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I wasn't really sure where to put this, but it's a pretty decent write-up on the history and success of the carbon tax in BC.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/bu...ml?src=me&_r=1

In 2008, the British Columbia Liberal Party, which confoundingly leans right, introduced a tax on the carbon emissions of businesses and families, cars and trucks, factories and homes across the province. The party stuck to the tax even as the left-leaning New Democratic Party challenged it in provincial elections the next year under the slogan Axe the Tax. The conservatives won soundly at the polls.

Their experience shows that cutting carbon emissions enough to make a difference in preventing global warming remains a difficult challenge. But the most important takeaway for American skeptics is that the policy basically worked as advertised.

British Columbia’s economy did not collapse. In fact, the provincial economy grew faster than its neighbors’ even as its greenhouse gas emissions declined.

“It performed better on all fronts than I think any of us expected,” said Mary Polak, the province’s environment minister. “To the extent that the people who modeled it predicted this, I’m not sure that those of us on the policy end of it really believed it.”

The tax, which rose from 10 Canadian dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in 2008 to 30 dollars by 2012, the equivalent of about $22.20 in current United States dollars, reduced emissions by 5 to 15 percent with “negligible effects on aggregate economic performance,” according to a study last year by economists at Duke University and the University of Ottawa.

The tax made fuel more expensive: A gallon of gas, for example, costs 19 United States cents more. It encouraged people to drive somewhat less and be more careful about heating and cooling their homes. Businesses invested in energy efficiency measures and switched to less polluting fuels.

Despite the price increases, voters warmed to the tax. Last year only 32 percent of British Columbians opposed the tax, down from 47 percent in 2009.

Perhaps most surprisingly, so did big business. And for good reason. As it turns out, a carbon tax is the most efficient, market-friendly instrument available in the quiver against climate change.

“We were not very happy when it was first announced,” said Jock A. Finlayson, head of policy at the Business Council of British Columbia. Now, “within the business community there is a sizable constituency saying this is O.K.”

Christopher Knittel, an expert on energy economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said a properly calibrated carbon price in the United States could effectively replace all the climate-related regulations businesses hate so much, including renewable fuel mandates and President Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

That would create a clear incentive for businesses and consumers to use less fuel, invest in efficiency and switch to cleaner energy. The only other necessary action, in Professor Knittel’s view, would be more government support for research and development to accelerate the quest for new energy technologies.

And this part kind of highlights how the NDP blew the implementation in Alberta:

Here in British Columbia, however, it wasn’t the efficiency argument alone that won people over. The pioneering legislation provided critical political cover by ensuring every single carbon tax dollar would be returned to families and businesses through a variety of breaks.

That “is the thing that saved us,” said Carole Taylor, the provincial minister of finance at the time the tax was introduced. “If I had said, ‘Give us the carbon tax and trust us,’ I knew it would have been a failure.”

The corporate income tax was cut to 10 percent from 12 percent, to stimulate a flagging economy in 2010. Though it is back to 11 percent, it is still the lowest among Canada’s provinces. The bottom two personal income tax rates were also cut. Low-income families got a tax credit.