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North America’s first carbon tax faces a critical test in upcoming elections in British Columbia. The results are likely to ripple across the continent.
Nature News points out that Canadian provincial elections don’t normally garner international attention. But economists and environmentalists are viewing the election on May 12th as a test of several climate change policies.
The incumbent Liberal Party government imposed a carbon tax in British Columbia in July 2008. It’s been unpopular with many from the start because it boosted fuel costs during a time of record-high oil prices.
The opposition BC New Democratic Party (NDP) has vowed to “axe the tax,” claiming it’s ineffective and unfair to populations living in remote locations. Traditionally the NDP has been a greener party than the Liberals—leading some to accuse it now of attacking the carbon tax simply to chase votes in a tight election.
According to Nature News, economist Charles Komanoff, co-founder of the non-profit Carbon Tax Centre in New York, says: “We are keenly interested in watching this unfold. If [the tax] persists, it will give a big boost to the cause in the United States.”
During Canada’s 2008 federal election, the Liberal party campaigned for a green shift, hoping to put more tax burden onto polluters. They lost a bunch of seats for taking that stance and consequently the idea of a national carbon tax was scrapped.
A battle is also being fought in BC over independent power production. The Liberals have allowed private companies to apply for licenses for small hydroelectric projects that don’t require building dams, claiming this is the most efficient way to boost renewable power production. Others claim company profits are incompatible with environmental stewardship and the NDP is campaigning to scrap this scheme too.
Tzeporah Berman of the climate-change advocacy group PowerUp Canada in Vancouver says British Columbia is going through are some of the world’s first growing pains in adapting to real climate policy. “The debate had been all abstract until now,” says Berman. “It had been entirely possible to support a phase-out of fossil fuels and build-out in clean energy without having to face what those things mean in practice.”
Developments in Canada are interesting to note in terms of a new political science study predicting the Obama presidency will likely break through a structural bias in American politics favoring the status quo and bring about significant changes in policy. The study predicts a shift in policy being twice as large as produced by Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, 40 percent larger than Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, and twice as large as FDR’s election in 1932.
The prediction is based on a “pivotal politics” theory and employs the concept of the “gridlock interval” to assess the likelihood of policy change in Obama administration. You can download the paper [pdf] from PS: Political Science & Politics for free.
