I’ll take crazy environmentalists for 600, Alex.

What kind of environmentalists would support B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell for imposing a 2.4 cent a litre gas tax when not one penny goes to public transit or expenditures that reduce pollution?

What kind of environmentalists support a B.C. Liberal government that radically expanded fish farms that are devastating wild salmon, promotes offshore oil and gas drilling, privatized rivers and streams for power projects, slashed wildlife protection, ended a ban on trophy hunting for grizzly bears and offers hundreds of millions in tax incentives for fossil fuel exploration?

In 1991 Sweden introduced a carbon tax that their government claims has helped reduce the country’s ghg emissions.

The Swedish government estimates that CO2 emissions were 20 to 25 percent lower in 2000 than they would have been without the tax, indicating that the policy was a success.

While this might seem impressive in reality it isn’t when you consider how much of an actual reduction in ghg emissions Sweden has achieved over the past decade and a half.

Emissions are around 8.7 per cent below 1990 levels.

If one quarter of the 8.7% reduction is a result of the carbon tax it means the carbon tax is only responsible for a mere 2.2% reduction in Sweden’s greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this minor reduction in ghg emissions however, Sweden had to price carbon at $150/tonne resulting in record high gasoline prices of $8.40 per gallon.

Since Dion is unwilling to copy Sweden’s carbon tax (pushing it up to $150/tonne, applying it to gasoline, removing the revenue neutrality forcing consumers to actually pay for their carbon consumption and spending the increased revenue on programs that will help Canadians reduce their ghg emissions) his won’t even achieve these highly expensive, minor results.

See also: THE 2% SOLUTION

The long awaited Liberal Green Shaft plan is finally here and just as I said earlier it’s nothing more than a sleight of hand tax cutting plan that will do nothing to curb GHG emissions.

More to come later.

Update: After reading over this socalled plan to curb GHG emissions I think I can safely say it’s even more phony than anything the Conservatives have come up with. From what I can tell the plan boils down to this:

1) Tax carbon.
2) ?????
3) GHG reduction.

I have to wonder if the Underpants Gnomes will be pressed into service to collect the carbon tax.

Update II: If this is supposed to be a plan to reduce ghg emissions in Canada then why are there no estimates on how much of a reduction we can expect to see for our money?

Heh.

The number of new trucks (which includes minivans, sport-utility vehicles, light and heavy trucks, vans and buses) sold in April edged up 0.2% to 68,280 units.

The consumer altering behaviour of a carbon tax is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Update: What is Dion’s carbon tax really about? This provides a clue.

Stephane Dion will deploy Canada’s auditor general to backstop his claim that a Liberal carbon tax will be revenue neutral, not the massive tax grab depicted by the Tories.

Revenue neutrality is the central pillar of the Liberal leader’s complex plan, to be unveiled later this week, for putting a price on carbon.

If Dion was as concerned about stopping GHG emissions as he claims then he’d promise to deploy Canada’s auditor general to backstop his claim that a Liberal carbon tax will work to reduce GHG emissions. But he didn’t. In fact, he, along with most every libflogger out there, is more concerned with promoting the tax cut aspect of his plan.

That’s what Dion’s carbon tax boils down to. It’s nothing more than a sleight of hand trick to deliver another round of tax cuts.

Update II: I want to address a few of the questions that have been raised in this series of posts on the ineffectiveness of a carbon tax.

The first is about inflation. In 1998 the price of gasoline was approximately 52 cents/litre. Adjusted for inflation this raises it to 65 cents/litre in today’s dollars. Since the actual price of gasoline is now more than double that, inflation is not enough of a factor to warrant its inclusion in the discussion.

The second question is about population growth. Some people are clinging to the belief that population growth is responsible for the rise in overall consumption and that per capita consumption of gasoline is decreasing. In 1998 Canadians consumed approximately 38 million cubic metres of gasoline. In 2007 they consumed approximately 42.5 million cubic metres of gasoline. An increase of nearly 12%. In 1998 the population of Canada was approximately 30 million. Today it is approximately 33 million. An increase of just 10%. Since overall consumption is increasing faster than the population growth this means per capita consumption of gasoline is also increasing.

See also: PRICE DOESN’T MATTER — PART VI

The first carbon tax in Canada came into effect in the province of Quebec in October of 2007. In the first 5 months from Oct./07 to Feb./08 Quebecers shrugged it off and consumed more gasoline than they did in the previous year.

Click on image to enlarge.

It’s clear, a carbon tax won’t work.

See also: PRICE DOESN’T MATTER — PART V

An updated gasoline price/consumption chart.

Click on image to enlarge.

The increased data set in this chart establishes a clear trend line. Despite gasoline prices more than doubling over the past decade the consumption of gasoline in Canada has increased consistently over the same period of time. Clearly a carbon tax on gasoline in Canada will not work and casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of a carbon tax in general.

See also: PRICE DOESN’T MATTER — PART IV

Just a quick update on how ineffective a carbon tax will be. Canadians responded to $1.30/litre gasoline by consuming 0.2% more of it in April/08 than they did in April/07.

Update: Here’s another fun fact–I plan to examine further at a later date–for those still living in denial. A decade ago the price of oil bottomed out at $12/barrel. Yesterday the price of oil hit a record $138/barrel yet the global demand for oil continues to rise.

If a staggering 1,050% (100%/year average) increase in the price of oil over a decade won’t change our behaviour what chance is there that Dion’s carbon tax will accomplish it?

See also: PRICE DOESN’T MATTER — PART III

Update: The post title has been altered to avoid confusion.

The price of gasoline jumped 6 cents/litre–from $1.289 to $1.349–overnight here in London. I doubt we’ll hear the hysterical right whingers screech about how this is going to wreck the economy like they do at the mere mention of a carbon tax (which I oppose because it won’t work) or a cap and trade system that will cause the price to rise by a lesser amount.

