Carbon taxes and other climate-friendly measures in the 2008 budget will put BC firmly on the path to achieve bold commitments to tackle global warming.

The new revenue-neutral carbon tax will make BC a North American leader in using carbon pricing to encourage behaviour change. 

While the tax starts small (at $10 per tonne of carbon), scheduled increases over at least the next four years will provide incentives to British Columbians to start making changes now to reduce price increases in the future. The tax also provides BC businesses with strong encouragement to invest in innovation in order to become leaders in the low-carbon economy of the future. 

The BC government chose to make the carbon tax revenue neutral, with two-thirds of the revenues returned to individual British Columbians and one-third to BC businesses. Much of the individual rebates are targeted to low income families, in a way in which they will likely receive more dollars back than they will spend on the carbon tax. 

Sierra Club BC is also pleased to see significant incentives to help British Columbians decrease their carbon emissions. Households can help reduce the carbon tax they pay by taking advantage of energy retrofit funding and tax exemptions for energy-efficient vehicles and appliances. 

The BC government also committed to infrastructure investments such as electrification of ports and truck stops so engines can be turned off, retrofits for public buildings, and initial expenditures for the recently-announced transit plan. Transit investments in particular will help give British Columbians more options for reducing carbon emissions. 

However, we are also that this projected $1 billion expenditure to carbon reduce emissions over the next four years could be significantly undermined by a 24 per cent increase in subsidies to oil and gas production (subsidies to that sector will be approximately $327 million in 2008), on-going road building such as the controversial Gateway Project, and increased spending to open up offshore oil and gas and develop a new tar sands pipeline corridor in northern BC.