Category Archives: Climate Change

Budget 2012: At Least the War on the Environment is Going Well

Canada, Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western Canada, , , , ,
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Until this year, the purpose of the annual Canadian federal budget was to project government revenues, lay out spending priorities and forecast economic conditions for the upcoming year. Reading Budget 2012, announced last week by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, it soon becomes clear that this government has no intention of being encumbered by pedestrian fiscal objectives. The Harper government has instead opted to present what is first and foremost a policy document – one that brazenly asserts the government’s ideological agenda for the coming three years.

If the overriding economic policy goal of this government was not apparent previously, with the release of Budget 2012, there can no longer be any doubt. The Harper gang has dispensed with even the pretense of meeting its basic environmental fiduciary responsibilities in favour of the almost totally unimpeded exploitation of Canadian resources. As Green Party leader Elizabeth May told me this week, the government is effectively telling the Canadian people that they plan “to eviscerate existing laws. This isn’t really a fiscal statement. They’ve used the budget as an instrument of massive overhaul of environmental law and policy and the overriding directive is oil and gas at all costs – the environment be damned.”

Should you happen to belong to the unlucky (and clearly misguided) lot with the audacity to be concerned about the proposed Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines, this is not a budget for you. In fact, perhaps the best we can say about Budget 2012 is, as Rafe Mair put it, at least “we now have it in writing what the bastards are up to!”

Just how bad is it? Well, don’t take my word for it. Last week on CBC, the respected columnist Chantale Hebert of the Toronto Star, hardly an eco-zealot, said this was the most anti-environment budget she had seen in her 20 years covering Parliament Hill. Even the very moderate, if not conservative, editorial board of the Globe and Mail singled out the environmental provisions in the Budget saying “The Conservatives are continuing their dishonourable attack meant to intimidate environmental groups, in a budget item that stands out for adding a needless new cost.”

Steven Guilbeault of the NGO Équiterre said that the budget “seems to have been written for, and even by, big oil interests…the Harper government is gutting the environmental protections that Canadians have depended on for decades to safeguard our families and nature from pollution, toxic contamination and other environmental problems.” And true to form, reaction from oil and gas companies, mining and pipeline companies has been predictably jubilant.

So just what does the Harper government plan to do? First, in what appears to be a return to the glory days of McCarthyism, the Harper gang plans to launch an $8 million campaign at Revenue Canada to investigate and crack down on environmental groups that the government deems are engaged in activities that are too political, including the extent to which these groups are funded by foreign sources.

There is no new funding for climate change programs. In fact the words climate change are mentioned only twice in passing in the entire 498 page budget plan.
 
The Conservatives will eliminate the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, which was a panel of business and environmental leaders who made policy recommendations on a variety of sustainability issues. A widely respected, non-partisan agency, the Roundtable was founded by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in 1988. Its reports of late, however, had annoyed the government as they were mildly critical of their plans to achieve its stated objective of reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. The result? The Harper government has  killed them.
 
Environment Canada’s budget is being cut again, this time by 6%, along with grants for scientific research in universities.The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (or CEAA) is in line for a 40 per cent cut. Touting a ‘one project, one review’ principle, CEAA will be overhauled with federal responsibilities being downloaded on provinces; newly imposed timelines, and a limiting of the scope of reviews. Joint panel environmental reviews are to be limited to 24 months, National Energy Board hearings to 18 months and standard environmental assessments to one year. All this will be imposed retroactively, thereby impacting reviews, such as Northern Gateway, that are currently underway. The changes could jeopardize the capacity of people to participate in reviews and it further undermines the ultimate goal of reviews in ensuring environmental protection is a priority in all projects.
 
The budget does not renew funding for the popular EcoENERGY energy efficiency program. Minimal tax support will be given to ‘clean energy’ and energy efficiency, but only to the tune of $2 million – a tiny drop in the bucket in a multi-billion dollar budget.
 
Finally, some changes are planned for subsidies to the oil and gas industry on Canada’s East coast but tar sands subsidies remain untouched. Currently, $1.38 billion a year is allocated to energy development through subsidies.
 
Although not specifically mentioned in the Budget plan, the government is also widely suspected to be planning to gut key conservation provisions of Canada’s Fisheries Act, the nation’s most significant and oldest piece of environmental legislation. The Aboriginal People’s Television Network has also learned that that the Harper Conservatives are changing Canada’s mining regulations so that prospecting companies could soon have free-reign on reserve lands.

So what to make of all this? If the stakes weren’t so high, we may otherwise see this Budget as an unfortunate aberration, a government that clearly has an axe to grind or some kind of vendetta against environmental groups. Yet it’s important to appreciate the significance of what the Harper gang is trying to accomplish: namely, to clear the way for resource development projects that will not easily be undone. The environmental legacy of this government will be felt for a long time to come if they are permitted to implement their agenda unimpeded.

A prestigious conference was held last week, at which some of the world’s leading scientists and academics called for the official designation of a new earth epoch: the Anthropocene. Addressing the ‘Planet under Pressure’ gathering in London, England, scientists said that one species has left an indelible mark through climate change, dwindling fish stocks, continued deforestation, rapid species decline, and human population growth. Anthony Giddens, the British political scientist known for his holistic view of societies, described the Anthopocene as a “runaway world” in which we have unleashed processes more powerful than our attempts to control them.

