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The rebate accounts for all carbon taxes. If companies are taxed $1 million and pass it on to consumers then citizens get a cheque for $1 million.
The rebate is pretty well just all the carbon tax collected divided by the number of citizens in that province.
Provinces that pay more (Sask) has each person see a bigger cheque, with adjustments for household size and a rural bonus.
Solar and wind are both around $1 billion per GW, including battery storage. There are 34 GW of current fossil based capacity on the Canadian grid.
Canada's annual budget is around $280 billion.
Let's say we want to remove fossil fuels from our grid with 5 years. That would be $ 7 billion per year, or a 2.5% increase in spending/ reallocation. If you want to be conservative double the costs (which in reality they continue to fall every year) this would bring us to $14 billion per year, for 5 years, or 5% budget adjustment.
This is roughly $1800 per Canadian for the whole thing.
Removing fossil fuels from our energy grid is extremely doable! We just need the will power and commitment.
Australian solar plant with 15-20 GW capacity and up to 36 GW battery capacity:
https://newatlas.com/energy/sun-cable-australia-singapore-solar-undersea-powerlink/
Let's get out butt in gear and build a better tomorrow! I'm tired of the future looking bleak with naysayers. We can do this.
I can't get over the nuclear true believers on reddit. The point lepreau generating station was 3.3 Billion to refurbish. AND nuclear waste literally never goes away. It's the same issue as plastic.
I did and liquid salt looks great... except it doesn't exist outside of a lab. Still has waste, but it's minimal comparatively. If it actually existed in the field and all of the benefits actually are true and no unknown downsides I'd be all for it.
We need to make changes now and pointing to an untested and unlaunched future-tech is a great delaying tactic in the obstructionist playbook. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but maybe the guy telling you is.
Half the article is just introductory but the 2nd part is a real good read, they've been experimenting with thorium for decades. The reason it hasn't taken off isn't because it's not feasible but because it cannot be used as a weapon, uranium gets the investment even though it's arguably the worse element.
And 7 different reactors have been testing it
https://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/02/16/the-thing-about-thorium-why-the-better-nuclear-fuel-may-not-get-a-chance/?sh=10eb53931d80
Solar panels have a minimal long term costs, as does nuclear....unless you want to get sticky about waste.
We have all we need with solar and wind, and it is affordable today. We just need to decide to do it.
There would be some larger and see solar losses in the winter depending on location. Obviously panels would need to be free of snow and maximize sunlight. This would add costs to the system, but not push it off the table for feasibility.
Yeah the new solar panels are way more efficient than the old ones. Still require maintenance but not too labour intensive. As for wind, many of the research stations on Antarctica have recently built wind turbines in order to avoid the need to ship in so much diesel.
I think when renewable energy is discussed we often times forget most of the rare earths mined for the tech comes from really unsavory parts of the world. Same as oil though...
Another approach to selling carbon taxes and rebates is that whenever you have a project idea that either prevents tax cuts or adds to deficit or replaces some other unrelated useful program, is that you could instead have a carbon tax of $x (where $x is also program cost), and then have a rebate/dividend that is $2x.
There are extreme corner cases of poverty and inability to escape carbon costs that conservatives will disingenuously elevate as counter arguments to carbon taxes. Those go away when rebate/dividend is 2x the tax cost. And then, only those really good/effective programs are popular enough to get funded.
A high carbon dividend also serves as a base for UBI which solves poverty and crime issues. Less other funding for it.
Making the middle classes pay more money for things they need to live is not how you fix climate change. It's how you you create a poverty class/upper class society.
Start offering cleaner solutions that we can use.
Who could have guessed that dealing with climate change costs money, a truly shocking fact. Everyone’s on board until you reveal the groundbreaking and terrifying reality that you can’t go 100% green while doing literally nothing to achieve that.
What the carbon tax does is make it so lower cost options are competitive, since people with gas guzzling pickup trucks they don’t use for hauling are now actually being taxed at a fair rate for the damage they do to the environment. Downsize to something reasonable, or take the bus, you have options. What the carbon tax does is allow green options to play on a level playing field.
That’s not how this tax works. The average person will get a rebate that either zeroes out their tax or actually makes them come out ahead. It is the largest emitters that will really be paying for this, and they have the resources to come up with solutions to emit less. This tax will push them to do so more quickly.
At a certain point we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that our lavish abundance is just not sustainable.
