It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Greta Thunberg Says She's 'More Than Happy'
That U.S. Is Rejoining Paris Climate Agreement
Jeremy Blum ·Reporter, HuffPost Sat., December 12, 2020,
Teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg said on Friday — one day before the fifth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement — that she is glad the United States will be rejoining the accord, but added that world leaders still had far to go in tackling environmental challenges.
“I am more than happy that the U.S. will rejoin the Paris agreement; that is absolutely crucial,” Thunberg said to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, referencing President-elect Joe Biden’s affirmation to rejoin on day one of his presidency.
Thunberg said that despite this hopeful development, global leaders still needed “to start treating the climate crisis like a crisis.”
“We need to communicate the situation where we are, we need to understand that we are facing an emergency, we need to change the social narrative around this, and of course as young people we would really appreciate it if we stopped only talking about future, distant hypothetical goals and targets ... and start focusing on what we need to do now,” Thunberg said.
“We don’t want to solve these problems for you; we want you to take care of it right now,” she said.
Thunberg echoed similar points in an Instagram video released on Thursday, stressing that pledges by countries such as the U.K., which has promised a 68% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, presented only a vague illusion of progress.
“We need to stop focusing on goals and targets for 2030 or 2050,” Thunberg said in the clip. “We need to implement annual binding carbon budgets today.”
is "happy that the U.S. will rejoin the Paris agreement", she is calling for far greater climate urgency from political leaders.
"As young people, we would really appreciate if we stopped only talking about future, distant hypothetical goals and targets."
A huge thanks to Tom Mustill, Evie Wright and Fergus Dingle for turning my Paris Agreement Anniversary speech into a film!!
UPDATED EU agrees on tougher climate goals for 2030
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the EU will cut carbon emissions to 55% of 1990 levels within a decade. The agreement to cut emissions followed all-night talks at the EU summit
EU leaders agreed on Friday to set an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels by 2030.
The deal came after more than 10 hours of negotiations late Thursday into Friday morning. The increase from an earlier reduction target of 40% was proposed by the European Commission in September, but was met with resistance in some EU states.
EU greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 24% between 1990 and 2019, according to the Commission. The economy, meanwhile, grew around 60% during the same period.
The new plan will require major overhauls of the energy and transport sectors as well as a huge push to renovate and retrofit buildings to make them energy-efficient and able to charge electric vehicles.
Massive investments will be needed to help those countries with a higher reliance on fossil fuel to manage the transition, EU officials have said.
Announcing the plan, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She said it "puts us on a clear path towards climate neutrality in 2050."
"Great way to celebrate the first anniversary of our #EUGreenDeal!" she tweeted.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the deal was a "very, very important result." She added, "It was worth staying up all night for that."
In a separate statement, German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the Berlin government had "worked hard over the past few months" to try to seal the deal. Coal-heavy countries opposed the plan
Poland, backed by other coal-dependent central European countries, had been holding out for guarantees on funding to pay for a clean energy transition. Those states said it was unfair that all member states should commit to the same goal without considering their respective energy dependencies.
To win their approval, member states agreed that the new target should be delivered collectively.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his country had achieved its goals, securing additional cash from the EU modernization fund.
The European Parliament, which itself is pushing for a slightly higher target, still has to approve the Commission's new emissions goal.
Both targets, however, are lower than those proposed by the UK, which is set to leave the EU's single market and customs union at the end of the month and has vowed that environmental standards will not suffer as a result.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week that he wants the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030.
Global summit to present 'ambitious' climate change goals
Issued on: 12/12/2020 -
China's President Xi Jinping is among the leaders taking part in the summit
JOHANNES EISELE AFP
London (AFP)
Global leaders were due to announce more ambitious plans to combat global warming on Saturday, on the fifth anniversary of the signing of the landmark Paris Agreement.
The Climate Ambition Summit, being held online, comes as the United Nations warns current commitments to tackle rises in global temperatures are inadequate.
Britain, the UN and France are co-hosting the summit, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson will open at 1400 GMT and which will be live-streamed at climateambitionsummit2020.org.
China's President Xi Jinping and France's Emmanuel Macron are among the heads of state taking part, with speaking slots handed to leaders of countries that submitted the most ambitious plans.
These include Honduras, and Guatemala, which were both recently hit by hurricanes, as well as India, which is battling increasingly erratic weather patterns and air pollution.
