This opinion was written by Richard G. Lipsey and was published in the Globe & Mail on March 28, 2024.

Emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University and has been an economic adviser to federal and provincial governments. This piece is adapted from an open letter signed by more than 250 economists.

As an economist, I have spent much of my career studying economic growth. Now, with climate change posing a significant environmental and economic threat, I support climate policies that reduce emissions at a low cost, address affordability concerns, maintain business competitiveness and support the country’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

Canada’s carbon-pricing policies do all those things.

There is a lot of debate – and misinformation – about carbon pricing in Canada. Let’s examine some of the critics’ claims and compare them with the evidence.

CLAIM: CARBON PRICING WON’T REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

The evidence clearly shows that pricing does reduce emissions at a lower cost than other approaches. Carbon pricing works because when something costs more, people use less of it.

Since federal carbon pricing took effect in 2019, Canada’s GHG emissions have fallen by nearly 8 per cent. A recent study by the Canadian Climate Institute shows that carbon pricing for industries and consumers is expected to account for almost half of Canada’s emissions reductions by 2030.

Carbon pricing is the cheapest approach because it gives people and businesses flexibility to choose the best way to reduce their carbon footprint. Other methods, such as regulation, are usually more intrusive and inflexible, and cost more.

The more we use low-cost policies to achieve our climate goals, the more resources we will have for other things such as health care and education.

CLAIM: CARBON PRICING DRIVES UP THE COST OF LIVING AND IS A MAJOR CAUSE OF INFLATION

The evidence shows that Canadian carbon pricing has had a negligible impact on inflation.

The sharp increase in inflation from 2021 to 2023 was caused by factors mainly related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. These factors are global, which is why most advanced countries – even ones with no carbon price – have experienced similar inflation. According to the Bank of Canada, carbon pricing has directly caused less than one-twentieth of Canada’s inflation in the past two years.

That is because the policy is designed to avoid raising the cost of living. About 90 per cent of federal carbon price revenues are given back to households. Most families receive more in rebates than they pay in carbon pricing, particularly those with low or medium incomes. Rural residents get an additional rebate.

Climate change, though, does threaten Canadians’ economic well-being – for example, by increasing the risk and severity of natural disasters. These consequences will cost our economy at least $35-billion by 2030.

CLAIM: IT MAKES LITTLE SENSE TO HAVE BOTH A CARBON PRICE AND REBATES

The evidence shows that the price-and-rebate approach gives an incentive to reduce carbon emissions, while maintaining most households’ overall purchasing power. Carbon pricing raises the cost of carbon-intensive products, so consumers and businesses are encouraged to adopt lower-carbon options, such as smart thermostats, heat pumps or hybrid/electric vehicles.

Giving back most of the carbon-pricing revenues in rebates doesn’t undermine this goal; consumers still have the incentive to reduce emissions. The rebates ensure that most households come out ahead, because they receive an amount back that is slightly above what the average household spends on carbon pricing.

CLAIM: CARBON PRICING HARMS CANADIAN BUSINESS COMPETITIVENESS

The evidence shows that Canada’s carbon-pricing scheme is designed to help businesses reduce emissions at low cost, while competing in the emerging low-carbon global economy.

Large emitting industries, such as oil, steel and cement, have an “output-based” carbon pricing system. It gives firms a strong incentive to reduce emissions, while maintaining their international competitiveness, so they can stay profitable and generate jobs in Canada. Pricing also stimulates innovation, by encouraging the development and adoption of low-carbon technologies.

CLAIM: CARBON PRICING ISN’T NECESSARY

The critics are right on this point, at least in part. Canada could abandon carbon pricing and still hit our climate targets by using other types of regulations and subsidies–but it would cost much more. The most vocal opponents of carbon pricing, though, are not offering alternative policies to reduce emissions and meet our climate goals – let alone ones that would do so at the same low cost as carbon pricing. In a world of scarce resources, it seems unwise to abandon carbon pricing only to replace it with more costly methods of reducing emissions – or, worse, take no measures at all.

