kEiThZ
Superstar
If Harper is smart he'll use the 45 million saved to invest in a Quebec arts program and steal back his majority.....
|
|
|
Canada's next Prime Minister?
- Thread starter Solaris
- Start date
If Harper is smart he'll use the 45 million saved to invest in a Quebec arts program and steal back his majority.....
Edward
Senior Member
Looks like a Harper minority.
Solaris
Senior Member
Toronto Star - Tories hold 10-point lead
Sep 30, 2008 11:22 AM
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – A new poll suggests there's been little movement in popular support over the last couple of days, with the Conservatives maintaining a 10-point lead over the Liberals.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey shows the Tories remain at 36 per cent, with the Liberals steady at 26 per cent.
There are some slight shifts among other parties, but they are within the poll's margin of error.
The NDP is at 18 per cent, off a percentage point.
The Greens are at 11, up two percentage points, and the Bloc is up a point at nine per cent.
The poll surveyed a total of 1,247 people Friday through Monday and is considered accurate to within 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The Tories lead in Ontario and British Columbia, while the Liberals are on top in Atlantic Canada.
More information on the poll is available from www.harrisdecima.com. Respondents were asked: "If a federal election were being held tomorrow, whom do you think you would be voting for in your area?"
Sep 30, 2008 11:22 AM
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – A new poll suggests there's been little movement in popular support over the last couple of days, with the Conservatives maintaining a 10-point lead over the Liberals.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey shows the Tories remain at 36 per cent, with the Liberals steady at 26 per cent.
There are some slight shifts among other parties, but they are within the poll's margin of error.
The NDP is at 18 per cent, off a percentage point.
The Greens are at 11, up two percentage points, and the Bloc is up a point at nine per cent.
The poll surveyed a total of 1,247 people Friday through Monday and is considered accurate to within 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The Tories lead in Ontario and British Columbia, while the Liberals are on top in Atlantic Canada.
More information on the poll is available from www.harrisdecima.com. Respondents were asked: "If a federal election were being held tomorrow, whom do you think you would be voting for in your area?"
Brandon716
Senior Member
Voting for a party that hasn't got a green platform any better than the ranking Liberals, just because you hate the Liberals, is a real way to bring green policies to Canada. LOL
kEiThZ
Superstar
Voting for a party that hasn't got a green platform any better than the ranking Liberals, just because you hate the Liberals, is a real way to bring green policies to Canada. LOL
There are those who might vote Green for other aspects of their platform...ie joint filing and income splitting is a huge reason....
Brandon716
Senior Member
kEiThZ
Superstar
They maybe useless to you but they matter to them. It is extremely presumptuous to say that only issues that matter to you should determine how the general population votes in an election.
And its not just income splitting, they have unique policies like a health tax shift, a pledge to implement a national food policy, guaranteed living income supplement, etc.
Even on the environmental front, their green shift is much quicker and higher impacting than the Liberal or NDP plan. For example, they are pledging to implement both a carbon tax (largely for consumers) and a carbon credits trading system (for major emitters) and are planning on implementing both at faster rates than the Liberals. And that does not even include their pledges wrt air and water pollution, the national park system, species at risk, zero waste, commercial seal hunt and a 'green arctic' strategy. They even want to incorporate a system of national measurements for Canada's natural assets, to be on par with measuring GDP.
Is it so conceivable that there are many informed voters who would find many of these policies deserving of their vote? Heck, why is it so bad, if many uninformed voters decide they just like the fresh face? Or is democracy only good when things go your way?
afransen
Senior Member
The low-carbon diet
TheStar.com - Federal Election - The low-carbon diet
How Sweden and Denmark kicked a nasty fossil fuel habit (using taxes) and got rich in the process. Warning, Canada: Diet may not be effective for all political body types
September 27, 2008
Mitch Potter
Europe Bureau
LONDON–Scandinavia is cold enough to grow a Mats Sundin. Yet nowadays nearly everyone in the hockey hero's native Sweden keeps warm in winter without burning so much as a drop of oil.
Such are the spoils of the Nordic energy paradox, where a generation of pragmatic energy policy is putting paid to the notion that life cannot prosper on a lower-carbon diet.
For those who would have their cake and eat it, too, look to Sweden, where the raw data is to be envied: between 1990 and 2006, the country enjoyed economic growth of 44 per cent in fixed prices, even as it cut carbon emissions by 9 per cent.
Denmark's numbers show a similar decoupling of GDP from the use of fossil fuels, with 43-per-cent growth contrasting with a 14-per-cent carbon reduction in the same time frame.
The shift was driven by a complex array of policies. But at its root, experts say, was the world's first carbon tax on fossil fuels – an early version of the so-called green shift now under discussion in Canada.
"We are living proof the world should not fear a tax on carbon. Sweden has the highest carbon taxation in the world but we are not living in the Stone Age," said Per Rosenqvist, a climate expert with the Swedish Environment Ministry
"The standard of life here has improved even as emissions came down. It hasn't been easy. It takes a range of policies, not just a tax. The solutions are different in every country. And they need to be regularly readjusted, as we learn from our mistakes. But it works."