Business figures set to speak reportedly include Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, which has committed to making its whole supply chain carbon neutral by 2030.
But major economies including Australia, Brazil and South Africa are absent. Australia has not committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and has been accused of setting targets that are too weak.
Speakers will deliver short video messages, with organisers saying they will announce "new and ambitious climate change commitments" and there will be "no space for general statements".
The 2015 Paris climate accord saw signatories commit to take action to limit temperature rises to "well below" 2.0 Celsius above pre-industrial levels and try to limit them to 1.5C.
But the UN warned this week that under current commitments, the Earth is still on course for a "catastrophic temperature rise" of more than 3.0C this century.
It warned this will create a crisis that will "dwarf the impacts of Covid-19" and has said current pledges to cut emissions to meet the Paris accord were "woefully inadequate".
- 'Moment of accountability' -
Greenpeace called the summit -- seen as a warm-up for the UN's climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, next November -- a "moment of accountability for leaders".
Under the Paris deal's "ratchet" mechanism, countries are required to submit renewed emissions cutting plans — termed Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs — every five years.
The deadline for this is December 31.
Countries are set to announce efforts to reduce national emissions, long-term strategies and financial commitments to support the most vulnerable.
More than 110 countries have committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. China, the world's biggest polluter, announced in September it plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.
The summit comes as EU leaders on Friday committed to the goal of reducing emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
Britain -- out of the EU since January -- this month announced it would seek to reduce emissions by 68 percent over the same period.
Johnson has presented plans for a "green industrial revolution" creating up to 250,000 jobs.
And before the summit opened, he committed to ending all direct government support for the fossil fuel energy sector overseas.
The last five years have been the warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, a UN agency, with concern at rising numbers of wildfires, storms and flooding.
The UN has said that the drop in emissions due to the global coronavirus pandemic is too small to halt the rising temperatures.
The United States, the world's second-largest polluter after China, left the Paris Agreement under President Donald Trump who questioned the accepted science behind climate change.
Incoming US climate envoy John Kerry plans immediately to re-enter the accord and President-elect Joe Biden has set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
EU Chiefs Back Tough Emission Goal After Last-Minute Scuffle
Ewa Krukowska Fri., December 11, 2020
(Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders have agreed to more aggressive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, one year after launching a moonshot Green Deal that led the way for other major economies to raise their climate ambitions.
The decision to cut pollution by at least 55% by 2030, up from 40% previously, was expected. But it helps keep global momentum on the issue going into 2021, when incoming U.S. President Joe Biden plans to re-join the landmark Paris Agreement and set a 2050 net-zero goal. It also gives European leaders a bold new commitment to tout at a global climate meeting on Saturday.
The EU decision was reached at a summit in Brussels that began on Thursday and ran through most of the night as three poorer, fossil-fuel reliant Eastern countries opposed an initial deal, asking for more help to clean up their economies.
Their last-minute pushback shocked western leaders, prompting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to say she was speechless, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions. “Climate was a nightmare,” said an EU diplomat. “I’ve never seen so many revised versions of one-page conclusions.”
Hungary and the Czech Republic dropped their objections during the night but Poland continued to block the deal until 8 a.m. on Friday. It eventually agreed to the new target after getting assurances that the financial burden will not fall disproportionately on its shoulders. The new target will require an additional 350 billion euros ($424 billion) a year in energy production and infrastructure investment.
Climate-ambitious western economies, including France, Sweden and the Netherlands, were pushing for a swift agreement on the stricter emission-reduction target before Saturday’s Climate Ambition Summit marking the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. More than 70 countries are set to announce new commitments, and expectations are high for Chinese President Xi Jinping to build on his pledge that the world’s biggest polluter will be carbon neutral by 2060.
The last EU leaders’ summit of the year turned into a high-stakes meeting where financial aid, climate goals and Brexit collided in ways that have tested Merkel’s talent for finding compromises on the thorniest issues for the bloc. A deal was eventually reached on a massive economic recovery package, but Brexit was still unresolved with just days to go.
The EU is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, right behind China and the U.S. Carbon dioxide emissions from Europe have been going down in recent years, largely driven by a reduction in the use of coal, which fell 18% in 2019, according to the Global Carbon Budget for 2020.
The EU’s new emissions target is part of the Green Deal recovery plan. By 2050, Europe wants to be the world’s first climate-neutral continent. The bloc will formalize its new pledge under the global climate accord at a meeting of environment ministers on Dec. 17.
