Interesting perspective, but I think Pierre will scrap the whole tax. It hasn’t been shown to reduce carbon usage as of yet. And, is making Canada less competitive. So why shoot ourselves in foot if it isn’t delivering benefits and on top of the affordability crisis we are in.
I guess it is possible they keep an industrial tax, but that’s not the messaging a see from Pierre who keeps talking about the farmers, etc which is driving the costs.
A carbon tax doesn't accomplish anything if it doesn't hurt. Politically, that's always going to be a challenge. However, a completely dispassionate approach like the original BC Liberal carbon tax ends up being more defensible because they simply made it revenue neutral - any revenue from carbon tax was offset by cuts in income tax.
The federal Liberals have never been able to resist the urge to treat a carbon tax as a new source of revenue and an opportunity to engage in more redistributionist programs with the usual partisan considerations of handing out goodies. That was the problem with Stephan Dion's "Green Shift", and I think that's also a better explanation of why Trudeau's government is flailing today.
Making a carbon tax industrial-only is either going to undermine the effectiveness of the policy, or else buy a fleeting degree of political cover because the cost of the tax will get passed onto consumers anyway.
When you have to travel miles to earn what money you can, every little bit of extra cost hurts. This talk of revenue neutral or tax rebates just does'nt cut it for the people who are surviving but thats all
This is all very interesting but who is actually responsible for a tangible solution to the existential threat of approaching catastrophic climate change and what supports do they need?
If there is a solution, it's going to have to come from the countries with serious emissions like the USA, China and India rather than Canada's relatively tiny output. In other words, as long as China is going to commission coal-generated electricity plants on a weekly (if not quite daily) basis, it won't really matter how many natural gas plants we close in Canada...
The Trilateral Commission limits the amount of oil going to China for strategic reasons. That's why China burns coal instead of oil. In other words, to avoid Chinese dominance we will watch the world burn.
I had, of course, heard of the Trilateral Commission but I had not heard much of it in recent years so I asked that fine fellow Mr. Google if it still existed and, sure enough, it does.
Okay, so you can claim that the TC "... limits the amount of oil going to China... " but I really, really don't understand what their enforcement mechanism is. Are you telling me that if China phones the state owned oil companies of Norway or Libya or Saudi those and asks for another ten tanker loads of oil those folks would say, "Ooopps! Sorry, you reached your TC quota. No more oil for you this month!"
Or, if they didn't say that and agreed to ship it, what would the TC do to intercede?
Truthfully, this sounds like another - pardon me - foolish conspiracy theory.
I do apologize if I have offended you but, to me, China is using coal because a) they have it; and b) they don't want to send the foreign exchange out of the country. In other words, I don't agree with your assertion of a TC limitation.
So, I have staked out my position, could you please assist me in better understanding - perhaps I am wrong?? - so would you please provide substantiation for your assertion.
It's a complex problem with few easy solutions. But maybe changing that limitation is part of the solution for countries with large emissions as I mentioned; although oil-burning plants are still relatively high emitters. Too bad there isn't a "business case" for further exporting cleaner-burning LNG instead...😉
Quynn, please enlighten me: what do you mean by "... that limitation ..."
I am not trying to be difficult; I really do want to understand what you mean.
I agree that oil burning power plants are relatively high emitters but the coal burning plants that are still being commissioned in India and China emit even more.
Ah, yes, the "business case." Aren't you so glad that our dress-up Prime Minister is a climate expert and a "business case" expert?
[Normally, I ask folks to forgive me when I am sarcastic but my point in the previous paragraph need not be forgiven at all; it simply speaks for itself.]
Ken, the limitation I was referring to was the sentence in the post I was replying that said "The Trilateral Commission limits the amount of oil going to China for strategic reasons." If that is indeed the case, then I would support reviewing and changing that limitation if it would provide an even incremental improvement on emissions. However, I also wished to point out there's an even better solution using LNG exports that our government, unfortunately, seems aggressively disinterested in...
