Effective environmental measures will require major changes in industry, agriculture, and infrastructure in general. The idea that price signals, including some pressure on the masses will ensure utilization of a supposedly already existing infrastructure (such as public transit) is absurd. And is memory so shortthat one has forgotten that as gas prices have spiked here in the US, the result has been *cutbacks* in many public transit systems, cutbacks at the same time as commuting to work via cars became prohibitive to a number of people? Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of market forces is not a socialist hand, and it is also quite good at providing unexpected results. This included such things as the European cap and trade system resulting in further devastation of the remaining rain forests through letting the market do its own searching for biomass (the carbon tax would have had the same result).
But no matter, the neo-liberal mantra that pricing things at their true cost will result in everything good is so ingrained, that it has penetrated deeply into environmentalist circles. Giving in to this mantra means, in effect, seeking an alliance with business interests, with the role of the working masses reducing to tightening their belts to pay for it.
But back to the carbon tax in particular. I hadn't looked at the results of the carbon tax for awhile, so I've started to take another look. I found interesting information on, for example, the British Columbia carbon tax, one of the carbon taxes promoted by the Carbon Tax Center. I examined some articles by people who actually the tax.
Among the features of the BC carbon tax in operation are the following:
a) Although it is revenue-neutral -- actually revenue-negative, with more refunds than revenue coming in -- and although there are certain rebates to people, it is basically another tax shift in favor of business. Marc Lee, an economist for the pro-carbon tax Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, estimates that by 2012/13 two-thirds of the rebates will be corporate income tax cuts. It started out with 1/3 of the rebates for personal income tax, and 1/3 as low-income credit, and 1/3 as cuts in corporate income tax, which even then was a tax shift. But as it is implemented, the sugar-coating starts to peel away, and the rebates go more and more to the wealthy.
b) It is not part of any plan to provide alternatives to people..
c) It exempts certain emissions, and the BC government (of the same pro- business Liberal party that implemented the tax originallhy) is considering further exempting various industries.
d) It's complicated, and it does nothing to stop the system of direct neo- liberal business-government collaboration that is making a mockery of government action.
Now, the BC carbon tax is only at a low level, and yet it is already showing various of the negative features that can be expected from the carbon tax. It would have to be hiked tremendously if there is an attempt to use it to get deep cuts in carbon emissions, and this can be expected to intensify all its problems.
But establishment environmentalism ends up prettifying it to the masses. Below is an article on some problems with the BC Carbon Tax. It is from a carbon tax supporter. So I obviously don't agree with the narrow outlook of this article, but I think it gives some information on the problems with the BC tax. The realities of the tax differ from the sugar-coated statements from the Carbon Tax Center and the David Suzuki Foundation and the BC government.
---------------------------------------------------------- Fix carbon tax by ending corporate tax breaks, using revenues for climate action and new tax credit: study BC Office of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives February 23, 2011
(Vancouver) A new study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Sierra Club BC calls on the provincial government to scale up BC's carbon tax, and makes a number of recommendations to make the tax more effective and fair.
"As currently structured, the BC carbon tax is increasing social inequality, while squandering revenues on expensive corporate income tax cuts," explains Marc Lee, senior economist at the CCPA and author of Fair and Effective Carbon Pricing: Lessons from BC. "But in my view it can be fixed, and has the potential to be transformational for BC in the fight against climate change."
A carbon tax makes it more expensive to emit greenhouse gases, but revenues should be used to accelerate climate action, says the report. Public transit, energy efficiency, forest conservation and green job creation are investments that need to be funded from carbon tax revenues.
The study finds that once tax cuts and credits are figured in, the carbon tax as currently structured has a negative impact on low-income British Columbians, while providing a net benefit to the highest-income households, which are, ironically, also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters.
This is largely due to a growing share of carbon tax revenues going to corporate income tax cuts, which will total $1 billion in 2012/13 - equal to two-thirds of revenues (compared to only one-third when the carbon tax was introduced). The BC carbon tax is currently "revenue-negative" - costing the treasury more than it collects - due to escalating corporate income tax cuts.
"The wealthiest households in BC get more back in tax cuts than they pay in carbon tax," says George Heyman, Executive Director of the Sierra Club of BC. "That is unfair, and needs to be reversed if the carbon tax is to increase."
Lee recommends that the provincial government rethink how carbon tax revenues are spent, calling for half of revenues to support climate action, and the other half to go towards a new refundable tax credit aimed at low- to middle- income households to ensure households are not adversely affected.
"How the revenues are spent is critical to a fair outcome," says Lee. "A new round of climate action must scale up the carbon tax in way that is effective and equitable."
The report also looks at other BC carbon pricing initiatives such as the commitment to carbon neutral government and the Western Climate Initiative. It makes ten recommendations for more equitable and effective carbon pricing in BC, including:
* The carbon tax should be raised to $200 per tonne by 2020 [which would be 8 times the 2011 level pf $25 per tonne -- JG], a level that would see BC´s gas prices in 2010 match those that prevail in Europe today;
* Loopholes that allow major industrial polluters to avoid paying the carbon tax need to be closed; and
* Requirements that public sector institutions purchase offsets are eating into needed public services, and should be rescinded. <>