Canadian panel wants carbon tax

The Canadian government has been urged to take faster, tougher measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions by imposing a carbon tax that would target fossil fuel industries. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, a government appointed advisory panel made up of academics, environmentalists, labor leaders and corporate executives, said that putting a price on GHGs will be the most effective tool to lower emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and 65 percent by 2050.

Panel Chairman Glen Murray said an “early and clean price signal” is needed to influence industry investment needed to achieve deep reductions and to influence consumer decisions and behavior.

Environment Minister John Baird sidestepped the proposed carbon tax in promising to consider NRTEE recommendations before releasing climate change regulations later this year.

But he did say that unless China, India, the United States, Brazil and Russia make medium and long term commitments to lower GHGs there is a “greater economic risk for Canada” if it takes independent action.

The NRTEE estimated that the GHG targets already proposed by the government for 2020 and 2050 would have the equivalent impact on Canada’s gross domestic product of one to two years of “lost GDP” over the 44-year period from 2006 to 2050.

It said its own targets would require GHG cuts by petroleum producers of 41 percent in 2020 and 69 percent in 2050, 10 percent and 33 percent by natural gas producers and 14 percent and 75 percent by petroleum refiners.

For the same target years, output would drop 3 percent and 5 percent in the petroleum sector, 4 percent and 9 percent in the natural gas sector and 12 percent and 50 percent for refiners.

Pierre Alvarez, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the bulk of his industry is ready to accept a price on carbon, provided all industries are treated equally.

—Gary Park