess carbon emissions over the
next two years. The Globe and Mail reported this is an attempt by the
province to improve our credibility at the global conference in Paris
in November pushing us all down the “decarbonization” path.
The environmentalist lobby took about
18 seconds to strip the credibility aspect off the announcement.
Climate Action Network Canada said only a full stop of oilsands
development will be acceptable. Greenpeace said the same, noting that
you can't gain credibility by taxing heavy emitters as a sort of
licence to export more and more fossil fuels.
No doubt both will book tickets on the
solar airplane to Paris to make that point.
That is more or less a micro picture of
humanity's effort to save us from runaway climate change. But as long
as there's a gazillion barrels of oil in the ground, someone will
want to buy it and burn it.
So rather than look at the appearances
of last week's provincial announcement, let's look at its substance.
Already, Shell Canada and Capital Power
are onside with the announcement. Oilsands giant Suncor is on record
as supporting carbon pricing as a means to encourage reductions in
carbon emissions.
That's good, because whatever people
say about regulating emissions, pricing carbon, cap and trade systems
or light bulbs in our houses, only dollars count.
This is a tweak of the system put in
place by Ralph Klein. Ours was the first government in North America
to put a price on carbon emissions, and to penalize heavy emitters
financially.
The financial penalties were light
enough to not inhibit energy development, and Alberta's total
emissions have continued to rise since. The law is due for an update
this year, so here's the update.
The Calgary Herald reports there are
103 facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. The
old law said they must reduce that by 12 per cent, or pay a levy. The
new law says they must reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2017, or
pay a levy that's twice as steep as it was before.
That's the new law, in a nutshell.
The corporations spewing out all this
CO2 have three options: reduce emissions by becoming more efficient;
paying into a technology fund, or buying offsets. Myself, I'm becoming
partial to the third option.
Businesses will naturally strive toward
efficiency; it reduces costs and boosts profits.
The technology fund option is fine as
far as it goes. I like to remember how the Alberta levy on rubber
tires eventually produced some pretty interesting new ways of keeping
tonnes and tonnes of rubber tires out of landfills. I have no doubt
that a technology fund for carbon will eventually produce something
useful as well.
But if you want faster results, I would
emphasize the offsets option. Why? Because it makes dollars change
hands, which is the only stick that works on the donkey of commerce.
Pay me to produce the offsets. Make it
easier for me to invest in solar and wind power. Draft laws to make
it simple for me to put solar panels on my roof, and see that I get
paid for the power they would produce.
One article I found said
industrial-scale energy storage will be widely available within five
years, and cost-effective home off-grid storage sooner than that.
Pricing carbon will help ensure that.
In the meantime, heavy industry will
need to buy some offsets, creating two markets for each new green
power installation.
If it's credibility we want, taking
coal-fired plants offline as they age and replacing them with green
power — financed by levies on the heaviest emitters (that includes
our cars and trucks) — would be be a good result of last week's
announcement.
The giant oil companies know this is
going to cost them — and they're still on board. The price of
gasoline is going to rise because of carbon pricing. But we can
smooth that with reductions in other taxes, as B.C. has done.
And we should also be able to make some
of that money back, by investing in wind and solar farms, storage
banks, or just a few solar panels on our homes.
The carrots and sticks that move
commerce are the only means proven to work to change human behaviour.
So, kudos for the upgrade to Alberta's
Specified Gas Emitters Regulation. Next, please see that the money
the levies raise are used by Albertans, in Alberta.
Follow Greg Neiman's blog at
Readersadvocate.blogspot.ca
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