Climate change emerged as a top-tier issue in Canada’s October federal election. According to post-election polling done by Clean Energy Canada, two-thirds of Canadians want their new minority government to accelerate our response to the global climate emergency.
The following article is sourced (with permission) from the EcoFiscal Commission blog.
“It is clear that Canadians want more action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” according to Chris Ragan, Chair of the Ecofiscal Commision. However, Canada is currently on an emissions pathway that will miss its 2030 Paris targets of reducing greenhouse gases by 30% compared to 2005 levels.
Stronger policies will be essential to achieve our 2030 Paris Accord target for GHG reductions. With a new government in place, it’s time for a serious conversation about how best to bridge the gap between Canada’s current emissions and our target. The following video followed the release of the Bridging the Gap report produced by the EcoFiscal Commission.
The Logic of Pollution Pricing
Published November 26, 2019
Standard YouTube Licence
Pricing Pollution Is Not Free
At the outset, let’s be clear that any policy to achieve deep reductions will impose economic costs on Canadians. This is hardly surprising given our economy’s reliance on energy and the carbon intensity of our energy system. To assume that deep reductions can occur with little effort or cost is simply naïve.
Yet some advocate exempting large parts of the economy from climate policy in an attempt to shield Canadians from any costs. For example, a policy that focuses only on reducing the emissions from heavy industry — while exempting personal transportation and home heating and electricity — might be quite popular. The problem is that this approach would actually cost Canadians the most. Industrial emitters would pass on their higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices. And requiring industry to do all of the work forces it to have deep (and costly) cuts to compensate for growing emissions elsewhere in the economy. A broader-based policy is less expensive overall.
A second approach uses subsidies to drive “greener” behaviour. It is natural to favour receiving subsidies, but this approach also loses its appeal once the full picture is considered. Taxpayers pay for subsidies in the form of higher taxes, which typically lead to slower investment and wage growth. In addition, because subsidies require governments to identify specific technologies and activities for support, they cost more than policies that harness market forces across all parts of the economy.
Carbon Pricing – the Best Tool
The third approach – carbon pricing – imposes visible costs on emitters but is actually the lowest-cost option overall. A carbon price creates powerful economic incentives for households and businesses to reduce their emissions by changing how they live and conduct their business. Bit by bit, these changes lead to large emissions reductions over time. Many jurisdictions have tried carbon pricing — from British Columbia and Sweden to the United Kingdom and the New England states. They have made serious progress in slowing or reducing their GHG emissions while maintaining strong economic growth.
How high a carbon price is needed to achieve our targets? Like any other policy, a little stringency only gets us a little performance.
For climate policy, serious emissions reductions require a serious carbon price. — Chris Ragan, Chair of EcoFiscal Commission
Bridging the Gap
Carbon prices are already set to rise to $50/tonne by 2022. For Canada to achieve its 2030 targets, the price would need to rise by about $20 per tonne each year after this. This translates into an annual increase in the price of gasoline of about 4.4 cents per litre — so a litre of gasoline would be about 40 cents more expensive in 2030 than it is today.
At the same time, however, the revenue generated by the carbon price would increase. If this revenue were given back to Canadians as rebates or tax cuts — as occurs with the current federal policy — these annual per-person rebates would rise by 2030 to be about $750 in Ontario, $2,200 in Alberta, and $4,100 in Saskatchewan. Such rebates would shelter families’ budgets in terms of purchasing power but the carbon price would still provide an incentive to switch away from carbon-intensive fuels. It is a very powerful combination.
Flexible Regulations Don’t Work Well
For those who cannot abide the idea of carbon pricing but who also dislike the high costs of subsidies and industry-targeted policies, there is one remaining policy option. Some regulations can be designed to be “flexible” in that they do not specify which technologies must be used or which emitter uses them. A Clean Fuel Standard, for example, requires fuel distributors to use cleaner fuels but allows those businesses to trade credits among themselves to collectively reduce the emissions intensity of fuels sold. This market-based flexibility reduces the overall cost of the policy.
But we need to be realistic. Flexible regulations might be less visible than carbon pricing, and for that reason might be more attractive. But they are difficult to design well, and even at their best they involve higher overall costs than carbon pricing. And unlike carbon pricing, they do not generate the revenues that can be returned to households or used to reduce growth-retarding taxes.
What is the bottom line? To achieve our climate targets, we have several options from which to choose. Canadian governments should be smart about making this choice. There is good reason to care about reducing the overall costs of our policy actions, especially when we consider the level of ambition required over the next decade.