Those with long memories may recall the best of these results match the promises made by the Nordic countries a full 20 years ago, when they first committed to unilaterally weaning their economies off carbon at the 1988 Toronto Conference on The Changing Atmosphere.
In fact, Scandinavia had been brooding over energy issues long before the summit in Toronto. Energy experts say the flashpoint came in 1973, when the first wave of OPEC embargoes shocked the then import-dependent Nordic nations.
"More than any other country, Denmark was severely hit by the 1973 crisis because at the time 95 per cent of our energy was imported oil and coal," said Ole Odgaard, a senior adviser to the Danish Energy Agency.
"It was a very deep shock. And out of this came a determination to rethink our entire energy strategy in order to avoid the same thing happening again."
It is almost required, when writing about Scandinavian energy policy, to wax breathless about enlightened nations who put the planet uppermost on their national agendas.
Yet the reality is something somewhat less angelic. The Danish and Swedish models are driven as much by hard-nosed pragmatism as anything else. Enlightened? Absolutely. Daring? That, too. But the imperative, as with any nation, was self-interest, first and foremost.
"There is also a cultural explanation: We tend to have a culture of consensus on the really important issues," said Odgaard. "It goes back hundreds of years in Denmark, that tradition of finding a common strategy. And we saw it come together again after the crisis of the 1970s. We decided as a society that the issue of energy was so vital that we would raise it above politics – and ever since, that broad consensus has endured. The broad political alliance behind our strategy extends throughout parliament, and as a result the government can change but the basic policy endures."
The Danish consensus, said Odgaard, enabled Denmark to begin drafting plans for the extensive district heating networks that today provide 60 per cent of the country's winter warmth, from the whole of Copenhagen to isolated rural farms. Much of that heat comes from cogeneration plants that harvest heat energy previously wasted in electricity production.
"The district heating is the main reason we saved six to 11 million tonnes of CO2 per year," he said.
Though the bulk of Denmark's carbon tax burden is borne by consumers in fuel and electricity bills, industry pays, as well, albeit at a lower rate – heavy industry has long complained it is suffering a competitive disadvantage.
"When Canada goes shopping for policy, please take wisdom from our mistakes. Because the fact is we face carbon leakage issues in Denmark – the fear of losing our energy-heavy industry to places like Russia and North Africa," said Helle Juhler-Verdoner, head of the Danish Federation of Industries' energy unit.
"I'm not saying the carbon tax hasn't helped improve efficiency. We are, of course, fine with that. But we argue that a better model is to assist the new energy technologies through other means, rather than forcing energy-intensive companies to pay for it."
Juhler-Verdoner points jealously to Sweden, where most major industries – cement, steel, aluminium, pulp and paper – enjoy handsome exemptions from carbon taxation. Swedish policy, she said, allows heavy industry to more easily compete in the global marketplace.
Though they are neighbours, Denmark and Sweden have shifted away from fossil fuels in distinctly different ways. Though both have realized significant energy savings in ultra-efficient cogeneration heat/electricity plants, the Danes have embraced wind as their flag-bearing renewable energy, whereas the forest-rich Swedes have turned to biomass.
In both cases, the shift has resulted in a second dividend of emerging energy technology industries, with Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems alone, at 15,000 employees and growing, accounting for a quarter of the burgeoning global market for wind turbines.
Put another way, Danish energy technology exports were negligible in 1992, accounting for less than 1 per cent of total exports. Last year, Vestas and other burgeoning Danish energy technologies accounted for 9.2 per cent of total exports, worth 52 billion Danish Kroners, or $10.5 billion.
In Sweden, the economic gains are more difficult to pinpoint. While the Swedish home appliance conglomerate Electrolux, for example, is a global giant that routinely wins awards for its emphasis on energy efficiency, many argue carbon taxation played a minor role in the company's search for energy savings.
Swedish biomass and geothermal heat production, on the other hand, have become industries in their own right and now account for nearly 100 per cent of Sweden's district heating supply.
"By exempting biomass from the carbon tax we're made a dramatic shift away from coal in fuelling our power plants," said Rosenqvist.
"But it has also created an industry that would probably be of interest to Canada, given your forests. What we do is extract the biomass from growing forests, by using the residues that would otherwise be rotting and releasing CO2 in the process."
Though very much a society of car-lovers, Sweden is seeing a rapid fuel shift toward ethanol. The change is driven both by the carbon tax, and by a supplementary government edict requiring all filling stations to offer at least one alternative fuel in addition to gas or diesel. Ethanol now accounts for more than 25 per cent of the market, said Rosenqvist.
Swedish and Danish officials alike stress that carbon taxes don't succeed in and of themselves. To achieve results, they must be paired with comprehensive incentives and subsidies that build toward the desired energy shift.
"The advantage of leading the world in some of these areas is obvious. The disadvantage is that we made some mistakes," said Odgaard.
"For example, the first of the land-based windmills were built without any procedure to gain public acceptance. They caused landscape pollution and now we are paying to pull them down and re-establish better, more efficient ones in better locations," he said.
One Danish analyst describes the carbon tax as an almost Darwinian accelerator of the adapt-or-survive dilemma that all Western economies face today.