The 2030 target is key to completing the European Climate Law, legislation that would make binding the Green Deal objective of eliminating greenhouse gases by the middle of the century. National governments and the European Parliament can now proceed with negotiations and shape a draft law by early next year.
Once adopted, the climate law will pave the way for a swath of regulations to implement the green transition. Next year the European Commission plans to propose measures that will strengthen the bloc’s carbon market, bolster rules to boost renewable energy, toughen emissions standards for cars and impose pollution limits on maritime transport.
(Updates with detail in fourth)
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
EU leaders agree to reduce emissions after all-night talks
BRUSSELS — European Union leaders reached a hard-fought deal Friday to cut the bloc’s net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock ahead of a U.N. climate meeting this weekend.
Following night-long discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels, the 27 member states approved the EU executive commission’s proposal to toughen the bloc’s intermediate target on the way to climate neutrality by mid-century, after a group of reluctant, coal-reliant countries finally agreed to support the improved goal.
“Europe is the leader in the fight against climate change,” tweeted EU Council president Charles Michel as daylight broke over the EU capital city. “We decided to cut our greenhouse gas emissions of at least 55% by 2030.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the 21-hour summit during which the climate debate was a constant worry, had much to show for it. “It was worth having a sleepless night," she said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, hailed Friday's deal.
“It’s a very welcome announcement, one that inscribes itself in the efforts the secretary-general has called on member states, the groups of member states, to take," Dujarric said.
Five years after the Paris agreement, the EU wants to be a leader in the fight against global warming. Yet the bloc’s leaders were unable to agree on the new target the last time they met in October, mainly because of financial concerns by eastern nations seeking more clarity about how to fund and handle the green transition.
But the long-awaited deal on a massive long-term budget and coronavirus recovery clinched Thursday by EU leaders swung the momentum.
Large swaths of the record-high 1.82 trillion-euro package are set to pour into programs and investments designed to help the member states, regions and sectors particularly affected by the green transition, which are in need of a deep economic and social transformation. EU leaders have agreed that 30% of the package — some 550 billion euros — should be used to support the transition.
Still, agreeing on common language was not an easy task. Negotiations were punctuated throughout the night by intense discussions in the plenary session and multiple chats in smaller groups on the sidelines.
Another delay in revising the EU’s current 40% emission cuts objective for 2030 would have been particularly embarrassing before the virtual Climate Ambition Summit marking five years since the Paris deal, and leaders worked to the wire to seal a deal.
The event on Saturday will be co-hosted by the U.K. with the United Nations and France.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised “a major signal” that will enable EU leaders “to bring in our wake our big international partners, especially the United States and China.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week he wants the U.K. to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030 — a more ambitious goal than the EU’s.
Poland, which last year didn’t commit to the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal, and other eastern countries, including the Czech Republic and Hungary, largely depend on coal for their energy needs. They considered it unfair that all member states should be submitted to the same ambition without considering their respective energy mixes.
To win their approval, member states agreed that the new target should be delivered collectively. According to the Belgian Prime minister's office, “leaders agreed that the cuts will be first achieved in sectors and countries where there is still plenty of room for improvement."
In addition, the European Commission will take into account specific national situations when drawing up the measures. A progress report will be submitted to the European Council in the spring.
The accord also left the door open to member states to use gas or nuclear power as they drop fossil fuels. EU leaders agreed last year that nuclear energy would be part of the bloc’s solution to making its economy carbon neutral, and they reiterated Friday that they would respect member states' rights to decide on their energy mix and to choose the most appropriate technologies to reach the goal.
According to a French official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting, Poland also obtained guarantees that the EU's Emissions Trading System — a cap-and-trade scheme for industries to buy carbon credits covering about 40% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions — would be revamped. Poland wants the reform of the system to redirect more revenues to the poorer EU countries.
World leaders agreed five years ago in Paris to keep the global warming increase to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) by the end of the century. Under the Paris accord, countries are required to submit updated climate targets by the end of this year.
Greenpeace and other environmental groups have said the improved EU target is insufficient to properly tackle climate change.
“To increase the chances of limiting global heating to 1.5°C and avoid the worst effects of climate breakdown, Greenpeace is calling for at least a 65% cut in EU emissions from polluting sectors by 2030,” the NGO said.
