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Tax Shifting Debate Event

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Tax Shifting for a Greener Future

Download: a copy of the flyer

Wednesday April 9th 2008

Would you be willing to pay a higher tax on fuel and other polluting activities in exchange for lower income and payroll taxes? Tax shifting is about comprehensive tax reform to encourage sustainable development, better economic performances, social well-being and more jobs. Taxes are levied on resource and energy intensive, environmentally damaging activity and lowered on employment, income and investments.

Will tax shifting work?

Come hear experts speak both for and against tax shifting. The panel will include:

Opposed:

  • Hugh MacKenzie: Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
  • Finn Poschmann: Research Director for C.D. Howe Institute

In Favour:

  • Kate Holloway: CEO of Carbonzero
  • Toby Heaps: founding editor of Corporate Knights

Moderator:

  • Bernadette Hardaker, freelance journalist and former CBC Radio One broadcaster

Wednesday April 9, 2008 from 7:30 - 9:30 p.m at the Jane Mallet Theatre.
Admission is FREE. Complimentary tea and coffee will be served at 9:30 pm.

The Carbon Con?

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Up until a decade ago, the concepts of carbon offsetting and carbon trading were deeply controversial. They were largely seen within the environmental community as a dangerous free market hijacking of the greenhouse gas problem that would allow rich countries and polluters to escape from the consequences of their actions while buying credits of dubious worth from less industrialized and thus less polluting regions of the world.

Unfortunately, this criticism has grown silent as Al Gore, who disappointed environmentalists in his eight years as Vice-President, has successfully rehabilitated his image in recent years. There is much to commend with his resurrection, as he has taken principled stands against the Iraq War, in defense of the US Constitution and science-based reasoning, and of course, his tireless advocacy on climate change. He has become the Oscar and Nobel-prize winning hero he never could during his tragic run for the presidency in 2000. However, one thing has not changed -- he remains a steadfast advocate of the emissions trading or "cap and trade" system, which he played a large role in introducing to Kyoto before the US abandoned the treaty in 1997.

Recently, the UK-based Independent, one outstanding newspaper that has covered climate change extensively, reiterated these critiques as voiced by mainline environmental and indigenous rights groups. Here's a sample of what they said:

"Taking a dodgy accounting proposition, which is that you can somehow identify the amount of carbon that any given new bit of forest picks up out of the atmosphere and sequesters, and make that correspond somehow to emissions elsewhere," is how Greenpeace sees carbon offsetting, according to its senior climate adviser Charlie Kronick. "It can't be done. The methodology is poor, and the logic isn't very good either. Once the carbon you've put in from fossil fuels is up there, nothing is going to make it go away."

Friends of the Earth's Marie Reynolds points out that not only is offsetting no substitute for real emissions cuts, but there is no guarantee, when you plant a tree, what the future of that tree will be. Robin Oakley, Greenpeace's climate and energy campaigner, agrees: "The issue with offsetting is that, fundamentally, it doesn't undo the damage done by carbon pollution. The vast number of players in the offsetting market are not reducing emissions in any accountable or measurable way."

In some cases, local people, far from benefiting, suffer when huge new plantations spring up. Survival International campaigner David Hill says: "Numerous reports show how indigenous peoples have suffered as a result of carbon projects: invasion of their land, evictions, the destruction of villages and crops, reduced access to or destruction of traditional resources, and violent conflict."

For a more detailed look at the history and record of the carbon trading concept, it would be worthwhile to check out the book, Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power, which through numerous case studies and economic analysis finds the entire regime to be both "ineffective and unjust." Sobering reading indeed.

Alberta Tar Sands documentary airs on CBC tonight

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A new documentary "Tar Sands, The Selling of Alberta" commissioned by the CBC, will be on channel 5 Toronto, tonight at 9 pm. In an interview on The Hour last night, the filmaker, Peter Raymont, pointed out that Fort McMurray, in Alberta, is the third largest Newfoundland city in Canada (that's an indication of the extent of within-Canada migration!).

For those of you who haven't paid much attention to exactly what the fuss about the Tar Sands is, imagine that you take a can of motor oil, walk over to your child's sand box (or the local park's kiddie sand box!), pour the oil into the sand, and mix it around. Then, someone tells you that you need to get that oil off of that sand and back into the can! That is the challenge with the Tar Sands - it's a huge fossil fuel reserve, but the oil is very difficult and energetically expensive to extract. When it comes to carbon emissions, the cost of extracting the oil is huge. The documentary explores the social impacts and geopolitics of this issue, moreso than the environmental aspects. But, all of these aspects are directly linked when it comes to sustainability. Highly recommended viewing.

Dawn Bazely

British Columbia leads the way

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When British Columbia's finance minister Carole Taylor introduced the continent's first ever carbon tax in her provincial budget this February, her actions were greeted with almost unanimous praise in environmental circles. The news out of BC was particularly encouraging, as many felt that it would set off a chain of dominos that would see the rest of provinces and territories follow BC's lead.

The carbon tax has been a particularly tough nut to crack given the widespread antipathy towards introducing new taxes in general. With oil prices reaching record highs, any hike would be considered political suicide. However, with gas prices so high, a new levy could also be more palatable in much the same way that fair trade organic coffee has been successful due to consumers getting used to buying expensive coffee.

In perhaps a similar vein to China where the upcoming Olympics are sending various bureaucrats and administrators into massive overdrive to clean up the city, environmentalists may indeed have the Vancouver Winter Games to thank for this forward leap in thinking.

The flip side with the tax and why some have critiqued it is that it will be offset by tax breaks and credits elsewhere. As William Rees, the economist who invented 'eco-footprint' analysis notes in the alternative BC weekly Tyee:

In effect, neither business nor the average consumer will feel much financial bite from the tax and is free to spend his/her tax savings and credits on alternative forms of consumption. This amounts to "impact neutrality." (No wonder the Vancouver Board of Trade called it a "smart carbon tax" and gave the budget an 'A' grade.)

The problem is, that redirected consumption may have negative ecological impacts equivalent to those of any carbon emissions avoided. Keep in mind that climate change, while important, is only one of many symptoms of what has become rampant human ecological dysfunction.

- BC's Carbon Tax Shell Game (Tyee, February 28, 2008)

Another argument over the tax is that it may be regressive, amounting to a flat tax on gas consumption. As Tom Barrett notes in the Tyee:

Problem is, the rich are also the ones who can most easily afford to pay carbon taxes -- taxes like the ones in Tuesday's budget, which are intended to stop people from spewing out greenhouse gases.

-- How Fair Is BC's New Carbon Tax? (Tyee, February 20, 2008)

However, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives thinks the budget has "done a reasonably good job of considering economic fairness." In fact, the progressive think tank contradicts Rees in that it praises the credits as making the tax more affordable for low income families.

Indeed, debate around the carbon tax gets very complicated very quickly, bringing into contention the universal need to reduce consumption vs. the need for a fair tax policy that cushions the blow on the poor. At the very least, British Columbia has brought the debate into the realm of actual government policy!

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