Just setting a target for reducing Canada’s CO2 emissions does not mean much. Mark Jaccard, professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, remembers several targets set and then missed by federal governments during last 20 years. He thinks that another ambitious Canadian target will not help in Paris. But applying the lessons from dismal target-policy charade just might.
Information campaigns, labels on fridges and cars, a few subsidies to energy efficiency and wind turbines are not sufficient to reduce emissions dramatically. The only policies that can do it are: (1) a rising carbon tax, or (2) a declining hard emissions cap (with tradable permits), or (3) increasingly stringent regulations on emission-causing technologies and fuels. Read more at http://www.thestar.com/
