BC Carbon Tax - more than just tax, BC needs energy change!

I like this article, written by a few gurus of the climate change experts in Canada, and published on the Vancouver Sun last week.  It’s a pretty easy read with loads of great information.  Most importnatly, it’s great to see postive articles about carbon tax, especially at election time.  It’s crucial to understand current policies regarding to carbon tax and (eventual) cap and trade systems that we will have in BC, and it’s crucial to understand these policies to make an informed decision for BC, whatever your decision might be.

They commented that to ultimately get to a zero carbon economy, three most important steps are:

• energy efficiency and conservation;  
• renewable energy; and 
• price on carbon.

Energy Efficiency - reduce energy consumption through increasing energy efficiency.  Luckily as wasteful as we are in Canada, we have lots of opportunities to increase energy efficiency.  But these come with a price tag:  we pay to become more energy efficient!

Renewable energy - whenever possible, consider renewable energy options.  ”Renewable Energy” does not need to be as sexy as wind turbines or solar panels.  Whenever we can reduce “engineered” resources it’s great.  rain water collection is a great example.

Price on carbon - Yes, we need to put a price on carbon; and it will cost us!  Through the carbon neutral tax and a cap-and-trade system that is in the plan, this integrated system will allow us to move towards a carbon neutral community.  And don’t forget that in addition to paying for carbon, there’ll also be business cases to be involved in this area!  Money doesn’t just disappear (well, maybe they do), if we’re paying for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and carbon, then this amount of money could be used to feed back to the system!

The authors:

• Guy Dauncey is president of the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association;
• Will Horter is executive director of the Dogwood Initiative; 
• Merran Smith is climate director with ForestEthics; Tzeporah 
• Berman is executive director of PowerUP Canada; 
• Michele Patterson is acting vice-president, WWF-Canada — Pacific Region; 
• Ian Gill is president of Ecotrust Canada, and Greg Gowe is a staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law Association.

2 Comments

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  By Mike Harmon, April 13, 2009 @ 2:30 am

  I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!

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  By flo, April 13, 2009 @ 11:14 pm

  Thanks for the comment =p i’m really happy that you enjoy the articles!

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