In short, carbon pricing is the lowest-cost way to reduce emissions, drive green innovation and support Canada’s transition to a clean, prosperous economic future. Public debate about carbon pricing is good, but it must be based on sound evidence.

This opinion was written by Gillian Steward and was published in the Toronto Star on March 26, 2024.

There’s no question that Pierre Poilievre’s incessant call to “axe the tax” has hit home with Canadians who believe the carbon tax is the reason that everything from groceries to gasoline costs more.

Never mind that most people are refunded more than they pay in carbon taxes. “Axe the tax” has a ring to it that captures the frustration of many when it comes to the cost of living.

But while Poilievre’s catchy slogan can easily rile a crowd and, according to recent polls, may eventually land him in the Prime Minister’s Office, what is he really saying? Or perhaps more aptly what is he not saying? Why doesn’t he ever connect the carbon tax to climate change?

“The real question here is what are we going to do about climate change?” energy and environmental economist Andrew Leach asked during an interview.

In his new book, “Between Doom and Denial: Facing Facts About Climate Change,” Leach states that climate change is the “environmental, political, and societal challenge of our time.

“I think there are going to be a lot of people who are surprised, after a Poilievre government comes in by how much climate action is going to go away … I haven’t seen Pierre Poilievre give any kind of indication other than, you know, we’ll rely on technology (to curb carbon emissions). OK, but how?”

If anyone knows what he is talking about when it comes to policies designed to abate global heating, it’s Leach. In 2015, NDP premier Rachel Notley appointed the University of Alberta academic as chair of an advisory panel on climate change policies.

In a relatively short time, Leach organized public input and expert views on the subject. The result was Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan, which would phase out coal-generated electricity, introduce a made-in Alberta carbon tax, incentivize renewable energy, and put a cap on oilsands carbon emissions.

Just like Poilievre is doing now, Jason Kenney, leader of the official opposition, vilified the Notley government for imposing a price on pollution and then quickly repealed it when he was elected premier in 2019. That automatically imposed the federal carbon tax on Alberta, which meant Justin Trudeau would take the heat for the tax not Kenney.

After all the political wrangling over the carbon tax, Leach still believes it, combined with other measures, is the best way to bring down the fossil fuel emissions that are causing the planet to heat up so quickly that we are already experiencing unprecedented high temperatures and all the disasters that come with them.

A tax on carbon emissions is the lowest cost emissions reduction tool, it encourages entrepreneurs to come up with more ways to reduce emissions, and it gets government out of the business of picking winners and losers, he said.

“If all we do is apply a higher price for pollution on big emitters (such as oilsands operations), Alberta and Saskatchewan will be impacted the most. It’s a very bad strategic decision for Alberta to drive any kind of focus away from consumer level carbon emissions,” Leach said.

Some premiers also want to dump the carbon tax, as do two Alberta NDP leadership candidates and Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie. If they are serious about climate change, what are they going to replace it with, Leach asks.

In his book, Leach warns that Canadians should not assume that somehow they can avoid the impacts of global climate change because we live in a cold, northern country or because we will learn to adapt or because we don’t emit much carbon compared to other countries. And we shouldn’t assume that demand for our oil and gas will continue to pump up our economy.

“There is no option for businessas-before. Our choice will increasingly become whether to act responsibly on our own initiative or have standards imposed on us by the rest of the world,” he writes.

“Axe the tax” is a catchy slogan, but it’s far from the whole story.

‘‘ There are going to be a lot of people who are surprised, after a Poilievre government comes in, by how much climate action is going to go away … I haven’t seen Pierre Poilievre give any kind of indication other than, you know, we’ll rely on technology (to curb carbon emissions). OK, but how? ANDREW LEACH ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIST

This article was written by Taylor C. Noakes and was published in the Toronto Star on March 25, 2024.

Of all the political leaders that might have inspired Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie when developing her party’s climate plan, who could have imaged she’d pick Premier Doug Ford and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre?