Quynn, you cannot refer to a limitation and then walk away from that reference.
How much is the limitation to which you refer and what sanctions are imposed - and by whom - if a country (seller or buyer) exceeds that limitation.
The reason that I ask is I am absolutely unaware of any such limitations and your reference implies that they exist and that is a consideration in reviewing China's coal usage.
Please respond as I simply do not know of any such restrictions / limitations / recommendations / etc. that would limit oil being exported to China.
If you cannot identify such a limitation you should say so and we can understand that the original reference was pointless - to be overly polite.
If there is "A" solution to be adopted is to stop stifling developing countries' growth and let them get rich as fast as possible. Rich countries are the best stewards of the environment, because the poor ones aren't concerned about saving bonobos when they're struggling to find food.
As for what we can do in our backyard, we should be building Nuclear plants faster than we can say it. It will make electricity cheaper and eliminate carbon emissions from dirtier sources.
But as Quynn astutely mentioned below, none of what we do matters if the big polluters don't change their habits.
The US has drastically reduced emissions with the shale revolution and widespread availability of natural gas. That's not a well-known fact.
You'd still be tilling your great-grandparents land, barely eating enough to survive, freezing in the winter and dying of all kinds of menial diseases that we don't even think of as deadly anymore.
Today's world is far from perfect but it's a whole lot better by just about any measure than any other time in history. You live a more luxurious life than Louis XIV and have access to things he couldn't even conceive of, let alone dream about.
Steam power and the invention of the internal combustion engine were game changers. I don’t see too many Canadians clamouring for liveries, dray transport, stage coaches or learning trades like blacksmithing.
It is my understanding that the carve outs for grain drying and greenhouses have not been supported by the government - quite the opposite. Bill C-234 was a private members bill that, despite government opposition (145 LPC MPs voted against), has almost passed. It is still awaiting third reading after surviving liberal appointed senators’ attempts to kill it.
Two comments. First, how on earth are the Liberals messing up this badly at implementing their signature policy? I know from experience that this is what it looks like when a government hits its expiry date, but it's still something to see.
Second: I've been supportive of the carbon tax, but I haven't seen any independent projection that has Canada hitting its committments at our current pace. So, either the policy as implemented isn't doing enough (or needs more time to take effect). The attraction of a carbon tax is it's transparent and simple; the more carve-outs and exceptions, the less effective it is (at least theoretically). Plus, we aren't budgeting for mitigation and adaptation which are likely going to be hard to estimate liabilities down the road.
As incomplete as the government's policy is, I've yet to see a better policy proposed by the other parties.
Not to be a complete downer -- there's lots of important, positive things happening. Positive changes in urban planning. Investments in transit and big increases in energy efficiency. Solutions are coming online. But, we aren't probably going to hit reduction targets and more volatile weather could have significant impacts on everything from food production to infrastructure to insurance and we seem unprepared.
Question one: The federal government's core competency in incompetence.
Question two: A few days ago I saw (my apologies but I forget the source and am too lazy to look for it) a news article that stated that based on present "progress" (regress?) Canada had no possibility of meeting the stated targets. It is in my mind that it was an individual who was otherwise a LPC supporter who made the assertion.
I wish I could be as positive as you but I refer you to my first answer.
The AG is not a "climate scientist" (whatever that term means; the meaning seems to have a very loose and moving definition as near as I can - inexpertly - tell) but as an auditor he will have engaged appropriate competent people and will have reviewed internal reporting so I do have comfort in his assertion.
Whether that is a real problem depends on one's assessment of what Canada's real role and position is in this whole area. Please don't get me wrong, I see no reason whatsoever (whether one does or does not believe in the various dramatic scenarios) to throw crud (a defined term of art, no?) into the air. Of course, those fine folks in China and India see no issue with doing so with their existing and brand spanking new coal plants plus those on the drawing board. So, really, does Canada's lack of achievability on the goals matter?
