Green Leadership to shift Industry

With British Columbia’s new focus and stronger leadership on the environment, we are starting to see industrial shifts by some of the heaviest Greenhouse Gas emitters in BC. This Globe & Mail article describes the situation.

The later half of the article does raise concerns of a cap-and-trade system, which I have never been too much of a fan of. I would have hoped that BC would have followed Dion’s Carbon Penalty proposal where companies that emit more than their allotment of GHG emissions would pay a per ton penalty on their excess emissions. The company could then redeem a significant portion of its penalties to invest in GHG reduction initiatives. The remainder of the fund would continue to fund research & development of GHG emission reduction technologies. I have not heard too much criticism on this approach, which I find odd because there always seem to be an overwhelming amount of criticism directed towards the Liberals and Conservatives these days. However, Dion’s plan also has a form of cap-and-trade system modeled after Kyoto, but it is only one of many measures in his plan. You can review Dion’s proposal here.

The bottom line is industry will follow strong leadership, and we are seeing this in BC.