Here comes carbon pricing

[YINGWA]

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/07/16/here-comes-carbon-pricing
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Excerpts

• Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said Friday the Trudeau government will present its plan for a uniform, national carbon price this fall, as part of a larger package of climate change initiatives.
• it won’t be revenue neutral.
• it will further increase our cost of living, in addition to the carbon pricing schemes provinces like Alberta (carbon tax) and Ontario (cap-and-trade), will be imposing next year. (who suffered most? The POOR and vulnerable)
  
• “Provinces and territories need to decide what they’re going to do with the revenues and there’s different models, (for example) revenue neutral model, where you make investments so you can foster innovation ...” (McKenna)
• that’s not what revenue neutral means
• A revenue neutral carbon pricing system -- only British Columbia’s comes close -- means that when the government imposes higher taxes or consumer prices on its citizens through carbon pricing, it lowers other taxes by an equal amount, so the government’s net revenue remains the same.
• Notley and McKenna apparently think revenue neutral means the government spends all of the money it gets from carbon pricing on whatever it deems are green initiatives, such as building public transit. That’s nonsense.
• carbon pricing schemes become just another punitive cash grab by governments, without effectively or efficiently lowering emissions.
• they only lower them, if at all, by making people poorer, because they now have less disposable income to buy the goods and services created using fossil fuel energy.
• in a revenue neutral carbon pricing system -- called carbon fee and dividend -- the government returns to the public either through direct grants or income tax cuts, all the money it raises from carbon pricing.
• it creates a virtuous circle in which (a) people are insulated from the higher cost of living caused by carbon pricing through income tax cuts or grants and (b) they have the choice to lower their expenses, thus increasing their income, by choosing products and services with lower carbon footprints.
• This eliminates the need for massive government bureaucracies to administer cap-and-trade,or to pay big industrial emitters billions of public dollars either through direct subsidies (carbon taxes), or free carbon credits (cap-and-trade).
• carbon fee and dividend system creates a real economic incentive for businesses to lower their emissions, without subsidies or credits, by creating a market demand among consumers for products and services with lower -- and thus less expensive -- carbon footprints
• Businesses thus have a genuine incentive to reduce their emissions through innovation -- higher profits and greater market share -- rather than a multi-billion-dollar subsidy program which encourages them not to lower emissions.
• major financial institutions support the government’s plan. ( why?) they’re going to make a fortune trading carbon credits (reason, $$$$).
• Europe’s 11-year-old cap-and-trade market, the Emissions Trading Scheme, is overrun with carbon credit fraud and the company that was the biggest and earliest supporter of carbon trading in North America was Enron. Ring any bells?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
http://finance.laws.com/enron-scandal-summary

1. Losers? All Canadians, especially the poor
2. Winners? Rich (like Enron), and "L" friendly companies (remember AdScam?)