Canada Moves Ahead on Carbon Taxes, Leaving the U.S. Behind | Hacker News Reader

Canada Moves Ahead on Carbon Taxes, Leaving the U.S. Behind

technologyreview.com

34 pointsendswapper14 comments

Given a global market, a carbon tax is a disadvantage to Canada as it forces prices upward.

This idea would work best if everyone had to do it, otherwise there are further incentives to move industries out of Canada.

Although they talk about making the revenue neutral it seems unlikely that the government is going to give up the extra money.

This is not some kind of race where anyone has to get ahead of each other. These complex issues have two sides and we need to examine the both.

People have examined the issue. They concluded that carbon emissions are causing increased global temperatures, and that the solution is to reduce carbon emissions. The best way we know of to do so on a national scale is by adding a cost on the polluter for emitting carbon.

Now we're moving on from examining the issue to implementing solutions, and the Paris Agreement -- which came into effect earlier this month -- is the international community declaring that this is the case.

Canada is implementing its part of the Agreement as promised.

This sounds like the opinion of someone who has never had to deal with business crushing regulation. The fact is that there needs to be a balance. It is foolish to impose economy killing policies when other countries openly pollute vast quantities on the other side of the planet. Additionally, many of these policies assume Man is only capable of causing climate change and not capable of fixing it. However, early experimental evidence supports the notion that we might be able to solve the carbon problem scientifically. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/co...

Obviously this is not a call to abandon environmental protections, but rather a call to be more pragmatic in our solutions. If this last month has taught me anything its that projections are not fortunes and it is dangerous to assume the equivalence.

According to the article Canada will actually be reducing the amount of regulation:

"He proposes therefore to cut existing regulations on carbon, such as vehicle efficiency standards and carbon dioxide standards that mandate carbon capture for new coal-fired power plants."

But Carbon taxes are proven policy that benefit the economy. See the FA's reference to BC's carbon tax which has been an enormous success. We are long past the point where people can claim carbon taxes as potentially negative for the economy or unproven.

The simple fact is that carbon taxes are only effective if all countries are participating but India, China, and large portions of Africa, the middle east, and south america are not. It will not be effective until we solve 3rd world problems first.

What would you like to see happen? Which carbon-reduction policies do you support?

If I had the choice between an unproven-policy or nothing I would choose nothing. The reason is simple: failed policies cause intangible but very real harm. The fact that the harm is intangible means you will never have the anecdotal evidence of its harm and are instead left with the unquantifiable number of all the businesses that could have been if only they weren't regulated out of existence. Clearly you can see the danger in this because it harms a party that cannot defend itself: the economy. Make no mistake, both nature and the economy are very sophisticated ecosystems and we need both to thrive.

There are large number of people who have seen faults with the examinations as well as conclusions and most certainly the implementations.

> is the international community declaring that this is the case.

Politicians not the people themselves.

It is a race. People are dying every day due to climate change and it is accelerating. Many will die, possibly billions, in the next 100 years. We are racing to try to bring that number down, but we have already lost the game.

Canadian here from Toronto.

Taxes on the middle class have become absolutely ridiculous. Property taxes rise every year, electricity prices have nearly doubled, and payroll taxes take away a third of your income from every paycheck.

The vast amount of benefits in Canada go to the lower class, and disappear if you move up a tax bracket. The rich simply don't pay the taxes [1].

People here want to be friendly to the environment, but trusting inefficient bureaucrats to handle taxpayer money properly is obviously not a good idea.

[1] http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeaus-econo...

>Canadian here from Toronto.

Canadian in Vancouver here.

> Taxes on the middle class have become absolutely ridiculous.

I disagree. We are lower taxed than some US states, depending on which province you are in, and get much much more in services.

> Property taxes rise every year

Citation needed. They have actually dropped here. See: http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/residential.as...

> electricity prices have nearly doubled

Citation need. BC Hydro's rate went up 4%, slightly above inflation.

> payroll taxes take away a third of your income from every paycheck.

That's odd as Canada doesn't have a payroll tax. Perhaps you mean payroll deductions for income tax withholding and pension/employment insurance premiums? None of these technically have to be withheld from your pay, but it is helpful to do so.

> The vast amount of benefits in Canada go to the lower class, and disappear if you move up a tax bracket.

It doesn't work like that. The middle class gets the bulk of the benefits (roads, airport, higher education, etc). Secondly, there is no case where making more money doesn't put you further ahead. All programs, like taxes, have progressive scales applied to them. This just isn't an issue.

I saw the claim earlier today, that Canada has the richest middle class in the world, which seemed believable.

Can you explain what you mean about bureaucrats? Carbon taxes are the free market solution to this problem, replacing central decision making.

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