From the Halifax Chronicle Herald:

A carbon price will usher in a green economy

By DAVID SUZUKI and PIERRE SADIK

It's not often that people from different walks of life agree on an issue,
let alone a difficult and vitally important one. But that's precisely what
has happened in determining how to best tackle the serious challenge that
climate change poses for society and the planet.

It's interesting how climate change has come to dominate the meetings of our
elected representatives, from the Council of the Federation at the
provincial level to the meeting of the world's most powerful leaders at the
G8 summits. And the urgency of the issue at hand suggests that climate
change is looking more and more like the biggest challenge that has ever
confronted humankind.

Now we're not going to tell you that the solution to climate change is easy,
at your fingertips, or will occur overnight. But the solution is,
nonetheless, known. And it's not nearly as difficult as the few remaining
climate change deniers want us to believe.

An essential part of any climate change solution lies in putting a price on
carbon - whether it's a carbon tax or through the introduction of a
cap-and-trade system.

Not surprisingly, a price on carbon places a price on atmospheric pollution.
We don't hesitate to pay $90 a tonne to put garbage into landfills, yet we
seem to think putting pollution in the air should be free. Logic tells us
that when you put a price on something, be it water, electricity or
long-distance phone calls, people are more careful about using it.

Denmark and Sweden are two industrialized nations that have adopted a carbon
tax and both remain extremely competitive globally. That's why so many of
these countries, as well as people from so many different walks of life,
support a carbon price. They know that carbon pricing has two powerful
things going for it.

The first, and most obvious, is that putting a price on pollution has
dramatic environmental benefits. The U.S. sulphur dioxide cap-and-trade
system, for example, has proven to dramatically reduce acid rain.

Second, a carbon price creates stellar economic opportunities. A price on
carbon will usher in an era of clean, renewable energy and green
manufacturing that is so often talked about, and promised, but always seems
to be just around the corner.

It's time Canada positions itself as a world leader in this area before we
again get left behind by other economically bolder countries moving ahead
with green technology investments of their own.

Canadians who want to see a carbon price today know that the writing is on
the wall. They've seen this story before and know what can happen if Canada
waits too long before acting to nurture the technology of the future.

We've seen this happen in the mining sector, where Canada is one of the
world's largest exporters of minerals - but manufactures almost no mining
equipment here at home. We use equipment manufactured elsewhere to mine our
resources.

We've seen this happen in the forestry sector, where Canada is the single
largest forest products exporter in the world - but manufactures almost no
forestry equipment domestically. We employ equipment made elsewhere to
harvest our timber.

Canada has one of the most abundant supplies of renewable energy in the
world. We have a huge landmass and three coastlines that are ideal for
generating electricity using the wind. We have the landmass to capture the
sun's energy in an abundance that is unrivalled by almost any other nation
on the planet. We have coastal areas that lend themselves to tidal energy
and formations that are ideal for geothermal power.

The use of these types of energy is coming to Canada. We see the early
beginnings around us. The bigger question is: Who's going to build the
million-dollar wind turbines? Who's going to manufacture the miles of solar
panels, the marine equipment for tidal energy? Canada's going to use it
since our abundance of renewable energy guarantees that - so why wouldn't we
manufacture it as well?

The poster child for this type of scenario was born of Canada's necessity to
deal with our huge amounts of snowfall. It was Joseph-Armand Bombardier's
invention of the snowmobile. This product capitalized on Canada's natural
advantage in that area, and it went on to be wildly successful. Today
Bombardier's invention is the top seller and is exported all over the world.
Not only that, but Bombardier has itself grown to become one of the world's
leading exporters of rail equipment for public transportation systems in
cities such as New York, London and Mexico City.

Bombardier had the right domestic conditions, including the right financial
incentives, as did the BlackBerry, the Challenger jet, the Canadarm, and all
of the other Canadian high-tech success stories.

What does all of this have to do with putting a price on carbon? A carbon
price will help fix the imbalance between clean renewable energy and
non-renewable fossil fuels in two ways.

First, putting a price on carbon will introduce the true cost of fossil fuel
emissions into the equation.

Second, part of the substantial revenue generated by a carbon price can be
used to help pay for a massive increase in the deployment of clean renewable
energy and green manufacturing.

It's been done before, and time and time again we've seen that it works.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster and co-founder of the David Suzuki
Foundation.

Pierre Sadik is a senior policy adviser with the David Suzuki Foundation.