[Please excuse my sarcasm; I grow weary at being hectored domestically but those various proponents / opponents / exponents being incredibly silent internationally].
My take: given what you've outlined (which I agree with), climate change was always going to be as much about foreign policy for Canada as it is about donestic environmental policy. And, given we are (charitably, at this point) a middle power, that meant that global agreements needed to be an important part of the strategy. Since the resulting accords had no accountability mechanism, there continued to be a need to for Canada apply diplomacy to large emitters, in partnership with other middle powers.
This used to be the kind of diplomacy we were good at. And lord knows, when it comes to trade deals, we seem to manage to negotiate reasonably well. A key component of this would/should have been for us to actually meet our committments while managing the negative economic impacts. After all, if we couldn't do that, it's pretty tough to convince India and China to make committments; if we had done it well -- spurring growth -- that would have made the case quite nicely.
That's also how our policy should have been communicated domestically: if we want to convince others, we need to demonstrate we can do it ourselves. And, if we are successful, we'll be out front in a huge economic shift.
But, we have pretty much never been on track to meet our commitments (outside of government self-assessments). We've never been in a position to lobby other governments. Even for someone like me who was generally supportive of the Liberal approach here, it's hard to make the case that the policy direction we're pursuing is working! I'm not sure if that's due to a poorly designed policy or poor implementation -- this government has demonstrated its capable of both, unfortunately.
So -- open to hearing other policy options at this point. Given that we're starting to experience more unpredictable, volatile weather, mitigation and adaptation needs to be part of the conversation as well, with the acknowledgement that both are often costly and themselves hard to predict, making them perhaps our biggest unfunded liability at the moment: something that should be a concern of parties concerned with fiscal discipline!
"The Liberals eliminated the carbon tax on home-heating oil."
Actually it's a 3-year pause, on top of the extra 3-year exemption Atlantic Canada has already had. Failing to get basic facts right undermines your argument.
The better question is wtf have Atlantic premiers been doing the last 5 years? They are happy to suck on the federal teat, but what have they done to help their constituents prepare for the burden of the tax? Or did they just plan on begging?
Yes, but my understanding is that half of all emission are from us small individuals --i.e. those on the "retail" side. I wonder if part of the solution isnt just to"carbonize" the excise taxes on gasoline a bit better--tweak them to tax less polluting fuel a bit less and more polluting fule a bit more?
I think Stevo Guilbo would have definitely pulled out the orange jumpsuit and kissed Trudeau goodbye if the gas & diesel carbon tax was removed. Tightening the noose on that sector has to be the main reason he shows up to work every day.
I do like a guy who places a bet though. I agree with your prediction on Poilievre incinerating (he’ll use low NOx burners I’m sure) the retail tax but I think he will send the industrial tax powers to the provinces and let them navigate their own destiny against competitiveness, env pressures, innovation etc. A good thing it would be too since LPC only seek to weaponize the policy and punish voter regions that don’t vote for them.
Retaining the industrial carbon tax will still hurt the consumer who eventually pays for it. Carbon taxes in any form will not reduce emissions, only new technology can do that and only in the private sector who will look to make a profit on their investments.
Hmm. I guess if you can’t seize the means of production, you should tax it - according to policy wonks like Mr Boessenkool. Let’s hope that we eventually return to the economic principle that taxing consumption - eg value added taxes - in order not to interfere with the economy is the best way to collect taxes - and stop giving any tax value signalling modifiers like “carbon.”
Interesting perspective, but I think Pierre will scrap the whole tax. It hasn’t been shown to reduce carbon usage as of yet. And, is making Canada less competitive. So why shoot ourselves in foot if it isn’t delivering benefits and on top of the affordability crisis we are in.
I guess it is possible they keep an industrial tax, but that’s not the messaging a see from Pierre who keeps talking about the farmers, etc which is driving the costs.