"The West is losing the heavy industrial production anyway, to China and India and wherever, because cheap labour is the real issue," said Martin Lidegaard, chair of Concito, a Danish environmental think tank.
"So what the carbon tax has done is to force the rest of our industry to go through a process of natural selection. The companies that can deliver new technologies and efficiencies survive and thrive. The companies that cannot are old and weak. And yes, let us be honest, they die," said Lidegaard. "But that's the whole point of a carbon tax. You want to pick winners that will position your economy for the future. If you make your policy to protect everybody, nothing will change."
TheStar.com - Federal Election - The low-carbon diet
How Sweden and Denmark kicked a nasty fossil fuel habit (using taxes) and got rich in the process. Warning, Canada: Diet may not be effective for all political body types
September 27, 2008
Mitch Potter
Europe Bureau
LONDON–Scandinavia is cold enough to grow a Mats Sundin. Yet nowadays nearly everyone in the hockey hero's native Sweden keeps warm in winter without burning so much as a drop of oil.
Such are the spoils of the Nordic energy paradox, where a generation of pragmatic energy policy is putting paid to the notion that life cannot prosper on a lower-carbon diet.
For those who would have their cake and eat it, too, look to Sweden, where the raw data is to be envied: between 1990 and 2006, the country enjoyed economic growth of 44 per cent in fixed prices, even as it cut carbon emissions by 9 per cent.
Denmark's numbers show a similar decoupling of GDP from the use of fossil fuels, with 43-per-cent growth contrasting with a 14-per-cent carbon reduction in the same time frame.
The shift was driven by a complex array of policies. But at its root, experts say, was the world's first carbon tax on fossil fuels – an early version of the so-called green shift now under discussion in Canada.
"We are living proof the world should not fear a tax on carbon. Sweden has the highest carbon taxation in the world but we are not living in the Stone Age," said Per Rosenqvist, a climate expert with the Swedish Environment Ministry
"The standard of life here has improved even as emissions came down. It hasn't been easy. It takes a range of policies, not just a tax. The solutions are different in every country. And they need to be regularly readjusted, as we learn from our mistakes. But it works."
Those with long memories may recall the best of these results match the promises made by the Nordic countries a full 20 years ago, when they first committed to unilaterally weaning their economies off carbon at the 1988 Toronto Conference on The Changing Atmosphere.
In fact, Scandinavia had been brooding over energy issues long before the summit in Toronto. Energy experts say the flashpoint came in 1973, when the first wave of OPEC embargoes shocked the then import-dependent Nordic nations.
"More than any other country, Denmark was severely hit by the 1973 crisis because at the time 95 per cent of our energy was imported oil and coal," said Ole Odgaard, a senior adviser to the Danish Energy Agency.
"It was a very deep shock. And out of this came a determination to rethink our entire energy strategy in order to avoid the same thing happening again."
It is almost required, when writing about Scandinavian energy policy, to wax breathless about enlightened nations who put the planet uppermost on their national agendas.
Yet the reality is something somewhat less angelic. The Danish and Swedish models are driven as much by hard-nosed pragmatism as anything else. Enlightened? Absolutely. Daring? That, too. But the imperative, as with any nation, was self-interest, first and foremost.
"There is also a cultural explanation: We tend to have a culture of consensus on the really important issues," said Odgaard. "It goes back hundreds of years in Denmark, that tradition of finding a common strategy. And we saw it come together again after the crisis of the 1970s. We decided as a society that the issue of energy was so vital that we would raise it above politics – and ever since, that broad consensus has endured. The broad political alliance behind our strategy extends throughout parliament, and as a result the government can change but the basic policy endures."
The Danish consensus, said Odgaard, enabled Denmark to begin drafting plans for the extensive district heating networks that today provide 60 per cent of the country's winter warmth, from the whole of Copenhagen to isolated rural farms. Much of that heat comes from cogeneration plants that harvest heat energy previously wasted in electricity production.
"The district heating is the main reason we saved six to 11 million tonnes of CO2 per year," he said.
Though the bulk of Denmark's carbon tax burden is borne by consumers in fuel and electricity bills, industry pays, as well, albeit at a lower rate – heavy industry has long complained it is suffering a competitive disadvantage.
"When Canada goes shopping for policy, please take wisdom from our mistakes. Because the fact is we face carbon leakage issues in Denmark – the fear of losing our energy-heavy industry to places like Russia and North Africa," said Helle Juhler-Verdoner, head of the Danish Federation of Industries' energy unit.
"I'm not saying the carbon tax hasn't helped improve efficiency. We are, of course, fine with that. But we argue that a better model is to assist the new energy technologies through other means, rather than forcing energy-intensive companies to pay for it."
Juhler-Verdoner points jealously to Sweden, where most major industries – cement, steel, aluminium, pulp and paper – enjoy handsome exemptions from carbon taxation. Swedish policy, she said, allows heavy industry to more easily compete in the global marketplace.
Though they are neighbours, Denmark and Sweden have shifted away from fossil fuels in distinctly different ways. Though both have realized significant energy savings in ultra-efficient cogeneration heat/electricity plants, the Danes have embraced wind as their flag-bearing renewable energy, whereas the forest-rich Swedes have turned to biomass.