Climate Action Network Europe regretted that the revised “net” target includes carbon sinks like reforestation, meaning that emitting sectors will need to decarbonize less to reach the new goal.
“As the Commission indicates itself in its 2030 Climate Target Plan, if the EU is successful in implementing the Commission’s biodiversity, carbon removals could represent up to 5% of emissions. In this case the real emissions reduction target would be as low as 50%,” the NGO said.
EU leaders also encouraged the commission to propose a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders for countries that did do not regulate CO2 emissions as strictly as the EU does.
___
Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this story.
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate
Samuel Petrequin, The Associated Press
Britain vows to stop funding fossil fuel projects abroad
Issued on: 12/12/2020 -
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a halt to his country's funding of new crude oil, gas and coal projects before opening the Climate Ambition Summit
Adek BERRY AFP/File
London (AFP)
Britain is to end government funding for fossil fuel projects overseas, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday, on the eve of an international climate change summit.
Johnson announced a halt to funding of new crude oil, gas and coal projects before opening the Climate Ambition Summit co-hosted by Britain, the United Nations and France on Saturday.
"I'm pleased to say today that the UK will end taxpayer support for fossil fuel projects overseas as soon as possible," Johnson said in a statement released by his office.
Britain has been criticised for sending billions of pounds abroad to help extract and refine fossil fuels and build power stations.
It has promised to end this soon, while saying there will be "very limited exceptions".
"Calling time on financing overseas fossil fuel projects really is a welcome move," said the policy director at Greenpeace UK, Doug Parr.
Christian Aid's head of campaigns and UK advocacy Pete Moorey said to tackle the climate crisis, 80 percent of known fossil fuels needed to be left in the ground.
"The UK government is right to heed this warning and end support for fossil fuels overseas," he added.
"Developing countries need investment to leapfrog the dirty energy that has led us into this crisis and access the clean renewable that can both accelerate their development and tackle the climate emergency."
Downing Street said it intends to implement the policy by November next year, when Britain will host the UN summit on climate change COP26, in Glasgow.
- 'Unacceptably high' -
Over the last four years, the British government "supported £21 billion ($28 billion, 23 billion euros) of UK oil and gas exports through trade promotion and export finance", it added.
Britain has been criticised by watchdogs and activists including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg for financing dirty energy projects abroad.
UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department, provides British companies with export credit guarantees to help them trade overseas.
In 2019, an Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) report concluded that UKEF's support for fossil fuel energy projects was "unacceptably high" in developing countries.
It said Britain had supported projects worth £2.6 billion between 2013 and 2018, most in "low and middle-income countries".
By contrast, just £104 million went on renewable energy projects, it said, recommending an end of support for new fossil fuel projects by the end of next year.
The prime minister in January announced an immediate end to support of coal mining and coal-powered power stations abroad in developing countries.
Britain is not alone among wealthy nations in backing such projects abroad under the radar.
A study released in January by the market monitor Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth America found that export credit agencies of G20 countries provide more than 10 times as much state-backed financing to oil, gas and coal projects abroad as they do to renewable energy schemes.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to beat his country's 2010 climate targets Lars Hagberg AFP/File
Ottawa (AFP) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday an annual hike of his country's carbon tax by Can$15 (US$12) per tonne after 2022, and billions in new investments to try to beat its climate target.
The price on carbon pollution introduced last year is already set to rise incrementally to Can$50 per tonne in 2022.
After 2022, Trudeau said, annual increases in the tax under the revised climate plan would jump from Can$10 to Can$15. By 2030, the price is to reach Can$170 per tonne -- from the current Can$30 per tonne -- enough, according to officials, to increase the price of gasoline by nearly 28 cents a litre.
"There is no vaccine against a polluted planet. It's up to us to act because there is a real cost to pollution," Trudeau said.
The government's updated climate plan includes 64 new measures and Can$15 billion in investments for building energy efficiency retrofits, boosting uses of transit and electric cars, as well as modernizing Canada's electrical grid.
Canada had pledged under the Paris Agreement to the cut its CO2 emission by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
In a briefing document, the government said it is "confident Canada can achieve reductions within the range of 32 to 40 percent below 2005 levels in 2030."
Trudeau's government on Thursday unveiled draft legislation that it said would allow the country to be carbon neutral by 2050, but his opponents dismissed the initiative as "smoke and mirrors."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a climate policy announcement on November 19, 2020.