Crombie’s promise she won’t introduce a provincial carbon tax likely won’t win her any votes. For those who already lean PC, her statement seems to confirm Ford’s baseless accusations. For anyone left of the Fordites, Crombie’s pre-emptive strike against carbon taxes seems like she’s cut from the same cloth as her alleged opponents.

And promising not to do something — especially something that’s been proven to work quite well — hardly qualifies as good policy.

Across the board, carbon taxes are sound environmental and economic policy, and there are mountains of evidence to support this.

Carbon taxes are an effective tool in lowering emissions, a point proven time and again in peer-reviewed research. Evidence from British Columbia, which was the first Canadian province to institute a carbon tax in 2008, has consistently shown the province’s carbon tax has reduced emissions. According to the Canadian Climate Institute, the carbon tax has had a net-positive effect on B.C.’s economy, namely by incentivizing energy efficiency and lower fossil fuel use.

Crombie’s statement that she intends on “saving families money” by not introducing a carbon tax also contradicts available evidence. This year, $2.3 billion in carbon tax rebates was paid out to about 12 million Canadians. According to the government, roughly eight out of 10 households get more money back than they spend on the fuel charge. The majority of Canada’s working and middle classes get more in rebates than they pay in carbon taxes, and the same is true even of the highest earners.

As an alternative to carbon taxes, Crombie said her climate plan would involve developing new infrastructure for electric vehicles, increased spending on public transit, and decarbonizing the electricity grid. These are all commendable goals but she never explained how she might pay for it. A provincial carbon tax would be very useful in this respect, as it would provide a new source of revenue for developing new green infrastructure, transit and energy systems while simultaneously decreasing emissions.

There is also the benefit to public health of reducing air pollution, something that tends to happen when carbon dioxide emissions are taxed. This is a good example of the broad view of benefits that are often overlooked when considering the economic consequences of climate policies. Recent studies indicate fine particulates were reduced in B.C. by between five and 11 per cent since 2008. But that doesn’t just mean British Columbians are breathing cleaner air, it also means benefits to public health. Air pollution kills about 15,000 Canadians each year, but also causes a wide variety of other negative health impacts that affect the provincial bottom line, such as premature births, heart attacks, and asthma. Even autism and Alzheimer’s disease have been linked to air pollution. All of this results in a considerable drain on resources in an already overburdened health care system, and further results in lost productivity due to illness-related absenteeism.

With this in mind, consider the range of benefits a carbon tax provides the economy: increased productivity, lower health care costs, incentives for businesses and households to become more energy efficient, tax rebates for the majority of taxpayers, and new revenue streams for green energy, transit and infrastructure development.

It is a remarkable irony that Crombie seems to be basing her environmental and economic policies on those first established by Doug Ford, as it was Ford who withdrew Ontario from a successful cap-and-trade partnership with Quebec and California. That myopic decision cost the province approximately $3 billion.

Appealing to the lowest common denominator with moronic chants like “axe the tax” will always be the Conservatives’ strongest argument on climate change. Their aversion to carbon taxes is ideologically motivated, not evidencebased.

It is supremely disappointing to see the Ontario Liberals follow their lead.

For anyone left of Doug Ford’s supporters, Bonnie Crombie’s pre-emptive strike against carbon taxes seems like she’s cut from the same cloth as her alleged opponents

The Weather Kids campaign, created in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization and The Weather Channel, calls for urgent climate action for the next generations.

This press release was written and published by the United Nations on March 21, 2024.

These Letters to the Editor were published in the Toronto Star on March 15, 2024.

Ford warns Trudeau’s Liberals they’ll be ‘annihilated’ if they raise the carbon price, March 13

Annihilation is what burning fossil fuels is doing to our planet, heating it far beyond safe limits. Global warming in 2023 didn’t just break records, it smashed them, earning the alarming distinction of being the hottest year in our recorded history with these first months of 2024 following suit.

Relentless heat waves, huge and howling wildfires, record breaking droughts and torrential rains engulfed many parts of the world last year, with the burning of coal, oil and gas at the root source of all these catastrophes.

