Enviro Wallet Attack

Enviro wallet attackFull-speed thrust to go green will make your life more expensive
By GREG WESTON

Among the many colourful signs and slogans that decorated Sunday's rallies across the country in support of the Kyoto accord on climate change, a popular theme seemed to be: "Make Polluters Pay."

This has long been a key ingredient in the NDP's recipe for saving the Earth, particularly with respect to Big Oil.

Even Jack Layton can sound convincing when he argues that oil companies making billions in profits from a global addiction to fossil fuels should bear the financial burden of cleaning up the resulting environmental damage.

MORE COULD MEAN LESS

While hitting up corporate eco-culprits for the massive costs of reversing global warming may seem perfectly fair and rational, those demanding polluters pay might want to be careful what they wish for.

In the long run, more green for Mother Nature could mean a lot less of it in the pockets of ordinary Canadians.

Taxpayers are already being soaked by the green tide.

Next week, for instance, Stephen Harper's eco-desperate government will unveil a federal budget that will include at least $1.5 billion in new environmental spending.

At the same time, provincial and municipal governments across the country have been topping the federal environmental plans with new spending on everything from cleaner power to better public transit.

But more than anything, it is the reality of trickle-down economics that should make consumers wary of who will actually pay for pollution.

Let's start with the oil and gas industry that accounts for around 20% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, including the fastest growing source of global-warming pollution, the Alberta oil sands.

The technology does exist to reduce emissions from oil extraction and refineries, and it is all enormously expensive.

Does anyone honestly believe the oil companies wouldn't pass along much of those costs to consumers?

Ditto for the single worst greenhouse polluters in the country, the giant coal-fired electrical generating stations.

They can be replaced by technologies such as nuclear power plants, or by building new transmission lines from hydro-dam systems to the big cities, but at what cost and to whom?

COSTS GO UP

Most of the power in the country is provided by either public utilities or government-regulated companies, both of which operate on the same basic formula: If costs go up, so do electricity prices.

A study at Simon Fraser University conservatively estimated that even if the Kyoto targets for greenhouse gas emissions had been implemented in 2000, consumers would have seen increases of up to 100% in their electrical bills, and been paying at least 50% more for gasoline and natural gas.

And how about those gas-guzzling SUVs, pick-up trucks and family vans that Canadians have come to love by the tankfull?

The government could try to tax the guzzlers out of favour with consumers, or directly hit the auto manufacturers with new regulations and punitive levies.

But again, at whose expense?

Aside from punitive taxes simply being passed along to consumers, there is the likely economic cost of losing tens of thousands of jobs in the Canadian auto industry which, as it turns out, largely makes SUVs, minivans and pick-up trucks.

Down on the farm, governments are already ploughing a fortune in public subsidies into ethanol-fuel production from distilling corn.

That's good news for farmers getting inflated prices for corn for ethanol.

But it's bad news for those who have to feed their livestock, and for consumers who have to feed their families.

Finally, get ready for a blizzard of government subsidies for everything from transit passes to home insulation -- all, we will be told, to "encourage consumers to do their part to reduce greenhouse gases." As if paying for all the other polluters isn't enough.