OTTAWA – The Liberals announced a new climate plan Friday that will see the carbon tax jump from $50 per tonne in 2022 to $170 per tonne by 2030.
The carbon tax hike was met with dismay in some provinces with Ontario Premier Doug Ford calling it a tax grab and Alberta Environment Minister Jason Nixon saying it was Ottawa imposing its values on the province.
The plan will see $15 per year increases from 2022 to 2030 and will raise the cost of gasoline, natural gas home heating and other goods dependent on fossil fuels. But the government says most families subject to the federal tax will recoup more than they pay through rebates, which will soon be distributed quarterly instead of annually.
It also includes $15-billion in spending on items such as energy-efficient building retrofits, renewable energy projects, incentives for zero-emission vehicles and funding for Indigenous and remote communities to move off diesel fuel.
“There is no vaccine against a polluted planet,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in announcing the plan. “It’s up to us to act, because there is a real cost to pollution.”
The Ontario premier, whose government is challenging the carbon tax as unconstitutional, took a different tone.
“Folks, this carbon tax is going to be the worst thing you could ever see,” Ford said. “I’m a strong believer of protecting the environment. But you don’t have to protect the environment on the backs of the hard working people of this province and this country at a time when people are barely holding on by their fingernails.”
Ford called it a tax grab and said he’s “never, ever, ever been more disappointed in an announcement ever since I’ve been in politics.”
Federal Conservative environment critic Dan Albas slammed the government for announcing an increase to taxes while a pandemic still rages.
“This increase will mean that Canadians will pay more for groceries, home heating, and add up to 37.57 cents per litre to the cost of gas,” Albas said.
The Conservatives also pointed to the word games that Catherine McKenna, then the Liberal environment minister, had played with the carbon tax ahead of the 2019 election. In June 2019, McKenna had said “the plan is not to increase the price post-2022,” then she later walked that back to say the government’s plan only went to 2022 and it had “no intention” to change the price until it had consulted with provinces.
“The Trudeau Liberals promised that they wouldn’t raise the carbon tax, but that is exactly what they are doing today,” Albas said. “This is just another example of the Trudeau Liberals promising one thing to get elected, and then breaking their promise when they no longer need your vote.”
On Friday, neither Trudeau nor Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson would specifically answer when they were asked whether the federal government had consulted with provinces on the plan. Wilkinson only said there had been general “conversations” on the topic with provinces.
“We’ve been very clear as a government that our view is that the price on pollution is the most efficient way to reduce emissions, that incents innovation, and it is a critical part of the plan going forward,” Wilkinson said. “All of the provinces and territories are aware of that, and that conversation will continue.”
The Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on a provincial challenge that argues the federal carbon tax is an unconstitutional overreach by Ottawa. If the court sides with the federal government, provinces would either have the federal tax imposed on them or be required to ensure their own carbon pricing regime grows equivalently with the federal one.
If the court rules against the federal government, the Liberals may have to go back to the drawing board on their climate plan, depending on what exactly the court says. Trudeau did not say what the government would do if they lose, instead criticizing the provincial governments that have opposed carbon pricing.
“There are some places in this country that still want to make pollution free again,” he said. “We’re not going to do that.”
Alberta’s environment minister called the carbon tax increase “another attack on Alberta’s economy and on Alberta’s jurisdiction.”
Nixon said Alberta is already making progress on reducing emissions through its own programs, such as methane reduction initiatives and hydrogen and carbon capture programs.
“On a federal level, the prime minister continues to impose this Ottawa-knows-best attitude on Alberta, at a time when Albertans can least afford it,” Nixon said.
The plan announced on Friday does not have details on another policy that could increase fuel costs, the Clean Fuel Standard. Officials said those details will be coming soon. However, the government did say those regulations will now only apply to liquid fuels, not gas or solid fuels.
The government will also “explore the potential of border carbon adjustments,” the background documents say, promising Canada will “work with like-minded economies — including the E.U. and Canada’s North American partners — to consider how this approach could fit into Canada’s broader strategy to meet climate targets while ensuring a fair environment for businesses.”
The goal of the climate plan is to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, a target that had also been set by the previous Conservative government, but which the government was not on track to achieve. The government says this new plan will put it on track to exceed the target for the first time.
“By further working with provinces and territories, the government is confident Canada can achieve reductions within the range of 32 to 40 percent below 2005 levels in 2030,” the background documents say.