What is Ontario doing aside from Premier Doug Ford railing against a carbon fee that pays back more in rebates to 80 per cent of taxpayers? Thanks to Ford and colleagues, we’re expanding — not phasing out — climate-wrecking natural gas infrastructure, and doing it on the backs of all provincial taxpayers and gas customers. We need to remember this when Ontario election time rolls around in 2026.

Liz Armstrong, Erin, Ont.

It’s an upside down world when Premier Doug Ford appeals to the federal government not to increase the carbon tax as scheduled, on behalf of Canadians.

When Toronto hits a record high in temperature of 18 C on March 11 and the world has just experienced the hottest year in recorded time, rational people would think that there is an epic problem called climate change that needs all hands on deck.

Ford says that he thinks the feds should want to put money into the pockets of Canadians, but isn’t that what the Canada Carbon Rebate does? In Ontario, households get a minimum of $1,120 annually, while in Alberta, they get $1,800!

Ford also fails to account for the enormous costs of climate change. Canadians who have lived through climate disasters (think Fort McMurray, Alta., or Lytton, B.C.) have suffered unbearable personal loss.

But who pays the brunt of cleanup, compensation and future mitigation? Think billions, and it is never enough.

It’s not the fuel companies who are enjoying record profits for their shareholders. They must be cheering on Ford, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. It’s us who foots the bill. What if that money could be diverted to programs that are valued by all Canadians?

Ruth Allen, Toronto

This article was written by Andrew Phillips and was published in the Toronto Star on March 15, 2024.

The consumer carbon tax is dying in Canada — and with it dies a rare and admirable attempt to treat voters as adults.

Carbon pricing will clearly be dead if Pierre (“axe the tax”) Poilievre and his Conservatives win the next federal election, as seems almost certain at this point. Even before that, it’s dying a slow death as premiers line up to demand its demise, or at least head off any increase.

The Trudeau government has lost the political battle over the carbon tax, aided in no small part by an own goal last fall when it exempted home heating oil. That was obviously a political sop to the Atlantic provinces and it sparked a predictable free-for-all of premiers demanding similar concessions.

But I still give the Liberals A for effort on carbon pricing. In a world where governments typically refuse to play it straight with voters, going with a consumer levy on greenhouse gases was that rare thing — a policy that didn’t treat Canadians like children who can’t be trusted with the truth.

The truth isn’t very complicated: climate change is a big problem and any course of action we choose to tackle it — including doing nothing — will involve significant costs. The question isn’t whether there will be costs, but how big they’ll be and how they’re shared.

Given all that, the usual course for government would be to play down the costs and — most important — hide them from voters/consumers as best they can.

So, they would impose regulations on business to require carbon-saving measures. Or subsidize various industries to “go green” and favour one particular technology over another. They’d shower consumers with tax breaks to save energy — another form of subsidies for business. Or, most likely, a combination of those things.

What they wouldn’t tell you, at least not up-front, is that all those subsidies and regulations and tax breaks cost money — and you’re ultimately the one who pays. Either by business passing on higher costs to consumers or taxpayers footing the bill for subsidies and tax “expenditures.”

The Trudeau government is doing a lot of that, but it also chose to impose a carbon tax directly on consumers (combined, of course, with a rebate scheme that leaves most Canadians better off in the end). The carbon tax, it says, accounts for a third of GHG reductions in its 2030 climate plan.

The key thing about a consumer carbon tax is that it’s highly visible. Everyone can see it. And everyone can draw a direct line between that tax and higher fuel prices. Indeed, that’s the point. The theory is that once you know using more carbon-rich fuels costs you more, you’ll use less. It’s called harnessing the power of the market.

Think about that: instead of hiding the cost of fighting climate change in a maze of regulations, subsidies and tax breaks that are impossible for a non-expert to understand, the government made a deliberate decision to make a big chunk of those costs easy to see. It in effect trusted Canadians to understand that fighting climate change involves real costs and to accept that they have a part to play. To treat them as adults, in other words.

I call that admirable. Others may call it politically stupid. Quite likely, it’ll turn out to be both.