Second verse, same as the first.

Cause…
Figure 2: Weekly Regular Gasoline Prices

…and effect.

First Quarter Gasoline Sales: Canadians consumed 9.9 billion litres of gasoline in the first three months of 2008, an increase of 2% over the same period in 2007.

Dion’s carbon tax will not affect the behaviour of Canadians. It’s ALL pain–NO gain.

See also: PRICE DOESN’T MATTER — PART II

Contrary to what misinformed pundits are saying, truck sales in Canada have remained relatively static.

Chart 3: Truck, van and bus sales, seasonally adjusted, in units, 2005 to 2008

Click image to enlarge.

Despite the rapid rise in gasoline prices the behaviour of Canadian consumers is not changing.

Record high unit sales of trucks

Trucks comprise an all-encompassing category that includes minivans, sport-utility vehicles, light and heavy trucks, vans and buses. Total sales of these vehicles surged 3.5% to a record high 831,535 units in 2007. This was the third consecutive year of growth in annual sales of trucks.

Trucks represent a growing share of the new vehicle market in Canada. In 1992, they accounted for only 35.0% of the entire market; by 2007, this share had risen to nearly one‑half (49.2%). Truck sales come from the expenditures of businesses and households.

If $1.30/litre gasoline won’t force Canadians to abandon their gas guzzling trucks neither will Dion’s insignificant carbon tax.

See also: PRICE DOESN’T MATTER

When two-thirds of Canada moves in one direction the rest of the country has no option but to follow.

The governments of Quebec and Ontario will strike a deal next week to move ahead with an interprovincial carbon trading system they hope will pressure Ottawa to bring its climate change plan in-line with global standards, The Canadian Press has learned…

The memorandum will include a basic framework for a cap-and-trade system with a 1990 baseline for emission levels.

It will also opt for “real reductions,” as opposed to the federal government’s “intensity-based” plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In fairness a cap and trade system doesn’t prohibit a carbon tax from being implemented as well but it’s unlikely Canadian voters would tolerate the double economic hit from both on top of rising energy prices. Since the cap and trade is moving forward in real terms while Dion’s carbon tax is still mired in the realm of political theory it’s relatively safe to say cap and trade is going to triumph over carbon tax.

Click image to enlarge.
If a 40% rise in the price of gasoline won’t reduce our consumption what chance does Dion’s paltry carbon tax have of accomplishing it?

Update: From a StatsCan Economic Year in Review for 2006.

Since 2002, the price of a barrel of oil on world markets has jumped from $20 (US) to a peak of $77 last fall, before easing to $60 at year end. Consumers in Canada mostly shrugged off the effect of rising gasoline prices on their driving habits, never mind their overall behaviour. Retail gasoline consumption has continued to increase every year since 2002, including a 0.8% rise last year. The only concession drivers made to higher prices was to switch from premium to regular grade gasoline in each year.

For the fifth straight year, purchases of trucks (which include SUVs) rose faster than car sales.

Here’s what the president of the Environmental Defense Fund Fred Krupp–the man who helped establish a cap and trade system to limit acid rain pollution–recently said about carbon taxes.

Why not a carbon tax?

There’s no example of an air pollution problem anywhere in the world that has been solved without a cap or legal limit on how much of that pollution can be dumped into the sky. A cap gives you that legal limit, where a tax allows people to potentially keep on paying a modest amount and keep on polluting.

Dion’s ‘pay and pollute’ scheme will not work.

How effective is Norway’s carbon tax? Not very.

A Statistics Norway study shows that: “Despite politically ambitious carbon taxes, this policy measure has had only a modest influence on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Modest indeed — it accounted for only two percent of CO2 emission reductions.

Now consider that Norway’s gasoline tax was $51 per ton of CO2 in 1999, while BC’s tax starts at $10 per ton, or 2.4 cents per litre, and rises by 2012 to $30 per ton or 7.2 cents per litre.

Dion’s foolish plan to tax away atmospheric carbon dumping isn’t even going to be that effective.

Instead of Dion’s foolish pollute as much as you can afford ponzi scheme McGuinty is beginning to implement a real solution.

A directive issued yesterday instructs Crown-owned utility Ontario Power Generation to reduce coal emission levels to two-thirds below 2003 levels by 2011…

The utility has until November to file a plan for achieving the goal, which requires reductions to begin next year…

Energy Minister Gerry Phillips said emissions of greenhouse gases – which cause global warming – from the coal plants must be 11.5 megatonnes in 2011, down from 34.5 megatonnes in 2003.

This is how it’s done. Taxing away ghg emissions won’t work. Atmospheric carbon dumping must be legislated away or in other words, banned.

Quite a bit has already been said about Dion’s plan to implement a carbon tax but unfortunately, most of it has focused on how the plan will play with the voters. What hasn’t been talked about much is whether or not his plan is an effective means of dealing with the problem.

When it was determined that dumping mercury into our rivers and lakes was detrimental to the environment and our health the government of the day did not respond by taxing mercury. When it was determined that adding lead to paint was detrimental to our environment and health the government of the day did not respond by taxing lead.

Such measures would have been seen as preposterous and would have sent the message that it’s acceptable to endanger our environment and health providing you can pay to do so. Rather than foolishly trying to tax these things away the governments of the day instead ordered industry to stop dumping mercury into our rivers and lakes and ordered paint manufacturers to remove the lead from their product.

Yet Dion is now suggesting we adopt a foolish policy of trying to tax away greenhouse gas emissions instead of adopting the effective solutions of the past. A carbon tax won’t eliminate ghg emissions. Only ordering an end to carbon dumping into our atmosphere and ordering its removal from the products sold to us will accomplish that.