Canada must cut back on carbs, says economics professor

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...aa382a&k=61750

Canada is overweight and needs to go on a low-carb diet - low in carbon emissions, that is.

Mark Jaccard, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University and author of a number of books on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has outlined his arguments for a carbon tax in a slim book titled Designing Canada's Low-Carb Diet: Options for Effective Climate Policy, published by the C.D. Howe Institute last week.

His scenario paints Canada as an overweight individual who has stuffed in the poutine and doughnuts while debating what his or her weight-loss goal should be, rather than taking steps to lose weight.

The fattening food is equivalent to carbon emissions, while the weight-loss goals are the three carbon emission reduction targets that Canada has agreed to over the past 18 years but done virtually nothing to achieve, including the Kyoto Protocol.

"Canada's emissions have risen faster over that period than during the previous 10 years, relentlessly climbing as the country misses one target after another," Jaccard wrote in his diet plan.

The solution is a carbon tax across the board on greenhouse gas emissions, which would be akin to taxing every calorie consumed above the level needed to lose weight, said Jaccard, who followed the Weight Watchers point plan five years ago and went from 205 to 180 pounds.

Under the plan, dieters are allowed so many food points per day, with each food allotted a certain number of points. If you choose to eat pizza (or, say, drive a Hummer), you'll use up your points faster and be more likely to face the tax than if you eat lettuce (i.e., drive a hybrid on biofuel).

"It isn't saying stop taking in carbohydrates," he explained. "You know, you gotta eat, you gotta live. That's why I often talk about us still using a lot of energy."

Jaccard advocates a gradual weaning off of carbon, with a carbon tax becoming steeper over the years, leaving people time to adjust and buy new technologies such as hybrid cars, high-efficiency furnaces or solar panels.

"It's a gradual thing," he said. "(Weight Watchers) really don't want crash diets. They want you to be into a lifestyle that produces change over a long time period. And that's very much the message in my article as well."

Voluntary compliance, information programs and rebate plans for energy efficiency changes have not reduced Canada's emissions, said Jaccard, who was appointed last year to the federal government's National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy and was one of nine team members who contributed to the United Nations' Nobel-prize winning International Panel on Climate Change.

Carbon tax proposals draw criticism from people who fear it will jack up gasoline and other prices and from politicians who fear they won't be re-elected.

But Jaccard said he's flexible.

Although a carbon tax is the ideal solution, Jaccard said other methods, such as cap-and-trade plans, emissions regulations such as those of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, or carbon sequestration would all produce a similar effect on the economy - putting a price on carbon emissions.

"We can't keep taking carbon out of the ground and putting it in the air," he said.
With carbon sequestration, the carbon is injected back underground. Or, to continue the diet analogy, "you gotta bury the Twinkie in the backyard rather than consume it."

His goal is to design effective policies that Canadian politicians can implement and still get re-elected.

"I'm trying to think of intelligent policy design where politicians do get re-elected, where we're not trying punish ourselves, but where we're trying to make the technological evolution of society go in a different direction."

I've always wondered what people who write this old news drive.