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from the people-voting-for-more-taxes dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The defeat of carbon pricing in Washington State contrasts with its northern neighbor, where carbon taxes are now the rule.
The victory of climate change-denying Republican candidate Donald Trump was one of two big setbacks for U.S. climate policy earlier this month. The other was the resounding defeat of Washington State's Initiative 732, which sought to prove that using fees on carbon emissions to cut existing taxes could provide bipartisan appeal for what economists consider to be the most efficient mechanism to cut greenhouse gas emissions: carbon taxes.
Washington State rejected the idea of a carbon tax by 59 percent to 41. In sharp contrast, just across the world's longest border, carbon taxes are attracting politically diverse support. Four-fifths of Canadians will live in provinces with such taxes in 2017, and in 2018 all Canadians could be paying a carbon tax.
Both Washington State's defeated initiative and Canada's growing comfort with carbon pricing have their origins in North America's first carbon tax, which British Columbia's provincial government launched in 2008. The British Columbia tax started at C$10 (U.S.$7.40) per metric ton of carbon dioxide on fossil fuels consumed in the province, and it ratcheted up to C$30 per metric ton by 2012. The tax is revenue-neutral, with proceeds used to cut corporate and personal income taxes.
[Continues...]
Most academic studies find that British Columbia's tax is reducing carbon emissions by 5 to 15 percent without hurting economic growth, and that a special tax break to offset its impact on low-income families has succeeded. "The tax appears to be highly progressive," says Nicholas Rivers, an expert in energy and economic modeling at the University of Ottawa.
Likewise, the Washington tax was to start next year at $15 per metric ton (adding, for example, about 15 cents to every gallon of gasoline), then rise to $25 in 2018 and grow annually thereafter by a further 3.5 percent plus inflation until it reached $100 per ton. Revenues were to cut existing taxes and provide tax benefits for low-income families.
The initiative garnered strong grassroots support as well as endorsements from Democratic and Republican legislators, including former Republican Senator Slade Gorton and Joe Fitzgibbon, who chairs the state legislature's environment committee. But the Washington initiative was opposed by both fossil fuel interests as well as advocacy groups that favored spending carbon revenues on development projects to ensure a "just" transition to a low-carbon economy.
In Canada, meanwhile, politicians from all major parties are pushing carbon taxes nationwide. Last month Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his Liberal Party government will institute a national carbon tax plan in 2018. And last week a contender for leader of the official opposition in Parliament, Canada's Conservative Party, unveiled a more ambitious carbon tax.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Saturday November 26 2016, @11:37AM
Creating carbon tax is seen as a great step forward, but being allowed to trade carbon emissions counters the whole concept. The fact is that we are all addicts to our current lifestyle and we live in a global village. A tax in one country will cause an export to another one, where the tax-base is lower. Especially big players will find their way around the rules and make creative constructs to virtually talk down the emissions by means of export/trade.
Don't get me wrong, we need to do something and small steps are better than none. But, the bottom line is that our (mainly western) lifestyle is unsustainable. This is not only visible in the carbon emissions we cause with all the effects, but also true for the use of other resources. We must change in a more fundamental way if we are going to survive in the long term. With an ever growing global population, how are we going to share in a sustainable way? That is the question that we all should ask ourselves. An answer to that question and a strategy should be available rather sooner than later.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Saturday November 26 2016, @11:51AM
I think the idea of a carbon trade is that there is a quota per capita with a total budget according to a set global emission reduction. So while in theory you could locally produce more carbon and be allowed to do so because you bought yourself a carbon license, the license came from a party that had this resource to trade. This resource was 'obtained' already taking into account the carbon cap.
Actually the carbon trade is the other edge of the carbon tax: It creates a market where there is economical value in capturing carbon. On the other edge the tax alone only tries to tapper the value of producing carbon.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Saturday November 26 2016, @02:13PM
The goal is to rely less and less (until we reach zero) on fossil carbon globally. However, creating a market to trade carbon emissions is an excuse not to reduce the emissions, but to pay (a tax) and export it somewhere else.
Our net carbon budget is negative (per capita) if we want to steer clear of future major problems. Trading emissions make more people addicts to the status quo. That is a bad thing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:09PM
Creating carbon tax is seen as a great step forward, but being allowed to trade carbon emissions counters the whole concept.
The two are somewhat different approaches. Not seeing the "countering" that supposedly is going on.
But, the bottom line is that our (mainly western) lifestyle is unsustainable.
It's far more sustainable than almost any other lifestyle out there because it's negative population growth rate.
An answer to that question and a strategy should be available rather sooner than later.
Adaptation is the strategy that gets ignored. Climate change is on time scales that are long to humans. My view is that you'd be better off removing some of the institutional obstacles to business creation in the developed world, propagate better agricultural and water use systems world-wide, fight government corruption, promote democratic institutions globally, dealing with pollution, crippling diseases, etc are all more relevant to a sustainable future than slamming on the economic brakes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:16PM
Agreed. Even if I considered reducing emissions of such importance that getting consensus through gunpoint was a valid option, reducing emissions through yet another tax is just begging for abuse and seems to do nothing to help curb externalities. but allows multinationals to shop their emissions while everyone else is stuck with onerous regulation. Worse, if you state you are against carbon taxes, you are pegged only be degree as a climate change denier.
Even government support of a boondoggle like cold fusion is a better use of funds, or even putting graduated caps on greenhouse gas production.
But creating an artificial market and expecting everyone to treat it as real is just dumb. And that reducing emissions is nearly always sold as another tax makes me suspicious that the new tax is the principle part, not actually reducing emissions.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:27PM
But creating an artificial market and expecting everyone to treat it as real is just dumb.
Another example of an artificial market is trade using the Canadian dollar. Seems to work just fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:41PM
But nothing demands you trade in Canadian pesos, and in fact you have a variety of options available to trade which at least helps keeps the exchanges honest.
If Canada decided to artificially inflate the value of its currency, the entire economy comes crashing down. The dollar is an avatar, not the actual trade.
Some people also find value in trading collectable plates. Let them. But as soon as you are putting a fixed value on each and compelling people to market that is complete divorced from any type of controls, the market is artificial, and it matters not one whit what medium of exchange you use.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:59PM
But nothing demands you trade in Canadian pesos
Payment of Canadian taxes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @02:14PM
Ah, so when I want a bottle of booze, I'm not actually buying the bottle but the tax, and the booze is a freebie.
Riiight.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 28 2016, @11:44PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @05:47PM
What do you mean, counters the whole concept? You just don't understand the concept: the idea is for governments to have yet another revenue stream, for speculators to be able to gamble on carbon credits, for businesses to be able to continue business as usual while greenwashing themselves in the media, and for the common man to get screwed yet further by all three of the above skimming more off the meager fruits of the worker's labor. It's win-win-win all around: what's not to like?