Time will tell.
A carbon tax doesn't accomplish anything if it doesn't hurt. Politically, that's always going to be a challenge. However, a completely dispassionate approach like the original BC Liberal carbon tax ends up being more defensible because they simply made it revenue neutral - any revenue from carbon tax was offset by cuts in income tax.
The federal Liberals have never been able to resist the urge to treat a carbon tax as a new source of revenue and an opportunity to engage in more redistributionist programs with the usual partisan considerations of handing out goodies. That was the problem with Stephan Dion's "Green Shift", and I think that's also a better explanation of why Trudeau's government is flailing today.
Making a carbon tax industrial-only is either going to undermine the effectiveness of the policy, or else buy a fleeting degree of political cover because the cost of the tax will get passed onto consumers anyway.
When you have to travel miles to earn what money you can, every little bit of extra cost hurts. This talk of revenue neutral or tax rebates just does'nt cut it for the people who are surviving but thats all
This is all very interesting but who is actually responsible for a tangible solution to the existential threat of approaching catastrophic climate change and what supports do they need?
If there is a solution, it's going to have to come from the countries with serious emissions like the USA, China and India rather than Canada's relatively tiny output. In other words, as long as China is going to commission coal-generated electricity plants on a weekly (if not quite daily) basis, it won't really matter how many natural gas plants we close in Canada...
The Trilateral Commission limits the amount of oil going to China for strategic reasons. That's why China burns coal instead of oil. In other words, to avoid Chinese dominance we will watch the world burn.
Hmmmm......
I had, of course, heard of the Trilateral Commission but I had not heard much of it in recent years so I asked that fine fellow Mr. Google if it still existed and, sure enough, it does.
Okay, so you can claim that the TC "... limits the amount of oil going to China... " but I really, really don't understand what their enforcement mechanism is. Are you telling me that if China phones the state owned oil companies of Norway or Libya or Saudi those and asks for another ten tanker loads of oil those folks would say, "Ooopps! Sorry, you reached your TC quota. No more oil for you this month!"
Or, if they didn't say that and agreed to ship it, what would the TC do to intercede?
Truthfully, this sounds like another - pardon me - foolish conspiracy theory.
I do apologize if I have offended you but, to me, China is using coal because a) they have it; and b) they don't want to send the foreign exchange out of the country. In other words, I don't agree with your assertion of a TC limitation.
So, I have staked out my position, could you please assist me in better understanding - perhaps I am wrong?? - so would you please provide substantiation for your assertion.
It's a complex problem with few easy solutions. But maybe changing that limitation is part of the solution for countries with large emissions as I mentioned; although oil-burning plants are still relatively high emitters. Too bad there isn't a "business case" for further exporting cleaner-burning LNG instead...😉
Quynn, please enlighten me: what do you mean by "... that limitation ..."
I am not trying to be difficult; I really do want to understand what you mean.
I agree that oil burning power plants are relatively high emitters but the coal burning plants that are still being commissioned in India and China emit even more.
Ah, yes, the "business case." Aren't you so glad that our dress-up Prime Minister is a climate expert and a "business case" expert?
[Normally, I ask folks to forgive me when I am sarcastic but my point in the previous paragraph need not be forgiven at all; it simply speaks for itself.]
Ken, the limitation I was referring to was the sentence in the post I was replying that said "The Trilateral Commission limits the amount of oil going to China for strategic reasons." If that is indeed the case, then I would support reviewing and changing that limitation if it would provide an even incremental improvement on emissions. However, I also wished to point out there's an even better solution using LNG exports that our government, unfortunately, seems aggressively disinterested in...
Quynn, you cannot refer to a limitation and then walk away from that reference.
How much is the limitation to which you refer and what sanctions are imposed - and by whom - if a country (seller or buyer) exceeds that limitation.
The reason that I ask is I am absolutely unaware of any such limitations and your reference implies that they exist and that is a consideration in reviewing China's coal usage.
