Canada Unleashes First Carbon Tax in N. America

Written by Clayton B. Cornell

Published on April 5th, 200814 CommentsPosted in Climate change, Policy
British Columbia will be the first in North America to institute a comprehensive carbon tax on nearly all fossil fuels. It’s a groundbreaking move that could prove the feasibility of taxing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Beginning July 1st, 2008, businesses and residents of British Columbia will be taxed $10 per metric ton of carbon emitted by fuels such as gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home heating fuel. The tax will increase yearly by $5 per ton to $30 per ton in 2012, at which point the government will reevaluate the tax rate.


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Nicholas Rivers, an economist at Simon Fraser University, commented that “The tax comes in slowly, ramps up over time, and uses the revenue in a neutral way to reduce other distortionary taxes in the economy, which is just what economists have been recommending for more than a decade.â€