Question for you guys and gals. We, the people of Saskatchewan, are getting these checks because we, the government of Saskatchewan, could not get to a plan that made the federal government criteria. Now, I am not intending to talk about the merits of the carbon tax. What I am interested in what would like to see the money used for. Cutting my family a $500 cheque reminds me of Ralph Bucks
The neat part of the lump sum is it makes the tax progressive, low income people generally buy less fuel, have smaller homes to heat and less electric toys. Rich people will have higher costs, cause they tend to spend more. Since we all get the same, the result is a progressive tax. Low emitters will make money, high emitters will lose money and it correlates roughly with low and high incomes.
One of the problems with reducing emissions is how to get poor people to reduce, they're poor so they have no money (not being mean, just stating the obvious). But what if they want to insulate their house better, a one time cash infusion might be the only way. When you live cheque to cheque, it means just that, you have no money for niceties like more insulation.
My increased insulation on my house cost about $550 and saves about 400kg CO2/yr, overall my household emissions dropped about 3% (I'm not saving the planet yet). I also save $100/year, the real reason I did it.
The programs goal is to reduce SK emissions by 5% on average. Seems easily achievable to me; my household will likely drop a further 25% by the end of the program. I predict 80% of the reductions will occur among the minority 20% who actually bother; so people can join me in saving money while reducing emissions or just subsidize me, either way the program will succeed.
People tend to think everyone needs to reduce, really its just some of us and the rest are subsidizing. The fun part is we all get to choose which camp we're in. If you replace it with a tax rebate, I won't get subsidized for doing all the reductions. there won't by the incentive to join the 10-20%.
In Real life I try to be Green, but I'm approaching this as a selfish ass and finding the program appeals to my greed. I hate arguing about environmental policy, its easier to argue about money.