It is against this dismal backdrop that our federal politicians have unleashed the anti-environmental provisions of Budget 2012 upon the Canadian people. I’ve recently been seeing a bumper sticker that captures quite nicely the priorities of our current federal government: “At least the war on the environment is going well.”

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Climate Change: The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind

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“The answer,” wrote Bob Dylan in his iconic ’60s anti-war song, “is blowin’ in the wind.” So the vicious winds that ravaged coastal BC on the morning of March 12th – sustained velocities of 100 km/hr with gusts measured at 137 km/hr – provided that answer.

Outbursts of nasty winds have been harassing coastal British Columbia with increasing frequency in recent years. Ferry sailings, the litmus test of heavy weather for islanders, have been cancelled often, reminding the attentive public and anxious travellers that the winds are once again abnormally high. The March blow, therefore, seemed almost ordinary, except for its intensity. It left 135,000 people without electricity, ripped shingles, roofing and siding off houses, sent driftwood across shoreline highways and parks, closed schools and disrupted businesses. Beloved old trees, lifetime companions, were uprooted or broken by the fierce winds, their smashed and battered parts strewn as wreckage across roads, yards, powerlines and even homes. As one stoical observer cynically noted, “It’s not global warming, it’s global wind-ing.”

If that’s the answer, the problem is that no particular weather event can be definitively attributed to global warming. Climate models predict more extreme weather for a warmer world – more severe storms, more intense rainfall and more protracted droughts. This might explain why Australia’s record “big dry” ended in record floods. And it might account for the devastating monsoons that drowned much of Pakistan. Manitoba has still not recovered a year after its flooding. Sudden storms and higher winds are just part of the parcel for an atmosphere that is hotter and more energized.

Of course, the details of weather are incredibly difficult to predict at any time, even with supercomputers. But the general principle is easily understood. Increased temperatures mean more active weather – somehow, somewhere. The global temperature rise since the beginning of industrialization about 250 years ago has been 1.6°C. BC’s experience of this trend has been a measured average increase of 0.25°C per decade for the last 65 years, an accelerating rise that has exceeded the worst case scenario predicted by the United Nations’ science experts at the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The “answer” that’s “blowin’ in the wind” will never be definitive because variations from normal weather patterns always occur; extreme variations should be rare. But frequent and extreme variations suggest something fundamental is amiss. And the trend should be worrisome.

We live and thrive in the normal. We manage our forests, catch our fish and grow our food based on the normal. We choose sites and build our houses based on normal conditions. The trees that shade them and embellish our properties do so under the grace of normal. We survive and flourish in the harmony of normal. The abnormal is always disruptive and threatening, something we don’t want to encounter. This explains why we prefer a reassuring answer to a troubling one, and why we are so reluctant to acknowledge the abnormal. Such an admission induces insecurity, anxiety and even fear.

This is the psychology underlying our collective reluctance to admit the significance of these recent windstorms and to accept the notion of global climate change. Psychologists would identify this inner dynamic as cognitive dissonance, an irresolvable conflict between preference and evidence. Our usual inclination is to favour preference – sometimes beyond the futility of denial – until dire events eventually force a reluctant realization.

Have the recent windstorms convinced anyone that global climate change is a reality? Have the heavy rains, record snowfalls on mountains, flooding events, melting permafrost, receding glaciers and pine beetle catastrophe been confirming evidence that the weather is different enough to be ascribed to something unusual? Did the mayhem caused by the March 12th storm create a moment of epiphany for those who heard the winds roar, who felt their houses tremble, who hoped anxiously that the next flying object or falling tree would miss anything they had built or owned or cherished?

Reality sometimes collides with credibility. After the March 12th wind had subsided and the weather turned an ironical and incongruous calm, the surrounding wreckage seemed alien, a bizarre figment of illusion that somehow didn’t correlate to ordinary experience. How can one day be so different from the day before? Where is the familiar tree that once filled the sky above the back yard? What flattened the fence? Has anyone seen the lawn furniture? Why is the roof leaking? The routine drive to work somehow became an obstacle course of wrenched branches, wayward driftwood, dangling powerlines and discarded possessions, as if familiar and dignified neighbourhoods had suddenly become bereft of the propriety and decorum that once identified them as orderly and respectable.

Perhaps, for some people, March 12th was no different than any other day, just another storm that brought more than the usual inconvenience – no “answer blowin’ in the wind”. But for others, the day was an epiphany, a sorry awakening, a clear answer that brought a helpless grieving for lost innocence.

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OECD Report Predicts Dramatically Decreased Standard of Living Due to Environmental Destruction

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Read this story from Agence France-Presse on a new report commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicting grave socioeconomic ramifications from increasing environmental problems. (March 16, 2012)

PARIS – Pressures on Earth’s ecosystem are now so great that future generations could be doomed to falling living standards, the OECD said on Thursday in a report looking to the mid-century.