In both cases, the shift has resulted in a second dividend of emerging energy technology industries, with Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems alone, at 15,000 employees and growing, accounting for a quarter of the burgeoning global market for wind turbines.
Put another way, Danish energy technology exports were negligible in 1992, accounting for less than 1 per cent of total exports. Last year, Vestas and other burgeoning Danish energy technologies accounted for 9.2 per cent of total exports, worth 52 billion Danish Kroners, or $10.5 billion.
In Sweden, the economic gains are more difficult to pinpoint. While the Swedish home appliance conglomerate Electrolux, for example, is a global giant that routinely wins awards for its emphasis on energy efficiency, many argue carbon taxation played a minor role in the company's search for energy savings.
Swedish biomass and geothermal heat production, on the other hand, have become industries in their own right and now account for nearly 100 per cent of Sweden's district heating supply.
"By exempting biomass from the carbon tax we're made a dramatic shift away from coal in fuelling our power plants," said Rosenqvist.
"But it has also created an industry that would probably be of interest to Canada, given your forests. What we do is extract the biomass from growing forests, by using the residues that would otherwise be rotting and releasing CO2 in the process."
Though very much a society of car-lovers, Sweden is seeing a rapid fuel shift toward ethanol. The change is driven both by the carbon tax, and by a supplementary government edict requiring all filling stations to offer at least one alternative fuel in addition to gas or diesel. Ethanol now accounts for more than 25 per cent of the market, said Rosenqvist.
Swedish and Danish officials alike stress that carbon taxes don't succeed in and of themselves. To achieve results, they must be paired with comprehensive incentives and subsidies that build toward the desired energy shift.
"The advantage of leading the world in some of these areas is obvious. The disadvantage is that we made some mistakes," said Odgaard.
"For example, the first of the land-based windmills were built without any procedure to gain public acceptance. They caused landscape pollution and now we are paying to pull them down and re-establish better, more efficient ones in better locations," he said.
One Danish analyst describes the carbon tax as an almost Darwinian accelerator of the adapt-or-survive dilemma that all Western economies face today.
"The West is losing the heavy industrial production anyway, to China and India and wherever, because cheap labour is the real issue," said Martin Lidegaard, chair of Concito, a Danish environmental think tank.
"So what the carbon tax has done is to force the rest of our industry to go through a process of natural selection. The companies that can deliver new technologies and efficiencies survive and thrive. The companies that cannot are old and weak. And yes, let us be honest, they die," said Lidegaard. "But that's the whole point of a carbon tax. You want to pick winners that will position your economy for the future. If you make your policy to protect everybody, nothing will change."
Brandon716
Senior Member
Yea, the Green Party of Canada is running against two parties that fully support public universal health care and a Conservative party that doesn't support it, but has no political will to change the status quo for fear of huge retaliation and permanent ouster from all future governments.
The Green Party of Canada is running against two parties that have a BETTER Green policy on the environment, and a Conservative government that will be strong-armed into supporting something anyway.
The Green Party of Canada offers minimalist tax differences from the Liberals or the Conservatives....
The Green Party of Canada is running against a Liberal party that stood up strong against the Americans on Iraq and Conservatives that are pulling troops out of Afghanistan eventually, and an NDP that is opposed to any war. So they have no more peace in their blood than more serious competition...
Yea, there's a lot to vote for alright.
The biggest waste of a vote I've ever seen. LOL
I love Canada though, its so good there's too much choice. Far better than not having enough choice south of the border I suppose.
Keith, since you're all into political melodrama, instead of voting for the lost cause vote, why not go all out and be totally dramatic and vote for the Marxist-Leninists. You'll at least be the most dramatic lost cause vote of them all.
Greens of Canada are basically the drama queens of political theatre. Its all about them and how much of a scream they can shout, its hardly about the issues.
Far different than south of the border where there's really something to protest since we have no multiple parties to choose from.
The Green Party of Canada is running against two parties that have a BETTER Green policy on the environment, and a Conservative government that will be strong-armed into supporting something anyway.
The Green Party of Canada offers minimalist tax differences from the Liberals or the Conservatives....
The Green Party of Canada is running against a Liberal party that stood up strong against the Americans on Iraq and Conservatives that are pulling troops out of Afghanistan eventually, and an NDP that is opposed to any war. So they have no more peace in their blood than more serious competition...
Yea, there's a lot to vote for alright.
The biggest waste of a vote I've ever seen. LOL
I love Canada though, its so good there's too much choice. Far better than not having enough choice south of the border I suppose.
Keith, since you're all into political melodrama, instead of voting for the lost cause vote, why not go all out and be totally dramatic and vote for the Marxist-Leninists. You'll at least be the most dramatic lost cause vote of them all.
Greens of Canada are basically the drama queens of political theatre. Its all about them and how much of a scream they can shout, its hardly about the issues.