Please respond as I simply do not know of any such restrictions / limitations / recommendations / etc. that would limit oil being exported to China.
If you cannot identify such a limitation you should say so and we can understand that the original reference was pointless - to be overly polite.
The oceans aren't going to boil anytime soon.
If there is "A" solution to be adopted is to stop stifling developing countries' growth and let them get rich as fast as possible. Rich countries are the best stewards of the environment, because the poor ones aren't concerned about saving bonobos when they're struggling to find food.
As for what we can do in our backyard, we should be building Nuclear plants faster than we can say it. It will make electricity cheaper and eliminate carbon emissions from dirtier sources.
But as Quynn astutely mentioned below, none of what we do matters if the big polluters don't change their habits.
The US has drastically reduced emissions with the shale revolution and widespread availability of natural gas. That's not a well-known fact.
Cf Bjorn Lomborg and Shellenberger's work.
Huh? Rich countries are rich because they burn fossil fuels. Energy is wealth. Only energy and nothing else.
Where did you see in my response a disagreement to that statement?
I'm just thinking about how much better off the world would be if the Industrial Revolution never happened.
You'd still be tilling your great-grandparents land, barely eating enough to survive, freezing in the winter and dying of all kinds of menial diseases that we don't even think of as deadly anymore.
Today's world is far from perfect but it's a whole lot better by just about any measure than any other time in history. You live a more luxurious life than Louis XIV and have access to things he couldn't even conceive of, let alone dream about.
Are factories essential in the development of science and medicine? Would proper hygiene and sanitation avoid the plague?
Steam power and the invention of the internal combustion engine were game changers. I don’t see too many Canadians clamouring for liveries, dray transport, stage coaches or learning trades like blacksmithing.
But doesn't that sound so nice though?
It is my understanding that the carve outs for grain drying and greenhouses have not been supported by the government - quite the opposite. Bill C-234 was a private members bill that, despite government opposition (145 LPC MPs voted against), has almost passed. It is still awaiting third reading after surviving liberal appointed senators’ attempts to kill it.
Two comments. First, how on earth are the Liberals messing up this badly at implementing their signature policy? I know from experience that this is what it looks like when a government hits its expiry date, but it's still something to see.
Second: I've been supportive of the carbon tax, but I haven't seen any independent projection that has Canada hitting its committments at our current pace. So, either the policy as implemented isn't doing enough (or needs more time to take effect). The attraction of a carbon tax is it's transparent and simple; the more carve-outs and exceptions, the less effective it is (at least theoretically). Plus, we aren't budgeting for mitigation and adaptation which are likely going to be hard to estimate liabilities down the road.
As incomplete as the government's policy is, I've yet to see a better policy proposed by the other parties.
Not to be a complete downer -- there's lots of important, positive things happening. Positive changes in urban planning. Investments in transit and big increases in energy efficiency. Solutions are coming online. But, we aren't probably going to hit reduction targets and more volatile weather could have significant impacts on everything from food production to infrastructure to insurance and we seem unprepared.
Tony, in answer to your questions.
Question one: The federal government's core competency in incompetence.
Question two: A few days ago I saw (my apologies but I forget the source and am too lazy to look for it) a news article that stated that based on present "progress" (regress?) Canada had no possibility of meeting the stated targets. It is in my mind that it was an individual who was otherwise a LPC supporter who made the assertion.
I wish I could be as positive as you but I refer you to my first answer.
It was Canada's auditor general that determined we are not on a path to reach the targets: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/canadas-emissions-reductions-unlikely-meet-2030-target-auditor-general-says-2023-11-07.
Ahhhhh ..... yes, the auditor general.
The AG is not a "climate scientist" (whatever that term means; the meaning seems to have a very loose and moving definition as near as I can - inexpertly - tell) but as an auditor he will have engaged appropriate competent people and will have reviewed internal reporting so I do have comfort in his assertion.
