Canada's national election on Tuesday strengthened the country's Conservative Party minority in Parliament and summarily killed hopes for a national carbon tax to fight global warming. The carbon tax plan, which would have levied a tax on most fossil fuels but would have been offset by income-tax reductions, was a main plank of Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's environmental platform. However, the plan proved too easy of a target for Conservatives who painted it as a costly new tax increase at a time of economic uncertainty. Much of the Liberal defeat was also due to a divided left; the Liberals failed to unite with the New Democratic Party and the Green Party to defeat the Conservatives' majority. (Green Party Leader Elizabeth May failed to win her party's first parliamentary seat.) Tuesday's election also dealt a huge blow to the Liberals' leader, Dion. Formerly the country's environment minister, Dion made a name for himself as a champion of the Kyoto treaty, but he's widely expected to be replaced as party leader soon due to the huge election losses.
source: The Washington Post, CTV, The Telegraph, The Economist
see also, in Gristmill: Canadian elections strengthen Conservatives, drinkers
New nukes? A fair shot, not a free ride
To unlock wind power, put a price on carbon
Cautious optimism for Copenhagen deal as Barcelona climate talks end
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caniscandida Posted 11:20 pm
14 Oct 2008
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The bigger loser on election night was Mr Dion, who staked the Liberals' hopes on a green platform that featured a carbon tax. That was gleefully seized on by the Tories as a tax increase that would harm the economy at a time of global uncertainty.
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Many in this country are doubting that a Barack administration will be able to accomplish much of a social or environmental agenda, given the new, extraordinary budgetary demands.
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nsdevine Posted 3:54 am
15 Oct 2008
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noracharles Posted 4:00 am
15 Oct 2008
The conservatives unfortunately did a fantastic job of fear-mongering about the carbon tax. They hammered home the rise in prices (really the true cost of the energy we use)as a tax grab and didn't point out the income tax reduction. What gets me is that energy costs are going up anyways b/c demand is increasing in other countries with huge populations like India and China. We are going to pay more anyway and at least with the Carbon tax we could have to promoted green innovation and reduced our consumption.
Unfortunately we also have the antiquated first-past-the-post system, so that means a party with only 35% of the popular vote gets elected while 65% voted for the other guys with serious environmental platforms and end up shut out. It also doesn't help that there is only one right-wing party and 3 centre/left parties, so splitting of the vote caused a lot of seats to go to the Reform party...oops I mean Conservative party.
So, for another couple years my country's government will not reflect the true Canadian view about the environment.
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earlysnows Posted 10:26 am
15 Oct 2008
provincial and local governments (everywhere) will have to take the initiative so we can get on with it.
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F James Handley Posted 4:40 pm
15 Oct 2008
Dion's Liberal Party courageously pressed for the most effective and fair policy to reduce Global Warming: a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Conservatives gained seats but failed to gain a majority in a three-way race where both Liberals and the NDP proposed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The results suggest that a majority of Canadians support such measures, but may not agree about which one. Hardly a condemnation of Dion's proposal or even of his political acumen. I count him as a hero.
British Columbia successfully enacted a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Perhaps for now, progress in Canada will be on the provincial and local level. I hope that an Obama administration and the new Congress will give serious consideration to a carbon tax in the US as the many flaws of "cap-and-trade" become inescapably evident.
For more information, see www,carbontax.org.
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GRLCowan Posted 12:28 am
16 Oct 2008
If increased carbon tax will "reduce Global Warming" by causing the rate of carbon burning to decline over time, compared to how rapidly it would have been burned in the absence of the tax increase, that increase is not revenue-neutral.
Only if the advocates of the tax expect to be able to maintain fossil fuel burn rates just as they would have been, despite the increased cost to consumers, would their expectation of revenue neutrality be reasonable.
They must anticipate being able somehow to punish consumers who burn less carbon, or make sure they have no real opportunity to burn less, so that consumers find paying the extra tax the least unpalatable option, or the only option.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, author of How fire can be tamed
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TobyHeaps Posted 3:05 am
26 Oct 2008
When all's said and done, the carbon tax is not toast. Declaring the death of the carbon tax because the Canadian Liberal leader failed to win his underdog attempt to become Prime Minister conflates the carbon tax's importance to the Canadian election. Stephan Dion never needed a carbon tax to end up with 76 seats. A political party with one foot still in the doghouse (from the Liberal sponsorship scandal), divided within (with the Iggy and Rae leadership hopefuls) and without with the Green Party/NDP surge was perfectly capable of ending up with 76 seats, or even less, all by itself without any carbon tax. One lesson that might be taken is that something as game-changing as a carbon tax requires a frank ask (an appeal to sacrifice for the greater good), rather than a shoddy sell (emphasising personal tax cuts, which nobody really believes before it happens) that is the bane of our short-term transactional politics. Until that is tried, as Mark Twain might say, rumours of the carbon tax's death have been greatly exaggerated.
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