Far different than south of the border where there's really something to protest since we have no multiple parties to choose from.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I can recall comments by Liberals that public health care was not sustainable in Canada. Whether a party believe in public health care or not is irrelevant. What is relevant are their policies on the issue. The Liberals yammered a lot about supporting health care all while the slide in the feds share of health spending continued under the last two Liberal administrations. Should they be judged by their deeds or their words? You tell me. If the Cons say they are not going to change health care that's good enough. It's ridiculous to vote or not vote for them based on how they 'feel' about health care, irrespective of their actual policies. Besides which, much of our health care policies are determined by the provinces not the federal government; the latter just pays a chunk of the bill. If enough provinces get together, I am sure the CHA can be amended any which way. And I am willing to bet that the first province to let in private health care (of the full blown two tier kind) will be socialist Quebec not conservative Alberta....since you can guess which province is having a harder time paying its bills.
Your opinion. Thankfully in a democracy, we all get at equal chance at expressing that opinions. Many Canadians will disagree with you and vote according to their conscience instead of buying into all the negative voting BS. I'd rather vote for a platform than against one.
One of the many things that makes the True North...Strong and Free....
It's not about being dramatic. I actually believe in practicing democracy (as an informed voter) without cynicism...must be a Canadian thing.
And that's different from every other political party, how? Are you just upset that May and her low budget whistle stop tour is actually proving relatively more successful than Dion's desperate criss-crossing? I would hardly call the Green's drama queens when they are getting nowhere the press coverage of the major parties....if anything that title goes to the Dippers.
How so? When you have three parties to choose from the minor can be a real spoiler. Given that the Greens steal voters from both the left and the right, they are hardly a true threat to the Liberals.... The NDP on the other hand is feeling the heat from the Greens as many of its voters want to move to a party that is about the environment instead of being about big labour.
In this election, I'd say the real spoilers for the Liberals are the NDP. Polls are bearing this out, particularly in places like BC or the maritimes. I doubt Dion would have made his deal with May if he believed that the Greens were a real threat to the Liberals. I suspect he made the deal to siphon off Dippers and environmentally conscious voters on the right. Or do you think that Dion is not wise enough to make deals on behalf of the Liberal party?
jade_lee
Active Member
Go Dion! I vote for the smartest of the lot every time!
jade_lee
Active Member
>As Dion stated on the first day, Harper is a liar. He is conveniently ignoring that the Liberals and not the Conservatives of any stripe did all the heavy lifting required to eliminate the federal deficit
Harper paints himself as a model of fiscal rectitude yet in 2 years he has managed to make the good old days of balanced books almost disappear......Chretien took office in 93 with a 43 billion dollar deficit left by lyin Brian and by the time Chretien retired in 03 the government was awash in surpluses.......Who are the polled who believe Harper is a deficit hero?
I heard on the TV that the Green Shift is bad
I heard on the Radio that the Green Shift is bad
I saw a man in a blue sweater say that the Green Shift is Bad
I read a flyer that the Green Shift is bad
WELL... I am informed now.... it must be bad
The US gov't has done EXACTLY what has got America here in the first place. They've taken their debt and put it on a credit card!
Instead of paying now, they will pay with interest later!
This is a win/win for Bush. If the economy had become a central issue in the US election, the Republicans would have lost. This unprecedented move allows the American electorate to think that everything is all right . Very few people will see through this smokescreen. Americans by and large are not smart enough to recognize just how massive a blunder this is, with repercussions that will last a generation. When their economy finally does crumble, which it will, they will be able to blame it on the Democrats should Obama win.
This is win/win for Bush. Either the economy is good short term, so elect GOP. Or the repercussions of this won't be felt until Obama has been in office two years, blame it on the Dems.
Brilliant
The coming depression in the US is going to make the 30's look like the 20's.
o quote the immortal Moe of Larry, Moe and Curly...
"Soytennly."
Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
Woop woop woop woop.<
Harper paints himself as a model of fiscal rectitude yet in 2 years he has managed to make the good old days of balanced books almost disappear......Chretien took office in 93 with a 43 billion dollar deficit left by lyin Brian and by the time Chretien retired in 03 the government was awash in surpluses.......Who are the polled who believe Harper is a deficit hero?
I heard on the TV that the Green Shift is bad
I heard on the Radio that the Green Shift is bad
I saw a man in a blue sweater say that the Green Shift is Bad
I read a flyer that the Green Shift is bad
WELL... I am informed now.... it must be bad
The US gov't has done EXACTLY what has got America here in the first place. They've taken their debt and put it on a credit card!
Instead of paying now, they will pay with interest later!
This is a win/win for Bush. If the economy had become a central issue in the US election, the Republicans would have lost. This unprecedented move allows the American electorate to think that everything is all right . Very few people will see through this smokescreen. Americans by and large are not smart enough to recognize just how massive a blunder this is, with repercussions that will last a generation. When their economy finally does crumble, which it will, they will be able to blame it on the Democrats should Obama win.
This is win/win for Bush. Either the economy is good short term, so elect GOP. Or the repercussions of this won't be felt until Obama has been in office two years, blame it on the Dems.
Brilliant
The coming depression in the US is going to make the 30's look like the 20's.
o quote the immortal Moe of Larry, Moe and Curly...
"Soytennly."
Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
Woop woop woop woop.<
H
Hydrogen
Guest
An Exhausting War on Emissions
Norway's Efforts to Contain Greenhouse Gases Move Forward -- and Backfire
By LEILA ABBOUD
Oslo
In 1991, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to impose a stiff tax on harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the country's emissions should have dropped. Instead, they have risen by 15%.
Although the tax forced Norway's oil and gas sector to become among the greenest in the world, soaring energy prices led to a boom in offshore production, which in turn boosted overall emissions. So did drivers. Norwegians, who already pay nearly $10 a gallon, took the tax in stride, buying more cars and driving them more. And numerous industries won exemptions from the tax, carrying on unchanged.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. By making it more expensive to pollute, carbon taxes should spur companies and individuals to clean up. Norway's sobering experience shows how difficult it is to cut emissions in the real world, where elegant theoretical solutions are complicated by economic changes, entrenched behaviors and political realities.
Europe struggled with a similar dilemma as it set up its "cap-and-trade" system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by utilities and heavy industry. Regulators cushioned industry in the early years of the system, giving them little incentive to improve. As a result, emissions have crept up 1% a year since 2005. In the U.S., the Senate voted down cap-and-trade legislation in July, won over by arguments that the system would hurt industry and boost consumer prices. But the measure could be revived, since both presidential candidates support it.
A few countries have cut emissions without injuring their economies. Sweden and Denmark, both of which introduced a carbon tax, have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 14% and 8% respectively since 1990 while maintaining growth. Their emission reductions can't be attributed to the tax alone, economists say. Additional moves to encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy, which are government-subsidized, played a part.
Norway's policymakers say they gave exemptions to some local industries because they feared the tax would damage economic growth and hurt employment. "We had to find ways to spur environmental change without shooting ourselves in the foot," says Gro Harlem Brundtland, who devised the tax when she was Norwegian prime minister in the 1990s.
Norway's strong economic growth -- gross domestic product has swelled 70% since 1990 -- has far outstripped its 15% rise in greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the Norwegian government. Since the tax hasn't reduced emissions enough, the country voluntarily joined the bloc's cap-and-trade system earlier this year.
Norway's carbon tax was born when Ms. Brundtland took over as prime minister in 1990. One of her first moves was to present a plan for an across-the-board tax on carbon dioxide emissions generated by the burning of fuels.
Norwegian industry balked, arguing that the levy would cripple its ability to compete internationally and threaten jobs. For some sectors, Ms. Brundtland abandoned the battle. Fishermen complained that their catches of cod, herring and salmon would become unattractive if they were forced to raise prices. The fishing industry was too central to the Norwegian local economy and too potent a political symbol to threaten with a tax. It got a full exemption.
Some of the heaviest pushback came from oil and gas companies, which argued that the government risked crippling Norway's most lucrative business. Drilling on the Continental Shelf has been the primary engine of economic growth in Norway since the 1960s, generating some 24% of the country's annual GDP. Taxes on the sector account for 31% of the nation's revenues, financing a generous social welfare system that includes universal health care and state-funded pensions.
But Ms. Brundtland didn't budge in the face of Norway's oil and gas industry -- the country's biggest polluters by far -- levying on it a $65 tax per ton of carbon emitted. In contrast, the cost of a permit to emit the equivalent of one ton of carbon in Europe's current cap-and-trade system is $35.
After the tax was passed, domestic oil and gas giant StatoilHydro was forced to rethink nearly every aspect of its drilling cycle.
Around the time the tax was being debated, Statoil was developing a new gas field in the North Sea. At the Sleipner field, the natural gas Statoil extracts from under the sea bed contains 9% carbon dioxide. That's too high for Statoil's customers, whose power plants are designed to burn gas with only 2% carbon dioxide. Before Statoil can sell the gas, it has to separate and discard some of the carbon dioxide. Usually the excess carbon dioxide is spewed directly into the air.
Because of the looming carbon tax, Olav Karstaad, a chemical engineer at Statoil, got to work on another solution. Mr. Karstaad and his team adapted technology to push carbon dioxide under the sea floor and store it there.
Statoil spent two years and some $200 million on the project, which was launched in 1996. Since then, some 10 million tons of carbon dioxide have been buried, saving Statoil about $60 million on its carbon tax bill every year. The carbon storage facility cost less than what it would have spent on taxes, says Mr. Karstaad. "This is a money-saving operation for us," he says.
As a result of that and other carbon-reducing measures, the company's carbon dioxide emissions per ton of oil and gas it extracts are 39% of the industry average, according to the company.
Nevertheless, Statoil's overall emissions have more than quadrupled since 1990 to reach 8.9 million tons annually, fueled by a huge expansion in drilling. Without the tax, the increase would have been even worse, according to Statoil and the Norwegian government.
There were other bright spots. Although the metal industry wasn't required to pay the carbon tax, the government did sign a voluntary agreement with the country's three biggest aluminum firms, including Norsk Hydro SA, to cut emissions 55% from 1990 levels by 2005. While there were no explicit penalties, "we would lose all credibility if we didn't do the work," says Bernt Alfred Malme, Hydro's environmental officer.