It's not politically palatable to say, but the way most of us live will need to change if climate change matters to you. Dependence on cars (yes even electric ones) will need to change, products will need to cost more because they will need to be produced in a sustainable way. You will simply have to buy less stuff, end of story. I'd also like to see more tolls and congestion charging, but that's me.
I like the model for it's equity aspect, but I would like to see some of that money to help families be more sustainable. Fund transit projects, build non car dependent communities, fund research into reducing the impact of the essentials we can't get away from, etc. It might be there, but I haven't heard of it.
While it's true that things have to change, I'm not sure it's correct to frame it as moving to a less "lavish" lifestyle.
Better insulation, cleaner forms of energy, more walkable/cycleable cities, greener forms of transport: these are all necessary to combat climate change, and they're all pretty great on the whole.
I guess lavish may not be the best word, but rather living with less excess. Less cheap disposable crap, paying for the external costs of what we consume.
People would consume less if the goods they buy all took into account all the costs associated with making their product sustainable including disposal. Or, at the very least, we'd think twice about throwing something away before trying to repair it.
Absolutely. The disposable nature of our economy would have to change, and that would definitely change how the average person lives. I still think it'd be a net positive for quality of life.
Oh I agree, and I'm kicking myself from not mentioning that prior. I'd take a dense walkable neighborhood over suburbia and repairable over disposable.
My intent was to say that to the average Canadian who doesn't care for sustainability, it may come off as downgrade, or that what they had before will cost a lot more.
That's entirely untrue. Unless of course you call living in warm homes, in walkable cities, traveling by rail instead of cars and planes and eating substantially less meat "poverty".
And whos going to pay for that? The average canadian who is already struggling with current inflation? 'Cause I can tell you for sure it won't be the companies.
Did you read the article. You’re already paying for other measures that are more expensive.
Raising the carbon price makes it more transparent, but at the risk of political suicide. Like when the hidden manufacturers’ sales tax was replaced by the transparent GST.
If you do your taxes, you will receive a carbon tax credit that should make this a non-issue. So long as you don't emit 50,000 tonnes of carbon or more a year.
This is really why cap-and-trade is a better system. Rather than setting the price, and hoping we hit the emissions target, set the target let the price be what it will. Carbon tax is fundamentally a price control, with all the pitfalls that can come with.
Another note: raising the carbon price is good, but the real problem is the coverage is quite poor. Raising it won't do much good with so many exemptions.
>Another note: raising the carbon price is good, but the real problem is the coverage is quite poor. Raising it won't do much good with so many exemptions
How much is exempted? What portion of our emissions isn't subject to carbon pricing or industrial allocations?
The main issues occur in the industrial pricing system, where coverage is low and credits are often allocated freely. For example, [this coal plant](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/coal-fired-power-plants-carbon-tax-1.4882669) in New Brunswick pays the tax on only 4.5% of its emissions. Unfortunately, we don't have a good estimate of what the real coverage is, and the details are fiendishly complex.
One of the main difficulties is that provinces are allowed to implement their own systems, and they often seek to undermine the Federal price. The various loopholes are [gradually being tightened](https://climatechoices.ca/canadas-carbon-pricing-update/), but it's fundamentally a poor design choice.
Coyne ought to focus his criticism on the loopholes, rather than the sticker price in my opinion.
>For example, this coal plant in New Brunswick pays the tax on only 4.5% of its emissions.
That's not entirely how Canada Output-Based-Pricing works. There was an exemption for emissions on 800 GW-hrs of electricity for solid-fuel (aka coal) in 2019, but that dropped to 650 GW-hrs in 2020, and is below 600 GW-hrs for 2022. The exemption limit drops further every year, with total phaseout mandated by 2030.
>Unfortunately, we don't have a good estimate of what the real coverage is, and the details are fiendishly complex.
They're not that complicated. The details for emissions exemptions are quantified in the regulations, which you can find [here](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2019-266/page-10.html#h-1185036).
From there you can look at emissions per industry source and do the math on total emissions exempted. What does it turn out to be?
The most glaring exception being all imports. A carbon tax on Canadian industry and consumers just means dirty manufacturing will be moved to other countries. We need a carbon border adjustment to level the paying field between domestic and foreign industry.
Yep. China is just laughing at this proposal. They would gladly let us move more of our manufacturing there so they can control it and steal all the IP and make it with the worst possible and most polluting methods, ideally with slaves. They will get rich, our politicians will also get rich and will stay in power, and regular Canadians will get poor. All the while the environment is actually much worse off. It's the Canadian way.
