The Nov. 17 editorial, “Carbon tax rightly raises public ire,” suggests that convincing detractors of the need for a carbon tax is unlikely to succeed because Canadian greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are globally insignificant. In response, it is true that the Canadian contribution to global emissions is small, representing 1.6 per cent of global emissions. Yet, according to Environment Canada this still ranks us in 11th place of the top global emitters. (https://www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/default.asp?lang=en&n=54C061B5-1). It is fair to acknowledge, as suggested, that Canadian emissions are not pivotal compared to the larger global emitters, but there is more to this story. Globally 60 per cent of GHG emissions are from the top four emitters: China (24.5 per cent), U.S. (13.9 per cent), E.U. (9.8 per cent), and India (6.7 per cent). This accounting means that 40 per cent of emissions come from all the other countries. If every one of these countries made the same argument that they are too small to make a difference, no one would do anything. Yet, collectively all these other countries account for 40 per cent of emissions, which is significant. The E.U. is illustrative of this. Many countries in the E.U. have smaller GHG footprints than Canada. Yet, the E.U. collectively and many E.U. countries independently have signed the Paris Climate Accord (http://climateanalytics.org/hot-topics/ratification-tracker.html). To date, 109 countries have signed the Paris Accord, representing 76.5 per cent of global emissions. The editorial also suggests that natural market forces, rather than government intervention, should drive consumer choice, should be the goal of a carbon tax. That is, as the cost of fossil fuel extraction and production becomes more expensive, the consumer will naturally transition to choices that favour alternative energy when they become cost-competitive. The perspective that government should simply allow market forces to drive the change to a greener energy economy rather than take a leadership role fails to recognize history. I will use the U.S. to illustrate the important and positive role of government in ensuring the wellbeing of its citizens. Between former president Roosevelt’s New Deal of the mid-1930s to former president Johnson’s War on Poverty of the mid-1960s, the U.S. economy was actively and positively steered by federal government. The Reagan era of deregulation, lower taxes, less government, and less spending was not good for the U.S. economy: “…on all relevant indicators [of economic performance], the [Reagan and post Reagan] period from 1981 and 2010 proved to be no better, and was generally much worse, than the period from, say, 1955 to 1970, before the onset of the terrible decade of the 1970s.” Reagan had incorrectly diagnosed “that ‘big government’ had caused the economic crisis of the 1970s.” (Sachs, 2011, The Price of Civilization).
Less government was considered better government and corporations were liberated from regulatory constraints as big business lobbied for self-interest. The net result was that wealth was increasingly transferred to the richest one per cent of population as the middle class shrunk and the poor became poorer. The global financial collapse of 2008 was a result of U.S. financial deregulation and a loss of government leadership. Letting market forces take the lead as suggested is not leadership at all.
Denis Stefani