Whether that is a real problem depends on one's assessment of what Canada's real role and position is in this whole area. Please don't get me wrong, I see no reason whatsoever (whether one does or does not believe in the various dramatic scenarios) to throw crud (a defined term of art, no?) into the air. Of course, those fine folks in China and India see no issue with doing so with their existing and brand spanking new coal plants plus those on the drawing board. So, really, does Canada's lack of achievability on the goals matter?
[Please excuse my sarcasm; I grow weary at being hectored domestically but those various proponents / opponents / exponents being incredibly silent internationally].
My take: given what you've outlined (which I agree with), climate change was always going to be as much about foreign policy for Canada as it is about donestic environmental policy. And, given we are (charitably, at this point) a middle power, that meant that global agreements needed to be an important part of the strategy. Since the resulting accords had no accountability mechanism, there continued to be a need to for Canada apply diplomacy to large emitters, in partnership with other middle powers.
This used to be the kind of diplomacy we were good at. And lord knows, when it comes to trade deals, we seem to manage to negotiate reasonably well. A key component of this would/should have been for us to actually meet our committments while managing the negative economic impacts. After all, if we couldn't do that, it's pretty tough to convince India and China to make committments; if we had done it well -- spurring growth -- that would have made the case quite nicely.
That's also how our policy should have been communicated domestically: if we want to convince others, we need to demonstrate we can do it ourselves. And, if we are successful, we'll be out front in a huge economic shift.
But, we have pretty much never been on track to meet our commitments (outside of government self-assessments). We've never been in a position to lobby other governments. Even for someone like me who was generally supportive of the Liberal approach here, it's hard to make the case that the policy direction we're pursuing is working! I'm not sure if that's due to a poorly designed policy or poor implementation -- this government has demonstrated its capable of both, unfortunately.
So -- open to hearing other policy options at this point. Given that we're starting to experience more unpredictable, volatile weather, mitigation and adaptation needs to be part of the conversation as well, with the acknowledgement that both are often costly and themselves hard to predict, making them perhaps our biggest unfunded liability at the moment: something that should be a concern of parties concerned with fiscal discipline!
"The Liberals eliminated the carbon tax on home-heating oil."
Actually it's a 3-year pause, on top of the extra 3-year exemption Atlantic Canada has already had. Failing to get basic facts right undermines your argument.
The better question is wtf have Atlantic premiers been doing the last 5 years? They are happy to suck on the federal teat, but what have they done to help their constituents prepare for the burden of the tax? Or did they just plan on begging?
Yes, but my understanding is that half of all emission are from us small individuals --i.e. those on the "retail" side. I wonder if part of the solution isnt just to"carbonize" the excise taxes on gasoline a bit better--tweak them to tax less polluting fuel a bit less and more polluting fule a bit more?
I think Stevo Guilbo would have definitely pulled out the orange jumpsuit and kissed Trudeau goodbye if the gas & diesel carbon tax was removed. Tightening the noose on that sector has to be the main reason he shows up to work every day.
I do like a guy who places a bet though. I agree with your prediction on Poilievre incinerating (he’ll use low NOx burners I’m sure) the retail tax but I think he will send the industrial tax powers to the provinces and let them navigate their own destiny against competitiveness, env pressures, innovation etc. A good thing it would be too since LPC only seek to weaponize the policy and punish voter regions that don’t vote for them.
Retaining the industrial carbon tax will still hurt the consumer who eventually pays for it. Carbon taxes in any form will not reduce emissions, only new technology can do that and only in the private sector who will look to make a profit on their investments.
Hmm. I guess if you can’t seize the means of production, you should tax it - according to policy wonks like Mr Boessenkool. Let’s hope that we eventually return to the economic principle that taxing consumption - eg value added taxes - in order not to interfere with the economy is the best way to collect taxes - and stop giving any tax value signalling modifiers like “carbon.”