I am disturbed by the tone of Mr. Fletcher’s latest opinion piece (Carbon tax house of cards falling down, Trail Times, Sept. 11), where he dismisses the integrity of BC’s carbon tax as “just another sales tax.” In fact, the majority of the revenue continues to go toward protecting households and businesses from rising prices through tax cuts, industry incentives, and low income tax credits.
After this summer’s record smoke and wildfires, I am feeling increasingly anxious about climate change. The reality is that, if we want to leave a liveable world for our children and grandchildren, we need to ramp up our actions.
Contrary to Mr. Fletcher’s assertion, other countries like China are leading the charge. At the G20 summit in June, MP Richard Cannings noted that the Chinese minister said they are moving as fast as possible from coal directly to renewables, and that “there is no such thing as clean fossil fuels.” China is joining France and Germany in phasing out the sale of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles.
Globally we have a huge economic opportunity to create a better world. Climate solutions could add $26 trillion to the global economy and create 65 million new jobs by 2030, according to a new report by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate,
They also emphasize the importance of ramping up carbon pricing to accelerate this process. Already 25% of the world’s countries are pricing carbon, but the price is too low in most places to drive transformational change.
In BC, we have a fantastic opportunity to take the lead by increasing our carbon tax because it incentivizes low carbon solutions – the more you pollute, the more you pay.
Let’s get beyond the polarization and get serious about solving the climate crisis. I prefer author Paul Hawken’s message that “it’s not game over, it’s game on!”
Laura Sacks
Castlegar