“Providing for a further two billion people by 2050 and improving the living standards for all will challenge our ability to manage and restore those natural assets on which all life depends,” it warned.

“Failure to do so will have serious consequences, especially for the poor, and ultimately undermine the growth and human development of future generations.”

The report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) builds on previous peeks-into-the-future, ending in 2030, that focused on climate change, biodiversity and the impacts on health for pollution.

“The prospects are more alarming than the situation described in the previous edition,” it said, speaking of “irreversible changes that could endanger two centuries of rising living standards.”

Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/Environmental+crunch+worse+than+thought+OECD+2050+report/6313069/story.html

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Decline of Climate Change Acceptance Scares Leading Scientists

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Dr. Nina Federoff, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said at a recent gathering of the AAAS in Vancouver that she is “scared to death” about the public’s declining acceptance of global warming and the growing influence of well-funded skeptics who are spreading misinformation about climate change (Times-Colonist, Feb. 27/12).

“I’m very worried,” she confided to reporters, noting leaked documents from the influential Heartland Institute of Chicago that reveal it is planning a program for US public schools intended to discredit the evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is creating world-wide environmental threats.

Dr. Federoff, of course, is from America where right-wing politics and religious fundamentalism have reacted so negatively to the reason and empiricism so crucial to scientific thought. Public support for the science of climate change is waning in the US, she noted, “even as the scientific consensus has increased.”

The AAAS meeting in Vancouver also provided Canadian scientists with an opportunity to voice their concern about this country’s version of the American problem. They complain that Canada’s federal government has been “muzzling” the scientists it employs, forcing them to vet any communication with the media through a complex process of centralized control that usually ends with no interviews at all, or with versions that are sufficiently sanitized to be politically comfortable. Dr. Andrew Weaver, Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, has expressed exasperation with this constraint on the public’s access to scientific information. While his colleague in the US, Dr. James Hansen – one of the foremost experts in the world on climate change – has even resorted to the extreme of civil disobedience to highlight his concern about government inaction and obstruction.

Although complaint and exasperation are more restrained responses than civil disobedience, they are stages on the way to being “very worried” and “scared to death”. Perhaps Dr. Federoff is just being more emotionally honest than many of her colleagues, simply revealing what the habit of scientific objectivity keeps them from expressing so candidly. But is being “scared to death” a legitimate response? What does she know about climate change that would provoke such fear?

Part of her fear may stem from living in America where the debilitating effect of a strong anti-science sentiment is keeping one of the principle political and economic forces on the planet from actively joining a world-wide effort to combat global climate change. If this critically important environmental issue is to be seriously addressed, it will need America’s full support. And, if the past is prelude to the future, this is not likely to happen anytime soon.

The implications are sobering given the consensus of scientific evidence about the environmental consequences of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Unless this science is fundamentally flawed, unless a technological miracle suddenly supplies massive amounts of clean energy, or unless a revolution in public opinion radically alters the disposition of global politics, the prognosis for climate normality is sobering.

Here is our present situation, as outlined by the International Energy Agency (IEA), “widely considered as one of the most conservative in outlook” (Guardian Weekly, Nov. 18/11). Global emissions already consume 80 percent of the carbon allotment calculated to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide below 450 parts per million, the concentration that scientists predict will increase global temperatures above a critical 2°C tipping point. By 2015, at least 90 percent of this allotment will be used by energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, it will be all used, according to the IEA’s estimations, and we will have surpassed the critical 2°C tipping point (Ibid.).

Now juxtapose this assessment with the results of last December’s United Nations’ climate talks in Durban, South Africa. International negotiations for emission reductions will occur until 2015 and then unspecified targets – perhaps neither binding nor enforceable – will be in place by 2020.

In response to this tardy and vague objective, Fatih Birol, chief economist for the IEA, echoed Dr. Federoff’s words. “The door is closing,” he warned. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [level of carbon dioxide for safety]. The door will be closed forever” (Ibid.).

We the public, the people of Canada and the world, must decide if this stark assessment is real, imaginary or the fabricated concoction of some global conspiracy intent on undermining the momentum of an economic, industrial and technological system that has been materially successful beyond our imagination. And we must weigh this success against the precious little time we have to halt immeasurable environmental mayhem. Then this decision must be conveyed to our leaders, by whatever political system we have, either to effect the rapid change required to avert a crisis, or to live with the risk and continue as if the scientific assessment of our situation is faulty. It’s a sobering decision.

Perhaps, in making this decision, we might each ask ourselves why Nina Federoff is “scared to death”.

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Audio: Damien Gillis Talks Tar Sands PR, Muzzling of Science on CFUV

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Listen to this interview of Damien Gillis on Victoria’s CFUV 101.9 FM by the Hidden News’ host Mehdi Najari. The pair discuss a range of topics, including the Harper Government’s taxpayer-funded Tar Sands PR campaign and the characterization of environmentalists and citizens opposed to the proposed Enbridge pipelines as radicals and threats to the national interest. What is the world’s scientific community saying about Canada’s muzzling of scientists and cutting off funding to key research projects and regulatory bodies – and how is that damaging Canada’s global reputation? (19 min – from March 7, 2012)

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Leading Journal Nature Calls on Harper Government to Quit Muzzling Scientists

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Read this story from the Globe and Mail on a recent editorial by prestigious scientific journal Nature’s open criticism of the Harper Government’s muzzling of science. (March 1, 2012)

One of the world’s leading scientific journals has criticized the federal government for policies that limit its scientists from speaking publicly about their research.

