Dear Editor:
RE: Carbon tax ineffective, April 29.
Henry Brunsveld is correct about the emissions in British Columbia rising between 2007 and 2018. However, what he doesn’t point out, is that the population of B.C. increased much more in the same time period – more people mean more cars, more homes to heat and more electricity used.
So, taking the population increase into account, the emissions per person in B.C. dropped from 14.6 tonnes CO2 equivalent per person in 2007 to 13.1 tonnes per person in 2018, a decrease of 10 per cent.
In the same period, Ontario emissions dropped by 27 per cent to 11.4 tonnes per person, mostly because of closing coal-fired electricity plants.
Between 2007 and 2018, Canadian emissions dropped by 14 per cent but we have a long way to go! Of the G7 countries in 2018, Canada and the U.S. had the highest emissions at 16.1 tonnes per person, while Sweden, which is further north than Canada, emitted only 4.5 tonnes per person. Even China emitted less than us at 8.0 tonnes per person.
If we are going to avoid the looming climate catastrophe, we absolutely have to stop burning fossil fuels. The carbon tax must continue to increase, gradually but predictably (to give us time to change our habits) to more than $100 per tonne CO2 equivalent.
Ron Moore,
Hillsburgh