NDP Environment Policy "Worst in Canada", Liberal Best in Canada

It is not enough that Canada's top environmental leaders like David Suzuki and (NDP!) Ex-Premier have come out against the NDP environment policy bbut another 3rd party group has rated BC Liberal plan as the best in Canada and the NDP's the worst.  Another 4 years in opposition will teach them about good environmental stewardship.  Maybe in 2013 they will understand that you don't sacrifice good environmental policy just because your bosses in Big Labour want you to.
 
B.C.'s carbon tax rated top climate policy

 

MARK HUME

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

April 29, 2009 at 11:23 PM EDT

VANCOUVER — A think tank at the University of Ottawa has ranked British Columbia's carbon tax the most effective climate policy in Canada.

But the group, Sustainable Prosperity, noted that even the B.C. government has a way to go before it achieves eight key principles that must be reached if carbon pricing is to be effective in fighting global warming.

The group also took a cursory look at a provincial NDP plan to axe the carbon tax, and replace it with a cap-and-trade system, but said that approach would create “huge instability and doubt” in the market and would fall far short of attaining climate change goals.

Stewart Elgie, chairman of Sustainable Prosperity, said researchers spent a year talking to top economic, business and environment leaders across the country before identifying the eight key principles. The think tank then rated the existing carbon laws and proposals across Canada by measuring them against those principles.

Cars make their way over the Lions Gate bridge between Vancouver and North Vancouver on April 29, 2009. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)

Mr. Elgie said B.C.'s plan “was the most closely aligned,” with an 87 per cent compatibility score.

Quebec's plan was second (65 per cent compatible) followed by the federal government's plan and the multi-jurisdictional Western Climate Initiative (both at 48 per cent) while Alberta's climate-change strategy came last (30 per cent compatible).

According to Sustainable Prosperity, to be fully effective a carbon pricing plan must be: comprehensive, or covering all emission sources; national in reach; simple to implement; transparent and accountable; complemented by other measures, such as improving the efficiency of vehicles; environmentally effective in terms of meeting emission reduction targets; comparable to carbon prices in other countries and predictable, to provide investment certainty.

B.C.'s plan lost marks because it lacks national reach and because it is environmentally effective in the medium term only.

“It needs to be stronger on long-term goals beyond 2012,” said Mr. Elgie. “That said, it's the best carbon policy in the country both for the environment and the economy.”

The NDP plan wasn't assessed as part of the study, but Stephanie Cairns, director of carbon pricing for Sustainable Prosperity, said she subsequently looked at it.

“There's very little detail in what they released,” she said, “... [but] our score card would rate this as the weakest policy in Canada.”

Ms. Cairns said the NDP plan, to axe the Liberal carbon tax and replace it with a cap-and-trade system, would apply to only about 32 per cent of emissions in the province.

She said a cap-and-trade system, without a tax, could be effective, but it would have to apply far more widely than the NDP has proposed.

“They need to address the other 68 per cent of emissions,” Ms. Cairns said.

And she said the NDP plan, to get rid of the tax and then develop the details of the cap-and-trade policy later, would be destabilizing to business.