Carbon taxes are back on centre stage in Canada, after a new “bipartisan” Ecofiscal Commission came out in favour of the idea.
greenhouse gas emissions
Environmentalists received an early Christmas present on November 12, when President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping issued a “joint announcement” over the control of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States and China.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its latest “Synthesis Report” drawing together the findings of the most recent three-volume set of the Fifth Assessment Report.
In the recent New Brunswick election, an unremarkable engineering activity apparently took front and centre: hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, popularly known as fracking.
When pitching new programs, politicians love their 'dedicated' funds: highway trust funds, housing trust funds, environmental protection funds, wildlife-protection funds, and so on. Most recently, under AB 32, California politicians partly sold the program on the basis of all the good that could be done with Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds raised through the state's cap-and-trade program.
Carbon taxes are once again dominating the discussion over energy policy in Alberta, where Environment Minister Diana McQueen has proposed a sharp hike to Albertas carbon levy. Presently, large emitters in Alberta are required to reduce greenhouse gas emission intensity (that is, emissions per unit of production) by 12 per cent, or face a levy of $15 for every tonne they come up short. The new proposal would hike the emission intensity target to 40 per cent, and raise the levy to $40. Nice round numbers, to be sure, but extremely ambitious ones.
Thomas Mulcair, federal NDP leader and Leader of the Opposition, has recently been berating Canadas environmental performance as he travels in the United States: In the U.S. people know how to read, he said. They know that Canada is the only country that has withdrawn from Kyoto. They know that the Conservatives cant possibly meet their Copenhagen targets [on greenhouse gas emissions] precisely because of the oilsands. They have to stop playing people for fools. In another presentation, Mr.