Hydro, now part of StatoilHydro, spent $45 million in new technology for four of its smelters, changing a key step in the production process during which anode gas, a harmful greenhouse gas, is created. With other changes, Hydro also managed to reduce carbon emissions about 34% to 2.1 million tons in 2005, from 1990 levels. That, combined with reductions at the two other companies, allowed the industry to meet its 55% goal. "The voluntary agreement worked really well for us," said Mr. Malme.
Other industries that were successful in negotiating exceptions for themselves have made little progress.
Take paper manufacturers, which were given a low tax rate of between $16 and $18.40 per ton -- less than a third what the oil sector pays. For the country's biggest paper company, Norske Skog, the carbon tax amounted to only about $200,000 a year. "It didn't have a major influence on our investments or our project decisions," says Georg Carlberg, vice president for environmental policies.
The carbon tax's most glaring failure was in the transportation sector. Norway's Post Office transports 95% of the country's mail on heavy-polluting trucks. Geir Riise, environmental officer at Norway Post, says the company is trying to modernize its fleet of trucks, train its drivers and optimize its routes to reduce mileage. But "it's very difficult for us to reduce our emissions and still deliver the mail to every home and every village in Norway," he says.
The tax has also done little to quench Norwegians' thirst for automobiles. The number of registered cars has risen 27% in the past decade. Norwegians are used to paying high prices at the pump: a gallon of gasoline costs around $9 to $10, and about 6% of the price comes from the carbon tax. Yet since two-thirds of Norwegians live in the countryside, they pay up and keep driving.
Mathias Lund, a 37-year-old accountant from Stavanger, drives half an hour every morning from his farm. "I like the lifestyle and the outdoors," he says, "but that means I have to drive to get everywhere."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122272533893187737.html
Norway's Efforts to Contain Greenhouse Gases Move Forward -- and Backfire
By LEILA ABBOUD
Oslo
In 1991, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to impose a stiff tax on harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the country's emissions should have dropped. Instead, they have risen by 15%.
Although the tax forced Norway's oil and gas sector to become among the greenest in the world, soaring energy prices led to a boom in offshore production, which in turn boosted overall emissions. So did drivers. Norwegians, who already pay nearly $10 a gallon, took the tax in stride, buying more cars and driving them more. And numerous industries won exemptions from the tax, carrying on unchanged.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. By making it more expensive to pollute, carbon taxes should spur companies and individuals to clean up. Norway's sobering experience shows how difficult it is to cut emissions in the real world, where elegant theoretical solutions are complicated by economic changes, entrenched behaviors and political realities.
Europe struggled with a similar dilemma as it set up its "cap-and-trade" system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by utilities and heavy industry. Regulators cushioned industry in the early years of the system, giving them little incentive to improve. As a result, emissions have crept up 1% a year since 2005. In the U.S., the Senate voted down cap-and-trade legislation in July, won over by arguments that the system would hurt industry and boost consumer prices. But the measure could be revived, since both presidential candidates support it.
A few countries have cut emissions without injuring their economies. Sweden and Denmark, both of which introduced a carbon tax, have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 14% and 8% respectively since 1990 while maintaining growth. Their emission reductions can't be attributed to the tax alone, economists say. Additional moves to encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy, which are government-subsidized, played a part.
Norway's policymakers say they gave exemptions to some local industries because they feared the tax would damage economic growth and hurt employment. "We had to find ways to spur environmental change without shooting ourselves in the foot," says Gro Harlem Brundtland, who devised the tax when she was Norwegian prime minister in the 1990s.
Norway's strong economic growth -- gross domestic product has swelled 70% since 1990 -- has far outstripped its 15% rise in greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the Norwegian government. Since the tax hasn't reduced emissions enough, the country voluntarily joined the bloc's cap-and-trade system earlier this year.
Norway's carbon tax was born when Ms. Brundtland took over as prime minister in 1990. One of her first moves was to present a plan for an across-the-board tax on carbon dioxide emissions generated by the burning of fuels.
Norwegian industry balked, arguing that the levy would cripple its ability to compete internationally and threaten jobs. For some sectors, Ms. Brundtland abandoned the battle. Fishermen complained that their catches of cod, herring and salmon would become unattractive if they were forced to raise prices. The fishing industry was too central to the Norwegian local economy and too potent a political symbol to threaten with a tax. It got a full exemption.
Some of the heaviest pushback came from oil and gas companies, which argued that the government risked crippling Norway's most lucrative business. Drilling on the Continental Shelf has been the primary engine of economic growth in Norway since the 1960s, generating some 24% of the country's annual GDP. Taxes on the sector account for 31% of the nation's revenues, financing a generous social welfare system that includes universal health care and state-funded pensions.
But Ms. Brundtland didn't budge in the face of Norway's oil and gas industry -- the country's biggest polluters by far -- levying on it a $65 tax per ton of carbon emitted. In contrast, the cost of a permit to emit the equivalent of one ton of carbon in Europe's current cap-and-trade system is $35.
After the tax was passed, domestic oil and gas giant StatoilHydro was forced to rethink nearly every aspect of its drilling cycle.
