By Matthew Lau William Watson
This is not exactly balanced reporting. Nor are any of the views presented by CBC News — including the government’s view — sound policy. The standard economics of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the same as the standard economics of anything else: it is worth doing if the benefits exceed the costs. If what economists call the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions (the damage to the environment) is, say, $50 per tonne, it is worth reducing or avoiding one tonne of emissions if it can be done for $50 or less. Otherwise, it is not. Noticeably absent from this equation is a quantity target as to the optimal amount of greenhouse gas emissions from people, from businesses or from the province as a whole.