Time to mesh carbon reduction policies with U.S

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Let’s start with three indisputable facts about policies to lower greenhouse gas emissions:

* Despite diehards who think we don’t need to do anything and/or nothing will help anyways, and despite the de-emphasis of discretionary spending during these tough economic times, such policies are coming. Public opinion — not just in Canada, but also among our trade partners — has spoken.

* The best way — maybe the only way — to foster a serious reduction is to apply a price (i.e. a carbon tax or cap-and-trade incentives) to carbon emissions.

* If one jurisdiction — us, for example — gets tough faster than our competitors, we risk putting our industries at a disadvantage.

So a proposal in a new paper from the C.D. Howe Institute to harmonize our greenhouse gas policies with the U.S. certainly passes the common sense test. Moving in lockstep with the world’s largest economy would reduce, or more likely eliminate, any risk that we’re moving too far, too fast.

And the timing for such a strategy couldn’t be better.

For one thing, the U.S. is, at long last, ready to move forward in a vigorous, focused way. President Barack Obama’s commitment to cutting carbon emissions is much stronger and clearer than George W. Bush’s ever was.

For another, it’s a chance for us in B.C. — the one Canadian jurisdiction that actually may have been at risk of being a little too far in the forefront — to take a deep breath and plan our next steps a little more carefully.

I’ve said in the past and I’ll say again, that I think Premier Gordon Campbell was courageous and correct to move as swiftly as he did on a carbon tax. His decision last summer to phase in a hefty carbon tax starting with a modest $10 per tonne made him a sitting duck for cheap political shots. But it was good policy — far better than what his cheap-shot-critic-in-chief, Carole James, has yet articulated on the issue.

Aside from the obvious fact that this tax puts a price on carbon emissions, something we want less of, there are two things about Campbell’s tax that I like.

First, it started out small, but with a clear warning that it will go up over time. Thus it provides both incentive and time to adjust.

And it’s a tax shift, not an increase. There are corresponding income-tax cuts that will shift tax burden away from income, something we want more of.

Add the provision to shield low-income earners — who don’t benefit much from income tax cuts — from the carbon tax impact, and it’s as sound a tax policy as I’ve seen implemented anywhere, any time.

As I’ve also noted in previous columns, the legislation passed last spring gave the government unprecedented power to regulate green initiatives. But Victoria provided no details — apparently because it hadn’t worked out for itself what it wants to do.

Now there’s an unprecedented opportunity to develop things like a cap-and-trade system for industrial emissions in concert with our biggest customer and competitor, the U.S.

Ditto for incentives, which are usually part of such policies, and anything and everything else to do with carbon emission reductions.

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