Around the time the tax was being debated, Statoil was developing a new gas field in the North Sea. At the Sleipner field, the natural gas Statoil extracts from under the sea bed contains 9% carbon dioxide. That's too high for Statoil's customers, whose power plants are designed to burn gas with only 2% carbon dioxide. Before Statoil can sell the gas, it has to separate and discard some of the carbon dioxide. Usually the excess carbon dioxide is spewed directly into the air.
Because of the looming carbon tax, Olav Karstaad, a chemical engineer at Statoil, got to work on another solution. Mr. Karstaad and his team adapted technology to push carbon dioxide under the sea floor and store it there.
Statoil spent two years and some $200 million on the project, which was launched in 1996. Since then, some 10 million tons of carbon dioxide have been buried, saving Statoil about $60 million on its carbon tax bill every year. The carbon storage facility cost less than what it would have spent on taxes, says Mr. Karstaad. "This is a money-saving operation for us," he says.
As a result of that and other carbon-reducing measures, the company's carbon dioxide emissions per ton of oil and gas it extracts are 39% of the industry average, according to the company.
Nevertheless, Statoil's overall emissions have more than quadrupled since 1990 to reach 8.9 million tons annually, fueled by a huge expansion in drilling. Without the tax, the increase would have been even worse, according to Statoil and the Norwegian government.
There were other bright spots. Although the metal industry wasn't required to pay the carbon tax, the government did sign a voluntary agreement with the country's three biggest aluminum firms, including Norsk Hydro SA, to cut emissions 55% from 1990 levels by 2005. While there were no explicit penalties, "we would lose all credibility if we didn't do the work," says Bernt Alfred Malme, Hydro's environmental officer.
Hydro, now part of StatoilHydro, spent $45 million in new technology for four of its smelters, changing a key step in the production process during which anode gas, a harmful greenhouse gas, is created. With other changes, Hydro also managed to reduce carbon emissions about 34% to 2.1 million tons in 2005, from 1990 levels. That, combined with reductions at the two other companies, allowed the industry to meet its 55% goal. "The voluntary agreement worked really well for us," said Mr. Malme.
Other industries that were successful in negotiating exceptions for themselves have made little progress.
Take paper manufacturers, which were given a low tax rate of between $16 and $18.40 per ton -- less than a third what the oil sector pays. For the country's biggest paper company, Norske Skog, the carbon tax amounted to only about $200,000 a year. "It didn't have a major influence on our investments or our project decisions," says Georg Carlberg, vice president for environmental policies.
The carbon tax's most glaring failure was in the transportation sector. Norway's Post Office transports 95% of the country's mail on heavy-polluting trucks. Geir Riise, environmental officer at Norway Post, says the company is trying to modernize its fleet of trucks, train its drivers and optimize its routes to reduce mileage. But "it's very difficult for us to reduce our emissions and still deliver the mail to every home and every village in Norway," he says.
The tax has also done little to quench Norwegians' thirst for automobiles. The number of registered cars has risen 27% in the past decade. Norwegians are used to paying high prices at the pump: a gallon of gasoline costs around $9 to $10, and about 6% of the price comes from the carbon tax. Yet since two-thirds of Norwegians live in the countryside, they pay up and keep driving.
Mathias Lund, a 37-year-old accountant from Stavanger, drives half an hour every morning from his farm. "I like the lifestyle and the outdoors," he says, "but that means I have to drive to get everywhere."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122272533893187737.html
TOinTO
Active Member
Those articles on in Sweden and Norway make me despair that I live in such complacent and self satisfied country. That's the kind of country Stephen Harper projects: no vision, no principles, just immediate self interest. Forget the future, just gimme $15 off my kid's ballet lesson and 2% off my new TV.
Canada will be on the tail end of countries implementing carbon taxes. We'll only move after the Americans force us. And yet we'll still think ourselves morally superior.
If you phase in a Carbon tax over a few years it won't have much of a negative impact. Industries want predictable and consistent environmental regulation and a carbon tax provides that. Industry will take the time in those first years cost out the impacts and find ways to avoid them. The ingenuity of the whole society will be brought to bare on finding ways to reduce the impact of the tax - both for individuals and corporations. There will be a lot of economic benefit.
I'd much prefer carbon tax to income tax. I can't avoid an income tax. A carbon tax will come with explicit instructions on how it can be avoided.
The green shift is a fabulous idea. It will be implemented but not, it seems, by the next government.
Canada will be on the tail end of countries implementing carbon taxes. We'll only move after the Americans force us. And yet we'll still think ourselves morally superior.
If you phase in a Carbon tax over a few years it won't have much of a negative impact. Industries want predictable and consistent environmental regulation and a carbon tax provides that. Industry will take the time in those first years cost out the impacts and find ways to avoid them. The ingenuity of the whole society will be brought to bare on finding ways to reduce the impact of the tax - both for individuals and corporations. There will be a lot of economic benefit.
I'd much prefer carbon tax to income tax. I can't avoid an income tax. A carbon tax will come with explicit instructions on how it can be avoided.
The green shift is a fabulous idea. It will be implemented but not, it seems, by the next government.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I have to say...I am starting to hope for a minority, Liberal or Conservative....that way nobody get's free reign.