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And to read more articles on the Environment, please visit the t r u t h o u t environment page. Also see below:
The Intent of the Carbon Tax Is to Make Us Feel the Pain
Thursday 01 May 2008 Victoria, Canada - Ouch. Ouch, ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. That, in short, pretty much sums up the reaction from across the province to the carbon tax announced by Finance Minister Carole Taylor in her budget in February and finally introduced as legislation this week. British Columbians are starting to read the fine print on the revenue-neutral guarantee, which promises to cut a dollar of other taxes for every dollar raised by the new carbon tax, and are discovering that neutral for the provincial treasury doesn't mean they won't be feeling any pain. What galls is the apparent inequity: Islanders complain about having to pay more for ferry service due to rising fuel costs. Northerners feel singled out because of longer winters and the distances they drive. Truckers complain they are being driven to the brink. It's the kind of reaction that usually sends politicians scurrying for their bunkers from which they can be expected to emerge with a basket full of loopholes to make everyone happy. They know voters who feel unfairly singled out for pain have long memories. But to the surprise of many, the legislation introduced by Taylor this week offered no such relief, nor could it without losing all credibility. The complaints didn't spark an ordinary political response because the Carbon Tax Act isn't an ordinary tax bill. It's not designed to raise money for the government, it is designed to change behaviour. It's supposed to hurt. The carbon tax is a fiscal trip to the woodshed for energy consumers. A painful experience that we're told is for our own good. The idea is that you can control how the tax affects you through the choices you make. Products and activities that are less harmful to the environment become less expensive and harmful choices cost more. Harm is defined as the release of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe are fuelling destructive climate change. So you can keep on driving that SUV, but you will pay more for the privilege. Carbon taxes reward green living. Energy pigs get butchered. But here's the catch. Although we see the carbon taxes directly being applied to gas, home heating oil and other forms of fuel, we will feel its effects in almost every facet of life. You may not have any choice but to pay more. It won't just be ferry users; homeowners will face a bigger tax bite to pay for increased fuel costs paid by local governments. Consumers of all kinds of goods and services will pay more to cover the increased costs that businesses pays for heat, light and shipping. Those unhappy truckers will face a crunch in the short term, but eventually their higher costs will simply be passed on to consumers. How much more? We'll find out. The point is that this is what putting a price on carbon looks like. Generally speaking, the greater the energy content, not just of the item itself, but of everything that goes into to it, the more it will cost. The size of the carbon tax being introduced this year is more of a slight nudge than a boot in the backside. The strategy is to start low and increase it slowly over the next several years. But the skyrocketing price of oil has overtaken the tiny-steps approach. The carbon tax being imposed in July will be 2.4 cents a litre of gas. Since the tax was announced in February, the price of gas has jumped by about 10 times that much with the carbon tax still to come. That jump - with predictions that there may be even more pain ahead - should reinforce the message the carbon tax is designed to deliver. It will also hopelessly complicate any analysis of what effect, if any, the tax is having on the B.C. economy, or for that matter on the lives of British Columbians. Still, what matters more over time is the consistent message that manufacturers are starting to get, the message that consumers will be trying to beat the carbon tax - and new price shocks from soaring oil prices - by buying energy-efficient products. Sweden's Carbon-Tax Solution to Climate Change Puts It Top of the Green List
Tuesday 29 April 2008 Buses and lorries running on dead cows and a train station using commuters' body warmth to heat an office block are two innovative solutions to lowering carbon emissions that have put Sweden on top of an environmental league table. Gwladys Fouché reports. If there's a paradise for environmentalists, this Nordic nation of 9.2 million people must be it. In 2007 Sweden topped the list of countries that did the most to save the planet - for the second year running - according to German environmental group, Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices. Under Kyoto, Sweden was even told it could increase its emissions by 4% given the progress it had already made. But "this was not considered ambitious enough," explains Emma Lindberg, a climate change expert at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. "So parliament decided to cut emissions by another 4% [below 1990 levels]. The mindset was 'we need to do what's good for the environment because it's good for Sweden and its economy'." The main reason for this success, say experts, is the introduction of a carbon tax in 1991. Swedes today pay an extra 2.34 kronor (20p) per litre when they fill the tank (although many key industries receive tax relief or are exempted). "Our carbon emissions would have been 20% higher without the carbon tax," says the Swedish environment minister, Andreas Carlgren. "It was the one major reason that steered society towards climate-friendly solutions," reckons Lindberg. "It made polluting more expensive and focused people on finding energy-efficient solutions." "It increased the use of bioenergy," concurs Professor Thomas B Johansson from the University of Lund, a former director of energy and climate at the UN Development Programme. "It had a major impact in particular on heating. Every city in Sweden uses district heating [where steam and hot water are piped to a building in a particular area]. Before, coal or oil were used for district heating. Now biomass is used, usually waste from forests and forest industries." Another reason is that, paradoxically, energy consumption remained relatively stable at a time of high economic growth. "Non-energy-intensive industries, such as the service sector, grew more in Sweden, compared to energy-intensive industries, such as paper mills," states Johansson. Sweden also became conscious of its dependency on fossil fuels early on, after the oil shocks of the 70s. "The country switched in the 80s to direct electric heating and in recent years increasingly uses heat pumps, which uses two-thirds less electricity to heat. People were also helped with subsidies to substitute," says Johansson. And Swedes were perhaps environmentally aware at an earlier time than most. "The general public concern in terms of climate change really arose in the mid-80s. The authorities were very active in the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988," reckons Johansson. "There was a real wish to turn Sweden into a leading environmental country," agrees Lindberg. "And Swedes are proud that their country is leading on environmental issues." Today, environmental measures are common throughout the country. Take Linköping, Sweden's fifth biggest city, which is running its fleet of buses and rubbish lorries, a train line and some private taxis on biogas, from methane produced from the entrails of slaughtered cows. Similarly, Stockholm's central station is planning to harness the body warmth of 250,000 daily commuters to produce heating for a nearby office block. The body heat would warm up water that would in turn be pumped through pipes over to a new office block. And King Carl Gustaf XVI last month had all the lights at royal castles turned off for an hour to back an energy efficiency campaign. But not all is fine and dandy. Swedes are in love with their gas-guzzling estate cars, and are among the worst vehicle polluters in the EU. Environmentalists are also concerned that the authorities' green enthusiasm is waning. "[Swedish PM] Fredrik Reinfeldt is pushing within the EU for more emphasis on flexibility, ie that a larger proportion of carbon cuts should be done outside of the EU than inside," says Lindberg which, she argues will not help the EU decrease its emissions enough to meet the target of limiting the Earth's temperature to less than two degrees Celsius. The environment minister dismisses the claim, arguing that flexibility is the most-efficient way to reduce emissions at the European level and that it will help technology transfers to developing countries. More broadly, is there anything Britain could learn from Sweden? "Homes have virtually no insulation in Britain. You could do a lot just by doing more of that," says Johansson. "When a building is renovated in Sweden, it can be properly insulated and renovated, cutting energy consumption by at least half." "Impose a carbon tax," suggests Lindberg. "You would make it more attractive financially to go for green solutions than for carbon options." "A carbon tax is the most cost-effective way to make carbon cuts and it does not prevent strong economic growth," adds Carlgren. Cutting Carbon Emissions Swedish-Style
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