LEGAL REPORT: ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
To carbon tax or not to carbon tax
That's one of the biggest questions facing business, government, and regulators that have to find a way to curb greenhouse gas emissions without doing serious damage to the economy.
BY KIRSTEN MCMAHON W
hen the British Columbia govern- ment recently an- nounced plans to introduce a con-
sumer-based carbon tax, to apply to virtually all fossil fuels, it was lauded by some and heavily criticized by others. This aggressive move by B.C. will
phase in the carbon tax over the next five years, starting July 1. It will start at a rate of $10 per tonne of carbon emis-
50 APRIL 2008 www. C ANADIAN
sions, effectively 2.7 cents a litre on fuels (including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home-heating fuel), and rise to 8.2 cents a litre in 2012. While B.C. is not the first province
to implement a carbon tax — Quebec introduced one last fall — it expects to collect $1.85 billion over the next three years from the revenue-neutral tax. In comparison, Quebec collects about $200 million each year from its carbon tax, which funds green technologies.
mag.com In January, the National Round Table
on the Environment and the Economy, a panel of Canadian experts from en- vironmental groups and the business world, released a report that said Canada could achieve a 65-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if it put into place a market-based policy, such as an emissions tax, a cap-and-trade system, or a combination of the two, that puts a price on pollution. Despite asking for the panel's recommendations, federal