The journal, Nature, says in an editorial in this week’s issue that it is time for the Canadian government to set its scientists free.

It notes that Canada and the United States have undergone role reversals in the past six years, with the U.S. adopting more open practices since the end of George W. Bush’s presidency while Canada has been going in the opposite direction.

The editorial says that since taking power in 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has tightened the media protocols applied to federal government scientists and employees.

Nature says policy directives on government communications that have been released through access to information requests have revealed the Harper government has little understanding of the importance of the free flow of scientific knowledge.

The journal says its own news reporters have experienced firsthand the obstacles the Canadian government puts in the way of people trying to gain access to science generated by government scientists on the public payroll.

“The Harper government’s poor record on openness has been raised by this publication before … and Nature’s news reporters, who have an obvious interest in access to scientific information and expert opinion, have experienced directly the cumbersome approval process that stalls or prevents meaningful contact with Canada’s publicly funded scientists,” the editorial says.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/leading-journal-demands-harper-set-canadas-scientists-free/article2355740/

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Tipping Points: The Haunting Uncertainties

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Tipping points are haunting uncertainties because they pertain to the unpredictable moment when the cumulative effects of environmental disturbance can trigger feedback loops of unstoppable change that can collapse entire ecosystems. They apply everywhere, from species loss and climate change to ocean acidification and food production. The best predictors are mostly intelligent estimates based on projected effects. Tipping points leaves scientists anxious because of the combination of uncertainty and extremely serious consequences.

We have, however, learned of the occasional tipping point from experience. The collapse of Newfoundland’s Grand Banks’ cod, for example, occurred when over fishing lowered populations below a critical threshold and a once stupendously rich resource simply vanished from commercial value. So we usually learn in retrospect what the critical conditions were. But by then the tipping point has been reached and the sorry end is a foregone conclusion.

Of course, we have warnings. But we never know how seriously to take them because we can’t be certain how to assess the risks. When does the concentration of open net-pen salmon farms in BC’s marine ecology create the conditions that undermine the viability of wild salmon? And when does the gradual loss of wild salmon trigger a fatal collapse in orca populations? We don’t know that either. That’s another experiment we are running.

On a larger scale, we know that plastic particles are accumulating in our marine ecosystems but we don’t know when their toxic effects will render species inedible or poison the entire food chain. We know we are disturbing the planet’s nitrogen cycle because ocean dead zones have increased from just a few to over 400 in the last two decades but we don’t know when this should cause alarm. We know that carbon dioxide emissions are increasing the production of oceanic carbonic acid but we don’t know when the acidifying process will trigger a chain reaction that collapses the entire structure of marine life.

This uncertainty is risk. So we need to decide what risks we are willing to take with tipping points. Climatologists estimate that we could court climate disaster if we raise biosphere temperatures above 2°C. We are already at 1.6°C, with global greenhouse gas emissions still climbing by record amounts and no serious constraints planned until 2020. Some climatologists argue that “thermal inertia”, the delayed response of climate to emissions, means we are already committed to a temperature increase of at least 4°C by 2050 and 5.5°C to 7°C by 2100.

If we don’t know exactly where most tipping points are, then how do we know when our behaviour is safe or foolish? We don’t know ‹ yet. But we already have evidence that large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas held in storage by cold water and frozen tundra, are being released in alarming quantities as Arctic regions warm at a rate almost four times faster than elsewhere. And measurements indicate that methane is venting along the entire interface of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. Both events worry scientists because this methane release suggests we may have already exceeded a crucial tipping point.

Now we are getting disturbing information about food production on a warming planet. Satellite images of maturing wheat can identify when green plants stop growing and turn to brown. Previous indications were that a 2°C temperature increase would reduce these crop yields by 30 percent. New data from surveying the Ganges Plain suggest the reduction is 45 to 50 percent (Island Tides, Feb. 9/12).

More exacting studies in the US confirm the tipping point for three crucial crops ‹ maize (corn), cotton and soybean ‹ is 29°C. Up to that temperature, plant growth increases. Beyond that, for each degree-day spent above 29°C, production falls by 0.6 percent. (A degree-day measures the intensity and duration of temperatures above 29°C.) US agriculture regions in 2009 spend 57 degree-days above that threshold; climate models predict 413 degree-days by 2100. This means an 83 percent reduction in maize crops. Even the most optimistic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would incur a 30 to 46 percent loss by 2050 (New Scientist, Aug. 26/09).

We have used and settled our planet based on the opportunities provided by combinations of circumstances. We can’t shift traditional agricultural areas to cooler locations without the soil, water or terrain needed for the industrial production of food. We don’t have other oceans to fish. Forests are not easily moved. Warmer temperatures increase the activity of the hydrological cycle, causing weather extremes of more storms, more rain, more droughts, more wind. And even weather has tipping points, moments during gradual change when extremes suddenly occur ‹ this process, called “emergence”, has created a new and enigmatic branch of science.