Other items in the plan include: $1.5 billion over three years for green and inclusive community buildings, with 10 per cent reserved for Indigenous communities; $2.6 billion over seven years for homeowners making their homes more energy efficient; $287 million over two years for the Incentives for Zero- Emission Vehicles program, which provides a rebate of up to $5,000 on a light-duty zero-emission vehicle; $150 million over three years in charging and refueling stations across Canada; $964 million over four years for renewable energy and grid modernization projects; $300 million over five years to help rural, remote and Indigenous communities currently relying on diesel to switch to clean energy.
“The price will not go up…. the plan is not to increase the price post-2022.”
— Catherine McKenna, then environment minister, in June of last year, before the election. She was replying to questions about a parliamentary budget office report that said the carbon tax would have to rise above $50 a tonne.
THE NUMBERS GAME
The government says the money raised from the carbon tax will go back to households in rebates. The prime minister said an average family of four in Ontario would receive $1,259 when the price hits $95 per tonne in 2025, going up to $2,018 in 2030 — an increase of 60 per cent. But in the same period the carbon tax rises from $95 to $170 — an increase of 78 per cent.
AT THE PUMPS
37.57¢ — Expected rise in the cost of a litre of gas by the end of the decade. (In 1979, Joe Clark’s minority government fell after it proposed an 18¢ tax on a gallon of gas — about 4.5¢ a litre.
NOT THE TREES AGAIN?
As first announced on the campaign trail in September 2019 — after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met activist Greta Thunberg — and reiterated in the fiscal update almost two weeks ago, the Liberals are again promising $3.16 billion, over 10 years, to plant two billion trees. And to repeat: to date no trees have been planted under this initiative.
Quebec’s big win
The one province that won’t feel the force of a federal government carbon tax of $170 by 2030 is Quebec.
Quebec is exempt from the federal government’s carbon tax because since 2013 it operates a cap-and-trade system and will reap the benefits of that system in the future.
In Quebec, certain companies are capped on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. Going over that cap requires companies to buy credits, or permits, for every tonne of carbon they exceed.
Canadian prices for permits that Quebec industry can buy were trading at $17 as of Dec. 1. It is estimated that Quebec’s “carbon tax” for 2022 will be about $23 per tonne while the federal carbon tax will be $50 — and raising fast.
As Jack Mintz, economist at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, noted, Quebecers already get cheaper electricity than the rest of Canada.
“That does give producers a huge benefit in Quebec. People who use energy (in Quebec), because the carbon price is lower, are going to have lower energy costs.”
He added, “Quebec, given that its cap and trade system is recognized as a substitute for the carbon tax, and the Quebec price is only $17 Canadian, which is little more than half the (current) carbon tax in other provinces, this produces in Quebec a significant competitive advantage not only internationally but to other markets in Canada. This will be particularly relevant to energy intensive manufacturing such as aluminum.”
Five-fold jump in carbon tax would help Liberals reach climate targets, but may challenge competitiveness
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens to Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson during a news conference Friday.
CALGARY — The federal Liberal government unveiled sweeping new climate change policies Friday, including plans for a five-fold increase in carbon taxes over the next 10 years, in a move that raises fresh concerns about affordability and competitiveness of trade-exposed industries even as Canada now appears poised to meet its 2030 climate targets.
“The clean growth economy is not some utopian idea that might happen far off into the future,” Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Friday as Ottawa unveiled new policies aimed at reducing the country’s carbon emissions, which included a higher federal carbon tax, more green spending and changes to the anticipated Clean Fuel Standard regulations.
The new policies were immediately praised by environmental groups such as Greenpeace, which called it “a serious and well-thought out plan to achieve our 30 per cent reduction target.”
But Alberta’s business executives are concerned about the impact on energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries such as natural resource extraction and manufacturing.
Business Council of Alberta president and CEO Adam Legge called the plans announced Friday “extreme growth of the carbon tax,” and said it would be important for the federal government to impose a border adjustment tax on carbon for trade exposed industries in order to level the playing field for domestic companies.
“We encourage the federal government to explore border adjustments,” Legge said.
As Ottawa plans to ramp up carbon taxes, it also announced $15.2 billion in new spending on climate and infrastructure initiatives in an effort to hit its 2030 climate targets that were set as part of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016.
The $15.2 billion in funding includes money for hydrogen, electric vehicle infrastructure and incentives for existing industries to decarbonize operations, Clean Energy Canada executive director Merran Smith said in a release, which called Friday’s announcement “a comprehensive and honest plan to get Canada to beat its 2030 climate target.”
