Carol James and the BC NDP redeem themselves
The BC NDP were rightfully chastised for irrationally opposing the carbon tax introduced by the BC Liberals, and instead proposing a climate change policy that would be both ineffective at reducing GHG and harmful to the economy. This cost the BC NDP most of the support it traditionally enjoyed form environmentalists, and possibly lost them the election.
Thankfully Carol James and the NDP have realized their error and are now taking steps to redeem themselves:
The BC carbon tax referendum says YES! to the tax
Yes I know that there were other important issues that British Columbian’s had to consider when going to the polls yesterday, but that isn’t how that rest of the world saw it. To anyone outside of BC who had any interest in global warming policy the election was little more than a referendum on the palatability of a Carbon Tax.
Thankfully BC voters didn’t disappoint; they gave Gordon Campbell his third straight majority government. They said YES! to the carbon tax (whether they knew it or not), and no to the backwards cap and trade system proposed by the BC NDP.
DeSmogBlog’s Richard Littlemore sums up what this all means:
BC NDP global warming plan: bad for the environment, bad for the economy [UPDATED]
Originally posted on April 15, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Mark Jaccard has recently released an analysis of the BC NDP’s main policy to deal with global warming concluding that:
if BC were to try to reach its aggressive GHG emissions reduction target without emissions pricing for non-industrial emitters, relying instead on industry and government funds to subsidize relatively ineffective energy efficiency and fuel switching by non-industrial emitters, the outcome is likely to be a dramatic reduction in BC industrial production. This would have significant negative repercussions for employment levels, especially in some key BC communities that are dependent on one or two specific large industrial GHG emitters. The loss of jobs will be substantial.
The BC NDP was for the carbon tax before they were against it
Just in case anyone wasn’t yet convinced that the BC NDP’s opposition to the carbon tax was pure political posturing, it turns out that a couple of years ago the BC NDP was in favour of a carbon tax… at least until it was proposed by the BC Liberals.
In defence of DeSmogBlog
Many progressive types have been attacking DeSmogBlog for its stance in the BC election. The folks over at DeSmogBlog have come out strongly against the proposed BC NDP GHG reduction plan (as have I and many others). But is this really a shock to anyone?
