Economic Armageddon: Baird’S Kyoto Fear Factory

The truth is the Baird economic analysis was, as one Senator said earlier today, “a rigged report.” It is based on assumptions so outrageous as to be economic fiction. No sensible climate proposal has ever been based on a carbon tax of $195/tonne. Clearly a tax in that range would devastate the economy. Sir Nicholas Stern, former Senior Economist to the World Bank, has suggested carbon taxes and measures at 1-3% of GDP to avoid far higher impacts in the future for a failure to take action. In the Canadian context, this is approximately $30-50/tonne. The report also assumes no improvements in energy efficiency. It rejects regulations as taking too long to implement. It rejects the use of international trading. In other words, the assumptions in the report were designed to create an economic disaster. With such a report in hand, Minister Baird hopes to continue a campaign of fear and distortion to avoid any genuine effort to meet our international commitments under Kyoto. Those “independent validators” are on the record as saying one thing as economic experts: if one uses this economic model, with these assumptions, the result one gets is economic disaster. Anyone one could have made the same case easily. A carbon tax of $195/tonne would cripple the economy That is why no one supporting Kyoto has ever advocated such a tax. A sensible climate plan will not bring about economic ruin. That Minister Baird has wasted tax dollars to concoct such a document is an outrage. http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/19.04.2007 [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 23, 2007]

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