EcoFiscal Commission Recommendation
Though the Ecofiscal Commission itself will soon end, we hope our work will live on. So, here is our final advice to Canadians and their governments: Canada should increase its carbon price well beyond its current level, and make it the central plank of the overall policy package to reduce GHG emissions. And we shouldn’t be scared by the price tag. As the carbon price rises, we should ensure that the revenue gets returned to households and businesses. Canadians know that it’s time to get real about climate change. Now they need to know that the other policy options will cost far more — even though their price tags are harder to see.
The environment and the economy need not be in opposition. Short-term prosperity that comes at the expense of our land, air, and water is not prosperity at all. Without a strong environment, we cannot have a strong economy. And vice versa: cost-effective policy can protect the environment and sustain a growing economy and the jobs and income that come with it.
The EcoFiscal Commission final report considers Canada’s main options for bridging our emissions gap.
Related articles:
Carbon Pricing Works
Dispelling The Myths About Carbon Pricing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
I agree that more rigorous Carbon pricing is necessary, but is it sufficient to reach our Paris targets?
Will it be successful if the Canadian government approves TMX and the proposed Teck Project in Alberta Tar Sands? It would be the largest ever bitumen mine in the Tar Sands. And both will blow both the 2030 and the 2050 targets. These pipelines are built to last 40-60 years. So either they will go bankrupt or crash the future of our children by then.
What if the Feds continue their annual billions in subsidies to the Industry?
What if there are insufficient incentives by government to buying EVs?
Are we waiting for the market and the market alone to get us to our goal of a transition to a green economy?
If so, then we are waiting for the Alberta economy to collapse, causing the Banks and the Pension Funds and our tax payer owned TM pipeline to also collapse. And of course, taking all of us, the public citizens, along in the collapsing economy. Upwards of 2/3rds of whom want our government to take real action now. (to avoid all these collapses)
If all these collapses just play themselves out without any guiding hand from a rational government, responsible. ( but maybe not … really) to citizens ….. what are we DOING?
Ruth,
As you point out, carbon pricing alone cannot get us to our Paris goals. Especially as we continue to increase Tar Sands production. Our governments are still using a “business-as-usual” mindset after having declared a climate emergency last June. I just don’t understand that kind of twisted logic. What will it take?
Thank you for your feedback and your interest in Below2C.
For carbon pricing to be Really effective there can not be corporate exemptions such as we have seen in the Tar sands. Eliminating subsidies for continuing to explore and expand would also be helpful.
Welcome to Below2C Susan.
You are dead right to point out the need to eliminate oil subsidies. It’s insane to keep on digging when we’re already in such a huge hole.
Thank you for the feedback.
I agree with most of the points made by EcoFiscal Commission and the previous commentators. I’m a strong believer in carbon pricing (but we must make the price high enough and apply equally to every emitter, not like we have now); but I also see illogicality of approving more fossil infrastructure like TMX and Frontier when we want to phase-out fossil. And I would suggest fee-bates to bring zero-emission vehicles to purchase price parity (i.e. fund rebates not from general tax-payer, which includes poor people like me, but rather from those wealthy enough to be buying new cars). And I have no problem with higher efficiency standards across the economy, especially for new buildings.
One issue I wish was discussed more is fact that because we are only 1.6% of world emissions we need to also proactively promote effective and equal carbon pricing among all the major emitting jurisdictions. Lack of reciprocal obligations will forever stymie increases in ambition. To learn how this could be brought about and how it could work, check out “Global Carbon Pricing; The Path to Climate Cooperation” edited by Crampton, MacKay, Ockenfels and Stoft.
John – welcome to Below2C.
Very constructive feedback.I agree that focusing on increasing international carbon pricing is crucial. That would take away the argument that we are just a small country with little impact on the world, which of course is not true. And of course, why are we still approving investments in fossil fuel infrastructure?
I will check the article you suggested.
Thank you for your feedback.
One only has to look at BC and its government that approved the construction of LNG Canada and the gas pipeline Coastal GasLink. The amount of tax credits, tax relief and direct subsidies is an example of a jurisdiction that initiated carbon pricing long before Trudeau found it a convenient excuse for his fossil foolery. We are being hoodwinked in this country and its our own fault for listening to political and corporate propaganda.
Welcome to Below2C.
I would agree that we are being “hoodwinked” to use your term. But that does not mean we must say no to carbon pricing. We must say NO to politicians who turn out to be hypocritical about climate change – politicians who lack integrity. We must get them to say NO to all new fossil fuel infrastructure and kill all subsidies to the fossils.
Thank you for you feedback.