Change means tipping points for us, too. When fish fall below a certain threshold, we suddenly stop being fishers. When trees die of disease, we suddenly stop being loggers. When crops no longer grow, we suddenly stop being farmers.

So far, our adaptive skills have allowed us to moderate the impact of these environmental changes. But global trends promise both a rate and extent of change that will be unimaginably swift, dramatic and pervasive. Multiple tipping points lurk almost everywhere in our uncertain future. We can be certain, however, that we won’t want to experience what they might be.

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Review of B.C.’s Dysfunctional Carbon Tax Aims for Repairs in 2013 Pre-election Budget

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British Columbia’s controversial and widely misunderstood carbon tax will soon be subjected to a comprehensive review with the results likely to be revealed in next year’s budget, just in time for the tax to become another pre-election political football to be kicked around by voters and political parties in the run-up to the May 14, 2013 voting day.

B.C. Finance Minister Kevin Falcon announced the move in his 2012-13 budget speech, and a few more details were provided in budget documents, but there are still no details on who will do the review and only a few bits are known about how and when, namely that citizens will have the opportunity to make written submissions to the Minister of Finance and that “changes will be considered as part of the 2013 Budget process” (which usually begins in earnest in the Fall and leads to formal announcements in the February budget). Further details of the review were to be posted on the Ministry’s website: http://www.gov.bc.ca/ca/fin/.

Though that move is thus open to many partisan political manipulations, such as the B.C. Liberal Party potentially trying to use it to portray the B.C. New Democrats as anti-job if they oppose any changes, Falcon made it clear that there also are numerous practical considerations about the carbon tax that need to be reviewed, notably providing some early relief to the export-oriented agriculture and greenhouse industries but possibly including other areas related to air emissions and climate change such as the Pacific Carbon Trust, a Crown corporation seen by many as dysfunctional because it taxes hospitals and schools among other flaws.

The carbon tax is now applied to fossil fuels and other combustibles based on their equivalent carbon dioxide emissions and generates roughly $1 billion a year which is applied to a variety of tax expenditures to make it ostensibly revenue neutral to government. It began on July 1, 2008 at $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) – i.e. less than a year before the 2009 provincial election that also featured the HST fiasco – and grew by $5 annual increments but will now be capped when it reaches $30 per tonne on July 1, 2012 or about 6.7 cents per litre of gasoline.

“The review will cover all aspects of the carbon tax, including revenue neutrality,” said a discussion paper in the budget documents, which is a reference to the revenues being dedicated to pay for a 5% cut in personal income taxes ($218 million in 2011-12), the low-income climate action tax credit ($188 million), a corporate income tax cut ($381 million), a small business tax cut ($220 million) and several other boutique-type tax cuts and credits needing to be pulled in as the revenues rise (e.g. this year the new childrens’ arts and sports tax credits and the Seniors’ Home Renovation Tax Credit were added).

Curiously the carbon tax expenditures of $1.15 billion in 2011/12 exceeded the revenues of $960 million by $192 million but in years ahead the revenues are expected to grow and exceed the expenditures so new subsidies from the carbon tax are being targeted to science and film incentives to maintain an increasingly-farcical revenue-neutral balance, as Independent MLA Bob Simpson (Cariboo North) pointed out in an interview.

Falcon gave assurances that the government will still “continue moving forward with other components of our Climate Action Plan” such as the LiveSmart home retrofits program, tax incentives for buyers of “clean” or electric cars, and subsidies to help convert heavy-duty vehicle fleets to natural gas, all of which appear to be healthy on-going programs.

However that list of surviving initiatives strangely omitted mention of the government’s also-controversial Pacific Carbon Trust corporation which separately runs a carbon offsets program that public-sector entities are required to participate in and which is seen by Simpson and many other observers as a costly misuse and waste of taxpayer dollars (e.g. taxing school districts and hospitals that are already in financial distress).

“We remain committed to addressing climate change. However, four years in, the revenue-neutral B.C. Carbon Tax remains the only one of its kind in North America,” Falcon said in the Budget speech, noting that the rate increase on July 1 is the last one scheduled which makes now “a good time to pause and examine how the carbon tax is affecting our economic competitiveness.” The budget tax measures legislation includes an amendment to clarify that the carbon tax will continue beyond June 30, 2013 but will be capped at $30 per tonne.

In the budget lockup and subsequent media appearances Falcon reiterated his pride in the government’s leadership on the carbon tax and noted that putting a price on carbon is necessary if you want to address climate change but since no other provinces have followed and the Obama administration has backed off it has become necessary to review B.C.’s plans and probably make some changes, possibly including to the Pacific Carbon Trust.

“Keeping parts of the Pacific Carbon Trust would reinforce our role as leaders on the environment front and I don’t want to give that up,” Falcon said on Vaughn Palmer’s Voice of B.C. show on Shaw TV (viewable online), suggesting changes could be rolled out “in coming months” – but also hinting that Falcon looks upon the whole policy area as a battleground in partisan politics too.

