Obama’s Green Acheivements in 100 days

As much as we’re up in the “north”, Canadians really do care about what the US is planning in all areas of policy, including carbon!  Whether we follow US policy or develop our own set of policies is another matter, but whatever the Obama administration has/will have implement can affect us greatly.  This is a pretty good article summarizing what Obama has done in his first 100 days in the office.  I’ve extracted the summary section of it:

• Announcing plans to regulate coal-ash waste in the wake of last December’s catastrophic spill
• Signaling that they intend to take a closer look at permits for mountain-top removal, the controversial coal-extraction process (though they later made it clear that this should not be interpreted as eliminating the practice) 
• Cutting off funding for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada
• Creating a Clean Energy Service Corps as part of the landmark expansion of AmeriCorps
• Streamlining the loan guarantee program at the Department of Energy, which gave out its first loanto a solar company on March 20
• Planting an organic White House vegetable garden.

I guess these initiatives are great, but haven’t really get down to the carbon business.  Carbon Tax?  Cap and Trade? Hybrid?  It’s interesting to see what’s going to happen!

Hybrid system of carbon tax and cap and trade the best

With the BC provincial election approaching, I’m a bit surprised that we haven’t heard too much about the BC carbon tax lately. I do a quick news search every day or two on Google and I hardly see anything interesting about the BC carbon tax.  Today I found Clark Williams-Derry (director of Sightline Institute) of Seattle, who wrote this commentary published on the current issue of Georgia Straight discussing that the hybrid system of carbon tax plus a cap and trade system is the best solution. 

A hybrid system—a tax plus a cap—would provide some predictability about prices, as well as a firm guarantee that we’ll meet our climate goals. The tax keeps the system moving forward, continually improving our performance. And the cap is like a sturdy guardrail that keeps us on the road to success, making sure that we make steady, secure progress in creating a climate-friendly economy.

This makes sense and this hybrid system will exactly be the system that BC is going to have!  The carbon tax will always be around, and the cap and trade system will come in to get the carbon that is not taxed, typically from process fuel from large emitters. 

I’m excited about seeing how this hybrid system will work in BC, and i have no doubt that it will. 

If you’re a carbon tax or a carbon cap and trade system supporter, are you in for a hybrid system?