Carbon pricing is hard, and not just because you need to know a lot of terminology or because it’s a political minefield. Supporting carbon pricing means that you hand control of who wins, who loses, and where emissions come from in the economy to the market. True carbon pricing also likely means, sin of sins, that environmentalists might have to give the oil sands a pass.
Month: January 2011
The Tories bring their free market approach to climate policy
Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent announced today that the Federal Government will continue to pursue a sector-by-sector, regulatory approach to meeting it’s climate change goals. This is baffling. I thought that conservatives (and even Conservatives) were supposed to believe in smaller government and the power of the market to drive innovation. If the Liberals were proposing such an approach, the Conservative economic brain-trust would be screaming that there was no need for the government to be getting involved in decisions about which type of insulation should be installed in a new gas processing facility in Peace River.
The Liberals’ Cap(at what?)-and-(allocate to whom? and)-trade program
This week, lost in the media circus caused by the resignation of Premier Stelmach and Finance Minister Morton, the announcement of the Alberta Government’s Oilsands Panel and the David Suzuki CBC documentary on the oilsands was a very important announcement in advance of the next Federal Election. The Liberal Party of Canada committed themselves to a cap-and-trade regime, but they kept many of the key details of this system under wraps.
Why Rescuing the Frog?
Hello all,
First off, thank you for reading. I know there are many climate/energy/economy blogs out there so I am happy you have taken the time to visit mine. With this first post, let me tell you why I chose the title and what I hope this blog accomplishes.