That also hints that a structural change could emerge too in which the carbon tax revenues would be redirected towards Pacific Carbon Trust activities, perhaps replacing the monies now paid in by school districts, health authorities and local governments – even becoming a subsidy for urban transit as Metro Vancouver officials have been recently seeking.

Falcon seemed to avoid such ideas and instead repeatedly focused on the carbon tax impacts on agriculture in general and on greenhouses in particular, noting they will be hit hard when the Harmonized Sales Tax is removed and replaced by the Provincial Sales Tax on April 1 next year so removing the carbon tax would help them survive and remain competitive in export markets, a promise welcomed by Independent MLA Vicki Huntington of Delta South in recent remarks in the Legislature.

Meanwhile Agriculture Minister Don McRae said the government has been working closely with greenhouse operators to create an environment that supports growth and in the weeks ahead will work to that end to provide carbon tax relief.

That precedent of reforming what some have seen as an untouchable sacred cow could help start a number of other carbon and climate policy reforms, many of which will be welcomed by critics such as MLA Simpson and B.C. Conservative Party leader John Cummins and some of which will be regretted by environmental activists, with the B.C. New Democrats so far remaining more or less silent, probably because they suffered in the 2009 election from having a confused policy on the carbon tax.

Cummins stands out by stating that the carbon tax will be the first tax eliminated by a B.C. Conservative government, when he spoke to a post-budget lunch meeting of the Surrey Board of Trade, apparently believing that such a tax cut would create jobs, but his only suggestion so far for replacing the tax revenue has been spending cuts by government, which is nonsensical if one looks at the size of government as a proportion of GDP as was done recently on the Tyee website by pundit Will McMartin, revealing that the Campbell regime has already cut government to the bone.

Nonetheless there is a widespread view especially among fiscal and political conservatives that the carbon tax and its related programs such as the Pacific Carbon Trust have become a confusing mish-mash of contradictory and perverse concepts that kill commerce and services and fail to achieve their supposed goal of combatting global warming or climate change.

When you go online to research the B.C. government’s climate program you find a blinding montage of pretty photos and padded rosters and not many details or numbers until maybe the end of a document if at all. And as Simpson in particular complains, the Pacific Carbon Trust is not open to legislature or public purview even though it is a Crown corporation, the Legislature is exempt and some entities are taxed twice, such as health authorities paying both carbon tax and emissions charges.

That suggests part of the reasons for Falcon’s somewhat unexpected foray into carbon tax and climate policy is to do some political damage control, to make some changes that will mollify such criticisms before they become a political albatross for the Liberals in the 2013 election campaign.

In fact there are still quite a few good things happening in this policy area too, such as energy retrofits of public-sector buildings and private homes, and projects such as the Carbon Offset Aggregation Co-operative of Prince George which on Feb. 24 received $2 million from Environment Minister Terry Lake to help heavy equipment operators and trucking companies retrofit their vehicles’ engines to lower their carbon emissions (though social program advocates could argue that that money would have been better spent on something like addressing child poverty or on home care to help keep seniors out of more costly institutions).

But what you also find, as Simpson pointed out in an interview, is that beneficiaries of such energy-efficiency handouts have an amazingly high rate of also being donors to the B.C. Liberal Party, which ratio he estimated at 95%, and that some of the projects being subsidized might have been done anyway and so should not be considered as incremental for climate purposes.

Simpson interestingly has become such an expert in the whole area that he was singled out for praise by Falcon on the Shaw cable show but that didn’t stop Simpson from calling the Liberals’ various climate programs “bizarre” and “goofy” and “confusing” and “unfair” and even “totally bogus”.

That latter epithet was regarding the government’s initial decision and continuing policy to apply the carbon tax to consumers and public-sector entities but to exempt carbon-intensive industries such as cement plants and natural gas scrubbers, the latter venting methane into the atmosphere comprising about 20% of the province’s total emissions but none of which are subject to a climate tax, and about half of that is now coming from fracked shale gas. Another large source of emissions not being taxed is landfills (i.e. garbage dumps).

B.C. Green Party leader Jane Sterk also drew a connection between climate policy and party politics, surmising that if the government does choose to appoint an outside committee to review the carbon tax (as it has done in other policy areas such as tax reform) then most of the members will be donors to the B.C. Liberals and oriented towards business and industry.

Sterk also shares some skepticism about what the government wants out of the process and what will be done versus what should be done, whether it is to redesign a better carbon tax (which could be done without a review) or merely tweak the system to make it better understood and more acceptable.

“I expect the review will recommend scrapping the tax because other jurisdictions have not followed suit and to rely instead on joining the group of jurisdictions committed to cap and trade,” she said, or it could reduce the tax by half to reflect the reality of it being uncompetitive but still demonstrate some commitment to climate change.

She also predicted the carbon tax will be a key issue in the next election campaign, with the Liberals possibly promising to eliminate the tax if re-elected but also trying to trap the New Democrats similar to what happened in 2009 when the NDP wanted to “axe the tax” but have since swung around to supporting it. However the New Democrats have been silent on the issue of late and did not respond to requests for a comment for this article.

