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Welcome to the Carbon Pricing Café! Do you have a reservation? Let’s see… oh yes, here you are: Washington State, table for 7 million. Right this way, please; we’ve got a spot for you by the window. My name is Carbon Tax, and I’ll be your server today. You may know my twin sister, Cap-and-Trade, who sometimes covers for me. Some diners seem to have a strong preference between us,...

Author’s note:The graphs in this post were updated in August 2015 to include the most recent available data.  When British Columbia enacted a carbon tax shift in 2008, many thought other jurisdictions would follow soon with their own ways of cashing in their carbon. Seven states and four provinces were working out the details of a huge carbon cap-and-trade market called the Western Climate Initiative. Candidates Barack Obama and John...

These are exciting times for carbon pricing in the Pacific Northwest. Under the auspices of the Climate Legislative and Executive Workgroup (CLEW), state leaders are, right now, engaged in the first serious look at the subject in years. (Please be sure to attend the hearings on October 23 in Seattle, and December 6 in Olympia!) The work is heavily informed by a recently released report commissioned by the state. It...

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro makes no small plans. The enthusiastic young mayor of America’s seventh largest city quickly positioned his city as a leader in the New Energy Economy, expanded the educational resources of area children from pre-K through college, and restored his city’s AAA bond rating. He has been called the new face of the Democratic party and was the first Latino keynote speaker of the party’s 2012 National Convention,...

Last Friday’s excellent Vancouver Sun story put a much needed spotlight on traffic trends on the Golden Ears Bridge—which are running so far behind projections that Translink now forecasts that the agency will lose between $35 and $45 million each year on the bridge for at least the next several years. But the story is really just the tip of iceberg in a much larger story about Greater Vancouver’s transportation finance woes....

Following British Columbia’s recent election, climate activist Kevin Washbrook and I have an op-ed in the latest edition of Business In Vancouver magazine. We make the case that fossil fuel export projects represent a clear danger to the Northwest—and that the threat transcends the border: At a time when scientists report atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are breaking dangerous new records, the Pacific Northwest is considering a raft of ill-advised proposals to...

Huge news out of British Columbia just now: the province is officially opposing plans to build the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. The plan—which actually involves two separate pipelines, one moving condensate east to dilute sludge-like bitumen flowing west in a second line—is hugely controversial. It is opposed by a range of interests, including First Nations and environmental advocates who today notched a major victory against the tar sands industry. The...

If you only want to know three things about British Columbia’s carbon tax, here’s what they should be. First: BC’s carbon tax, while still young, is helping the province reduce its greenhouse gas emissions consistent with its targets. Second: BC’s carbon tax has been correlated with a GDP growth rate higher than Canada’s as a whole. (Compare the green line with the dark blue line.) Combined with the province’s emissions...

Sightline is an unapologetic booster of British Columbia’s carbon tax. For good reason, other jurisdictions look to Canada’s West Coast as a model of a strong carbon policy. Yet, BC’s tax is not perfect. It’s come in for criticism from progressive groups in BC who wish the tax were fairer, stronger, and broader than it is now. Let’s take a moment to examine three major criticisms of the tax. Then...

In 2008, British Columbia rolled out the first large-scale carbon tax in North America. It is a somewhat unique tax because it is “revenue-neutral,” meaning that the government returns the revenue to taxpayers in the form of reductions in personal and corporate income taxes, along with a few other targeted tax reductions. In short, BC aims to reduce emissions by taxing harmful pollution while at the same time boosting economic...