The updated climate plan calls for a more than five-fold increase in carbon taxes from current levels of $30 per tonne to $170 per tonne by 2030.
“Canada wasn’t going fast enough so I think this provides the incentive (to invest in emissions-reducing technologies) and it will allow us to play on the world stage and attract capital back to our industries,” said Audrey Mascarenhas, president and CEO of Questor Technologies Inc., a Calgary-based clean-technology company.
Mascarenhas said her company’s technology can create carbon offsets for oil and gas companies at a cost of $2 per tonne, and so she expects a $170 per tonne carbon tax will drive more investment in the clean-tech sector.
The increases to the carbon tax would come in $15-per-tonne phases increments each year beginning in 2023 and would mean that by 2030, consumers would pay 37 cents per litre in carbon levies for their gasoline and an additional $5.36 per gigajoule to heat their homes with natural gas
By 2030, consumers would pay 37 cents per litre in carbon levies for their gasoline.
That would imply that the carbon tax for natural gas would be roughly double the current price of the commodity, which averaged US$2.27 per GJ in Ontario on Thursday and US$1.96 per GJ in Alberta.
The oil and gas industry has been looking for some clarity on how carbon taxes will change over time and Friday’s announcement provides a timeline and price, said Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, which represents mid-sized oil and gas companies including most of the country’s natural gas producers.
“It does give us some stability around the carbon price so we can start to implement some of those green technologies,” Goodman said, adding there are concerns about whether consumers can absorb the higher costs.
The policy document released Friday, titled “A Healthy Environment and A Healthy Economy,” also signalled that natural gas would not be subject to the soon-to-be-announced Clean Fuel Standard. The Financial Post reported Thursday that the industry is expecting Ottawa to unveil CFS regulations before the end of the year.
The new fuels regulations are now expected to focus strictly on liquid fuels such as gasoline and diesel and ignore gaseous fuels and solid fuels like coal.
Goodman called the exemption for natural gas, as well as other gaseous fuels, “a wise, sensible decision” that will prevent natural gas prices from heading “significantly higher.”
New fuel regulations will exempt natural gas.
A typical family in Alberta uses about 100 GJs of natural gas per year to heat their homes, so a $170 per tonne carbon tax will result in an increase of approximately $500 per year cost for a household, said Trevor Tombe, economist at the University of Calgary.
But Tombe added that carbon tax rebates are also poised to rise to $3,200 per year by 2030, or $800 every three months.
“These are getting to be pretty significant,” Tombe said, adding the rebates won’t eliminate the “substitution effect” of the policy, because families will be able to spend their rebates on energy efficiency measures to reduce their need for heating fuels or for other expenses.
Tombe said that, based on existing research, a $170 per tonne carbon tax would lead to an emissions reduction of approximately 150 million tonnes, or a 25 per cent cut in the country’s total emissions. “Basically, that’s going to get you right in line with the 2030 target. Layer on top of that the Clean Fuel Standards, we are on track to exceed the 2030 target by potentially as much as 50 million tonnes,” Tombe said.
Rebates and credits for building retrofits will help create work for tradespeople but the policies announced Friday could also hurt resource industries across the country, Sean Strickland, executive director of Canada’s Building Trades Unions, said in a release Friday.
“The government needs to do more than issue a statement about creating jobs; but must align their climate strategy to secure the middle-class jobs that work in the resource sector,” Strickland said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Friday he was “floored” by Ottawa’s plan. Fellow Conservative politicians in Alberta expressed similar shock.
“This is not the time to even be considering increasing the cost of living for the people of Alberta,” Alberta Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon said at a Friday press conference, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has induced a recession in the country.
“We promised Albertans we would fight this all the way to the Supreme Court and we have fought this,” Nixon said.
Alberta’s business executives are concerned about the impact on energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries such as natural resource extraction and manufacturing.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Friday that he expects voters would have the chance to weigh in on the rising carbon tax with an election.
“I’ve always said that there will be elections before the price is increased in 2023,” Trudeau said, noting that the Liberals have a minority government in Parliament and an election is expected before 2023.
Trudeau did not answer whether a new plan would be needed in the event Alberta’s legal challenge to the carbon tax wins at the Supreme Court, but reiterated that most Canadians support action on climate change.