Sterk believes the carbon tax was poorly designed and has become regressive for low-income people and she says the Pacific Carbon Trust needs to be improved but she still wants to retain the carbon tax, hike it to $50 a tonne and keep raising it, and apply it to large emitters while directing some proceeds to transit, rail, biking and pedestrians.

“Our policy on the carbon tax needs to be seen in terms of our overall policy which is to move to regionally self-sufficient and resilient economies,” she said, linking climate change to food security, job creation, health and social and community well-being.

Sierra Club BC executive director George Heyman said the government’s announcement of the carbon tax review sends the wrong signal at a critical time when scientists say we need immediate action to slow global warming.

“Real climate leadership requires long-term commitment, not a one-time gesture,” said Heyman, surmising that the government is definitely looking for a way to get out of the carbon tax either fully or partially.
“This is a government that, at one point, showed leadership on pricing carbon. What they’re saying now is: `We expected everyone to follow us and they didn’t so we’re going to back out of it.’”

Heyman said there should be a systematic expansion of carbon tax coverage to all B.C. sources of carbon emissions but B.C.’s natural gas strategy alone will make it all but impossible to meet the province’s legislated carbon reduction targets, and that the Liberals are not prepared to be honest about the need to develop a low-carbon economy that can assure sustainable, jobs-intensive employment for future generations.

Simpson also believes the government should put a tax on industrial process emissions and with no cap-and-trade on the horizon that the proceeds should go first to Pacific Carbon Trust and then to general revenues, with changes made to PCT, which now gets most of its revenues from the public sector even though it produces less than one per cent of total emissions.

He said the government’s clawback of money given to public agencies such as school and hospital boards is a complete distortion of tax policy and a wrong thing to do when those agencies do not have taxing powers, and that is further distorted because those entities have to pay $25 a tonne for offsets when their market value is only about $4 a tonne.

He noted there are numerous unfair aspects in the system, such as the school districts getting rebates when others don’t, and the health authorities being double-taxed with the carbon tax on the fuels they use and a $25 per tonne charge on emissions.

“To me the issue is we have a finance minister who has never been enamored of the carbon tax … and now is saying enough is enough,” said Simpson, explaining that the Liberal caucus was caught unawares when former premier Gordon Campbell suddenly “got religion” on the need for a carbon tax to address climate change and though the original intent in 2008 was to change behaviours there has been little evidence of that and meanwhile many people in rural areas complain they are being taxed on things they have no choice about.

Simpson said the Liberal government now seems to be after three things, an end to the revenue-neutral nonsense and an easier way to find valid projects to invest in, an end to further increments in the tax, and some relief for sectors being damaged such as agriculture and possibly log truckers.

A roster of the public agencies and what they’re emitting and paying to invest in offsets shows a total of about 800,000 tonnes and offsets worth $18.2 million. It can be viewed in the appendix at:

In any case the carbon tax review could and probably should be seen as an opportunity to make some changes that are progressive and constructive, which is the gist of an op-ed article published Feb. 28 in the Vancouver Sun by Ian Bruce of the David Suzuki Foundation, Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute and Merran Smith of Tides Canada.

After citing international examples of how carbon taxes have stimulated green industries and prosperous economies, they conclude that B.C. also could have a win-win solution for the environment and the economy.

“Communities could see new investment and jobs, a balanced transportation system, reduced traffic congestion, cleaner air, more green spaces, energy savings, and, best of all, a better quality of life. But only if we demand it,” they wrote, urging people to participate in the review proces

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The following two items are unedited news releases from the stated sources:

PRINCE GEORGE – Environment Minister Terry Lake announced $2 million in funding for the Prince George-based Carbon Offset Aggregation Cooperative (COAC).

This first-of-a-kind program helps heavy equipment operators and trucking companies to lower their carbon emissions.

COAC is a marketing cooperative that provides a framework for owners of heavy equipment and trucks to reduce operating costs and create, aggregate and sell carbon offsets that are produced through a reduction in diesel consumption.

The funding is essential seed money that will help COAC provide more members with low-interest loans to retrofit their heavy duty diesel trucks and equipment to increase fuel efficiency, save money and reduce carbon emissions. Currently, 33 units (trucks and equipment) have been retrofitted. Installation has been completed on the first truck fleet of six units and COAC expects to install another 24 in the near future.

This funding is expected to provide financing to retrofit 100 units per month, resulting in emission reductions of approximately 13,400 tonnes over the first three years. With every 1,000 litres of diesel saved, approximately three tonnes of carbon dioxide will be diverted from the atmosphere. One truck operating for 250 days a year can use up to 300 litres per day and will emit approximately 200 tonnes of carbon annually.

The cooperative provides financing to member businesses for modifications of existing vehicles and machinery that use fossil fuels (diesel). Operators will also receive driver-awareness training that will lead to even more energy efficiencies and GHG reductions that will save them money.

To learn about the first company to participate in the COAC program, visit: http://www.bcjobsplan.ca/ourprogress/b-c-heavy-equipment-company-goes-green/

These reductions in fuel consumption and GHGs emitted will produce carbon offsets, which are then aggregated and sold, transferred or traded by COAC. The proceeds of the sales are returned to the member as a dividend. The offsets are sold as made-in-B.C. greenhouse gas offsets.

