Green Party of BC Submission on Strengthening the Carbon Tax

Aug 31, 2012

The BC Liberal Government is reviewing the carbon tax. August 31^st is the last day for submissions. On behalf of the Green Party of BC, I submitted the following. This is policy that was adopted at our 2008 AGM. Sadly, the policies are still relevant. BC Greens support a robust carbon tax that will actually stimulate a low carbon economy, that gives consumers choice and that gets the job done. No half measures for Greens.

The Green Party of BC supports strengthening and making the carbon tax more effective. To get the GHG reductions BC needs and to reach the targets that the BC Liberal government has been committed to, it is necessary to increase the carbon tax to at least $50/tonne of CO2 and equivalent (CO2e). BC Greens believe that BC needs a carbon tax that:

• Is high enough to rapidly reduce BC’s GHG emissions,
• Accelerates rapidly to reach the emission targets, 
• Taxes all GHG emitting industries, 
• Captures the full social global cost of carbon emissions, and 
• Exempts low income British Columbians. 

Large final emitters need to carry a fair share in reducing GHG. The GPBC proposes that the BC government:

• Extend carbon emissions taxes to oil & gas and cement industries; 
• Convert fuel taxes to a carbon & environmental taxes;
• Work to put a hard cap on large final emitters of GHGs (given that the ten largest industrial sources account for 15% of all BC GHGs). This is in in addition to imposing the carbon tax; 
• Work to reduce the mining of coal until Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is better developed, and a global norm and that no new coal mines be approved until these standards are reached;
• Ensure that GHG emissions reporting in BC takes into account the GHGs of coal-fired electricity imported from outside the province. Further, BC Greens recommend that we reduce imported coal fired electricity if CCS is not in place in the jurisdiction of origin.

As the Oil and Gas Sector are significant direct and indirect GHG emitters, BC Greens recommend that the BC government:

• Amend the BC Oil and Gas Commission Act to include BC GHG reduction targets;
• Make the Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) by the Oil and Gas Commission a regulated requirement under the BC Ministry of Environment to include the risk of GHGs to all future generations; 
• Phase out the nearly $300 million in annual subsidies (direct and indirect) to the oil & gas industries; 
• Place a permanent moratorium on coal bed methane projects and shale bed gas exploration and production. BC Greens do not agree with exempting Liquid Natural Gas from the Clean Energy Act;
• Amend the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act to mandate the meeting of provincial GHG reduction targets and to require accurate and available records for GHG audits 
• Accelerate the elimination all routine gas flaring from 2016 to the end of 2013, with significant penalties for non-compliance; given that flaring and fugitive emissions at natural gas facilities account for nearly 14% of GHG emissions in BC.