For a while, the government’s strategy worked. Inflation was almost non-existent and carbon pricing started off low. But once inflation bit and “affordability” became everyone’s No. 1 concern, the rising carbon price was hanging out there as an easy target for populist politicians. (Never mind that it accounts for just a tiny fraction of higher prices.)

Dumping the consumer carbon tax implies one of two things. Either a Conservative government will give up any serious attempt to fight climate change or it will rely even more heavily on those subsidies, regulations and tax gimmicks that hide the cost from voters. Ironically, though, they’re less efficient than carbon pricing and will impose higher costs overall on the economy.

Either way, it will be the end of trusting voters with the truth. Maybe they don’t want it after all.

Instead of hiding the cost of fighting climate change in a maze of regulations, subsidies and tax breaks, the Trudeau government made a big chunk of those costs easy to see, effectively treating Canadians like adults

This editorial was written and published by the Toronto Star on March 15, 2024.

It would be surprising if Premier Doug Ford and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre or members of their respective entourages had not remarked during recent travels over snow-free highways around Ontario on how mild the winter has been.

Shovels and snow tires have scarcely been needed. Backyard hockey rinks have been little more than boarded puddles. Young people have already broken out their shorts.

What’s perhaps more surprising, however, is that in their respective campaigns against carbon pricing, the two leaders do not seem to draw connections.

It speaks volumes about the short-sighted nature of our politics — and, if recent polls are accurate, of voters — that fulminations against measures meant to curb climate change draw enthusiastic applause even as the consequences of the changing climate are so utterly inescapable and worrisome.

Last week, Ford urged the federal government to cancel or put a hold on the carbon tax ahead of a planned increase. As of April 1, the price on carbon pollution is to increase by $15 a tonne, part of the federal plan to increase the cost each year until 2030 to fight climate change.

“The carbon tax is the worst tax ever put on a bunch of people,” Ford told reporters in an historically dubious declaration in Milton, Ont.

The premier warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that, if the federal government doesn’t relent in its battle against climate change, “the people of Canada are going to annihilate you when the election comes up. Simple as that.”

On Sunday, Poilievre held an “Axe-the-Tax” rally that drew thousands of supporters to the Toronto Congress Centre. He has said he will repeal the tax if elected. He’s made opposition to carbon pricing the key plank of his leadership and is now stepping up his political campaign against the looming price increase. As to his own party’s strategy to combat climate change, Poilievre has offered only vague talk of focusing on technology.

Meanwhile, as the Star’s Kate Allen reported, Environment Canada data shows this winter has been, by a wide margin, the warmest in the country’s records. The average temperature for December, January and February was more than five degrees warmer than historic norms — enough to “shock” said David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“These are numbers are just — wow,” he said.

Other than a brief frigid period in Western Canada, “there was no winter weather,” he said. “I mean it just didn’t come.”

The World Meteorological Organization said last week that 2023 was by far the warmest year on record on the planet. It attributed the phenomenon to El Niño, a natural cyclical climate pattern that turns up the global thermostat. But it noted too the implications of a warming planet that are unavoidable.

“Every month since June 2023 has set a new monthly temperature record — and 2023 was by far the warmest year on record. El Niño has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit,” says WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

Such a serious and increasing risk to the planet would surely mean that opponents of the federal government’s carbon pricing strategy were proposing a viable alternative, their own coherent plan to tackle climate change with effective measures to curb greenhouse gases. Instead, it’s all slogans and politicking. Leaders such as Ford, Poilievre and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe seem to be prospering by railing against doing anything about that threat.

It’s as if, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber wrote in The Enigma of Reason, a community of mice chose to live on its firm and unshakable belief that there were no cats.

Political leaders willing to urge their supporters to oppose measures addressing an existential threat such as climate change threaten us with the same end as those delusional mice.

This video was shown by CTV News on March 14, 2024.

Tom Mulcair thinks Trudeau has ‘drawn a line’ with the carbon tax

This video was shown by CTV News on March 14, 2024.

US climate chief hits out at ‘disinformation’ being used as tactic by special interests to delay action

This article was written by Fiona Harvey and was published in The Guardian on February 28, 2024.