This is part of a suite of B.C. Clean Transportation programs and follows on the heels of the Clean Energy Vehicle Program and BC SCRAP-IT funding, which the Province announced in November 2011.

Quotes:

Terry Lake, Minister of Environment:

This co-op demonstrates that being environmentally responsible can save companies money. It also shows how our Climate Action Plan benefits rural communities by helping business owners save money, reduce emissions and participate in a program that benefits B.C. families and helps create jobs.

Shirley Bond, MLA Prince George-Valemount:

This made-in-the-North program will reduce emissions and help heavy-duty vehicle operators increase their fuel efficiency. Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to create this unique program.

Pat Bell, MLA Prince George-Mackenzie:

COAC is showing some real innovation with this program, and it shows how British Columbia is a leader in developing innovative solutions to lower GHG emissions.

Mary Anne Arcand, COAC chair:

This kind of support from government sends a clear signal that it is serious about addressing climate change, and supportive of industry’s initiative to be innovative and engaged at the ground level.

COAC member representative Doug Pugh:

Having the funding to help smaller operators like me get on the program makes it possible for everybody to do their part in reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

Quick Facts:

  • COAC currently represents 25 member companies provincewide.
  • Collectively, the companies consume more than 58-million litres of diesel annually.
  • The program helps business owners overcome the technological and financial barriers to making carbon-reduction changes to their operations.
  • The purpose is to provide a fuel-efficiency and carbon-reduction program for owners of heavy equipment and long- and short-haul trucks to reduce operating costs, aggregate and transfer, trade or sell carbon offsets.
  • COAC expects the average savings from these measures to range from 10 to 15 per cent annually.

Learn More:

BC Newsroom – Ministry of Environment: http://www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/ministries/environment-1/

Carbon Offset Aggregation Cooperative (COAC): www.carbonoffsetcooperative.org

Contact:

Suntanu Dalal
Communications Officer
Ministry of Environment
250 387-9745

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Heyman sees budget as threat to water:

Eliminating regulations for B.C.’s expanding mining projects will jeopardize water and wildlife and lead to increased community concern and conflict, Sierra Club BC Executive Director George Heyman warned today following the B.C. budget.

“British Columbians are increasingly concerned about secure access to clean water, but this budget fast-tracks mining projects while cutting regulatory provisions that clearly exist to protect the public interest,” said Heyman. “There is no vision here for a sustainable economy that protects our environmental assets; instead we have more raw resource extraction with reduced public interest protection.”

Government’s public affairs bureau budget – at $26 million – is now three times as big as the budget for B.C.’s environmental assessment office, which has been frozen at $8.75 million despite a significant leap in proposed mining and energy projects.

“There appears to be plenty of money for the government to spin its message, but no increased funding for environmental assessment.  New mine proposals around the province, and the environmentally questionable practice of natural gas fracking, cry out for strong measures that guarantee public and community health,” said Heyman.

“The government will spend $24 million in reducing the turnaround time for mineral exploration permits, but not a penny more to ensure robust environmental assessment capacity,” Heyman said. “With the Fish Lake debacle, we saw B.C.’s environmental assessment process green-light a mine that was later scathingly rejected by the federal environment minister. And now the B.C. government wants to make it even easier for mining companies to engage in controversial road-building and drilling that will only lead to community conflict and economic uncertainty around the province.”

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BC’s Coal Exports Undermine Climate Action Goals

Climate Change, Mining, ,
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Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on the mounting criticism from climate scientists of BC’s growing coal exports and their contribution to carbon emissions. (Feb. 20, 2012)

VANCOUVER — Coal is fast gaining notoriety as the dirtiest fossil fuel and a growing source of global greenhouse gas emissions, all of which is staining the B.C. government’s green climate-action initiatives.

“It’s a curious inconsistency of the old economy and the new economy at the same time,” said Dan Kammen, a professor of energy at the University of California in Berkeley.

In an interview Monday, he said B.C. must take into account not just carbon emissions within the province, but the full emissions resulting from its coal exports.

“On one hand B.C. is an impressive innovator …” said Kammen, who recently served as chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency at the World Bank.

B.C.’s climate-action initiatives include provincial greenhouse gas targets, low-carbon energy projects, the Carbon Tax Act and the Pacific Carbon Trust.

“Like the U.S. and Australia, B.C. also exports coal and that has to go on the books somewhere,” Kammen continued. “That accounting is going to be controversial. No one wants to put pressure on a revenue-producing and job-producing [export] industry.

“But it’s exactly the sort of thing we have to sort out as we figure how to institute a lower-carbon economy going forward.”

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Fascinating New Data Puts Different Twist on Arctic Sea Ice Decline

Climate Change
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Read this fascinating report from the University of Washington and NASA scientists on new research into arctic sea ice decline and freshwater accumulation in the Beaufort Sea. (Jan. 4, 2011)

A hemispherewide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.

Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation, according to findings published in the Jan. 5 issue of Nature.

Continue reading Fascinating New Data Puts Different Twist on Arctic Sea Ice Decline →

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