Gordon Nixon, CEO of the Royal Bank and Chair of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, is now calling on Canada to get serious about climate change, and to put a price on carbon. This astonishing conversion of the business community comes less than two months after Stephane Dion was sent packing for proposing the same thing. Nixon was speaking to the annual Pollution Probe gala, and his speech is now published.
Nixon said:
It’s time to put a price on carbon.
If we want businesses and individuals to change their behaviour— and we do— we must consider market-based mechanisms such as emissions trading or environmental taxation.
I should mention that the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, of which I’m currently Chair, has done some good, objective work in this area.
Even at the best of times, it’s not easy to reach consensus about the best path forward on an issue as complex as climate change. Our Task Force on Environmental Leadership, comprising 33 CEOs from all industries across Canada, was no exception. While we have not come out with a preference for emissions trading or taxation, we do agree that whatever policy instruments the government comes up with must be transparent, stable and predictable.
Ottawa and the provinces must agree on a coherent policy framework and a common set of principles so that business and consumers across Canada are treated equally.
We’ll also need a similar, coordinated approach to water in Canada, where a patchwork of overlapping responsibilities is complicated by the lack of a strong, overarching national water strategy and a history of undervaluing the worth of water.
Now that the chief executives of Canada’s major companies are calling for carbon pricing, can Stephen Harper be far behind?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
It is very understandable that industry is calling for a predictable price on carbon to be imposed. At present, they have no certainty about what price (if any) will exist. Given that things seem to be moving in the direction of carbon pricing, it would be helpful for their medium and long-term planning to see its level quantified.
That must be especially true of banks contemplating loans to oil companies or electrical utilities.
Of course, they might be a bit less enthusiastic if they knew for sure that the pricing would take the form of a tax or 100% auctioned permits, rather than valuable credits that will be granted for free to historical polluters.
Be afraid when banks start pushing for carbon trading. Could it be that they are actually interested in the environment? Or is it because they see a new financial instrument that puts money in circulation. Like derivatives, for example.
Paying for pollution used to be a derogatory phrase. Now it’s dandy because more money moves and nobody goes to jail. As Bruce Cockburn laments ” the trouble with normal is: it always gets worse”.
If anyone was serious about limiting carbon emissions it would be far easier to control by limiting fuel sales than create a trading system in the hope that pricing carbon will eventually discourage it’s generation and emission. Pollution has now been transformed from a crime against the community to a commodity. Unfortunately, even renowned environmentalists such as David Suzuki have been duped by the philosophy of taxing things we abhor rather than things we enjoy. Should we then tax listeria counts or trade noise level credits? Of course fuel will not be rationed or emissions limited if it might negatively affect the big three auto makers, big oil or big anything.
Capitalism has succumbed to the inverted logic of corporate socialism and artificial valuation where unviable businesses are not allowed to fail, pollution is good for the economy and taxpayers sink or swim.