Among 21 recommendations made in a Simon Fraser University report about transitioning B.C. and Canada to low-carbon economies is a call for B.C. to establish a “natural capital index” that supplements our current reliance on GDP as a measure of progress.
Such an index, said the report, which was created by SFU’s Adaptation to Climate Change Team, is similar to the Nature Index of Norway, which accounts for “ecosystem services” in that country’s measures of economic progress.
The report is the third in a series by the ACT on a number of wide-ranging policy issues related to adapting to climate change.
The first two were on protecting biodiversity in B.C. and the need to adapt to increasingly extreme weather events driven by climate change.
The report, which was funded by Plutonic Power, BC Hydro, The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and Zurich Financial Services, also calls for gradual increases in B.C. electricity rates so rates more accurately reflect market prices and costs associated with creating new power supplies in the province.
The additional revenue from higher rates could be used to offset the impact on low-income individuals and households with additional surplus funds used to support other measures that move B.C. a low-carbon economy.
The main problem underlying sustainability challenges, the report said, is that humans have an “almost unquenchable” desire for better lives and improved circumstances, but natural resources are finite.
“As a result, we must grapple with how the quality of life of people around the world can be improved, without continuing to exceed the carrying capacity of our planet,” said the report, which also calls for B.C. to raise the price of carbon tax by at least $5 per tonne per year after 2012.
The carbon tax, which is currently at $20 per tonne, is scheduled to rise $5 per tonne in each of the next two years, but no decisions have been made on increases after that year.
“The carbon tax – those funds remaining after low-income rebates are paid – should be devoted to ease and quicken B.C.’s transition to a low-carbon economy, including assistance with energy retrofits and promotion of innovation,” said the report.
The report was released as officials from Canada and 200 other counties meet in Cancun for a United Nations’ climate summit that follows a similar summit held in Copenhagen in 2009.
Federal environment minister John Baird is leading the Canadian delegation in Cancun, where officials hope to develop more concrete global climate change policy over nine days.
The ACT’s report also calls on the provincial government too collaborate with the insurance industry to use insurance as an effective tool to encourage risk-averting behaviour and foster the innovation of new ideas and technologies that rise to the challenges of climate change.
For example, the report recommends developing a distance-based vehicle insurance program.
“It is important to seek win-win approaches that reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts and changing energy supplies, and limit our impacts on the system,” said Deborah Harford, ACT’s executive director, in a release.