Angry in the Great White North

Can we predict how much the carbon tax Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion wants us to pay is going to be?

I think we can.  We know that Stephane Dion uses David Suzuki as his unpaid and uncredited science advisor when it comes to things environmental, to the point of plagiarizing Suzuki's reports.

We also know that Stephane Dion has said as recently as December 2007 that if he is elected prime minister, Stephane Dion can lead Canada to meeting its Kyoto Protocal commitments.

So the obvious question is simply how does David Suzuki think Canada can meet the Kyoto Protocol commitments.  If David Suzuki has a plan, we can be fairly sure Stephane Dion will follow it.

The Kyoto goal is emissions 6% below 1990 levels by 2012.  In February 2008, the David Suzuki Foundation released the Pricing Carbon : Saving Green report, which stated:

With the introduction of a carbon price, even a fairly high one, Canada’s economy would continue to grow rapidly.

So with no negative impact on the economy, a carbon tax sounds like the painless way to go.  Table 2 in the report gives us the relative emissions by 2020.  We can aim for 12% below 1990 levels, or 19% below 1990 levels. 

Since that's in 2020, and we are aiming for 6% below 1990 levels in 2012, we have to aim higher.  Better safe than sorry (I mean, we're saving the planet here), so let's say that 19% below 1990 levels in 2020 is on the same trajectory as 6% below 1990 levels in 2012.

That would mean the following tax rates:

• $75 in 2010
• $130 in 2015
• $200 in 2020

Using linear regression, the tax would start at $47.50 a tonne in 2008.

Actually the rate might be much higher, because the Suzuki report does not exclude gasoline for cars from the tax.  If Stephane Dion does exclude gasoline, as he said he would, other fossil fuels would have to be taxed even higher to make up the difference.  That might not even make sense, since at some point usage of other fossil fuels can't be reduced no matter how expensive it gets, but this is about environmental policy.  Common sense has no place here.

Oddly enough, this rate of about $50 per tonne is similar to the plan proposed by the Green Party (also known as the Liberal-Lite party):

A $50 per tonne carbon tax that could drive up gasoline prices by 12 cents per litre is the only way to avert a climate catastrophe, Green Leader Elizabeth May said Tuesday.

The proposed carbon tax, which might climb to $100 per tonne by 2020, is a the heart of a new Green party climate change plan that was unveiled by May on Parliament Hill. Under the plan, revenues would be used to reduce income and payroll taxes and offer new tax incentives to encourage other reductions in carbon dioxide emissions which cause global warming.

Again, the Liberals insist that their carbon tax idea exempts gasoline, so presumably the catastrophe is averted by an even higher tax on home heating fuels.

In any case, the predictions seem to match up.  I say we can expect an initial carbon tax of no less than $50 a tonne, but only briefly, climbing up by 50% or more inside of two years, and then nearly tripling again 10 years after that.

If Stephane Dion suggests a carbon tax of less that $50 per tonne starting out, I'm going to accuse him of environmental shenanigans, and he doesn't want that.

A tax of at least $50 per tonne to start, and $200 or more in a decade, is what we need if Canada's emissions that account for all of two percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions are to drop below catastrophe-triggering levels.  I guess Canada's emissions represent a particularly brutal two percent.