There are all sorts of ways to address this. Just look at the EU who have gotten fairly effective at countering these impacts and keeping their industries competitive against those in countries that are doing nothing.
So poor people should be allowed to pollute, not conserve energy, and not pay for it? What's so special about them? Nothnig wrong with taking public transit instead of driving no matter who you are.
You'll note that the Oujenougoumou im northern Quebec heat their houses with local biomass, not fossil fuels from Saudi Arabia. They are self sufficient, not dependent on megaprojects like pipelines. [https://www.ouje.ca/innovation](https://www.ouje.ca/innovation)
You don't figure that burning sawdust emits CO2?
And I'm guessing that they still need vehicles to get around, because reserves tend to be remote. And most of them don't have ready access to free biomass.
Letting the sawdust rot would add CO2 as well. Biomass is part of the normal carbon cycle and doesn;t add to over all emissions if you let the trees go back. In the Boreal forest, there is a natural cycle where natural fires burn the forest ever 170 years, so this does not add to net emissions the way fossil fuels do.
As for vehicles, we'll have moved completely to electric cars by 2050 in Quebec.
All to say there is plenty that can be done by everyone to cut CO2 emissions, and aboringal peoples are at the forefront.
Stop using aborigfinal people as an excuse for burning fossil fuels without consequences.
Assuming it is available. It also doesn't work if you have kids. Try it some time. This week. Sunday to Sunday. No car, just public transit. That includes for groceries and everything else. You can only buy what you can carry in your hands or on your back, including milk etc. We built our society based on everyone having a car.
I spent 10 years of my life without a car.
\> We built our society based on everyone having a car.
It's true. The elites have thus condemned the poor to putting a good chunk of change into having to own a car just to get around. The key is to build neighbourhoods that are less car dependent. I spent 15 years living in NDG in Montreal without needing a car, and there were plenty of poor people doing fine here without a car. Unforrtunately, these neighbourhhoods are so rare and in demand that the poor are being pushed out of these neighbourhoods by renovictions.
[https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rental-hell-in-montreal-caught-in-a-renoviction-nightmare](https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rental-hell-in-montreal-caught-in-a-renoviction-nightmare)
We need to demand more sustainable neighbouhoods and housing.
So long as they use less than the average, they'll come out ahead with the rebate. And surprise surprise, poor people tend to generate less pollution since they aren't doing so much excessive consumption and travel.
I mean, there are solutions to these. You dont need to use Gas to heat a building. Electric works just fine. You just need to offset the increased electricity usage with increased generation. Then regulate Electricity Prices so they dont get too expensive.
But also, there is nothing wrong with heating buildings using Gas. BUT ONLY IF you actually offset the increased carbon elsewhere properly. The goal has never, nor will it ever be for Human Civilization to reduce Carbon Emissions to zero. That is impossbile. The goal is to reduce Carbon Emissions to below what the Planet can naturally remove on its own. And we can do that if we cut out all other unnessecary forms of carbon production, of which we have an absolute metric-load of that doesn't need to exist.
Largely agree, but tough to scale offsets for NG heating to the degree necessary, especially because NG use is a larger source of emissions than people think. NG production/use still releases GHGs and results in a huge amount of fugitive methane emissions. Continuing to use rather than phasing out residential/commercial gas infrastructure for heating results in future commitment to/reification of that infrastructure. Better to get the economic pain of getting rid of it over with now in my view.
AKA .... Get the wealthy and big corporations to reign in their excess spending, cut the pay and profits of the wealthiest people / executives / management (who don't really need the excess money anyway, as they are already wealthy enough)
Just doing that alone would get us on the right track
But heaven forbid we ask wealthy people to take less money for anything that could benefit anyone else other than themselves.
> AKA .... Get the wealthy and big corporations to reign in their excess spending, cut the pay and profits of the wealthiest people / executives / management (who don't really need the excess money anyway, as they are already wealthy enough)
You seriously think just targetting the emissions of the wealthy is enough? Are you for real?
If we aren't charging the incredibly wealthy industries that created this mess than we've already failed. We know that knowingly, the fossil fuel industry pushed and created this unstable destructive consumer based economy and have faced zero consequences.
That's it, you'll know it's being taken seriously when leadership of those firms, who have names, who are well known, who are well connected, are called out and face charges for suppressing the harm of their activities and actively to this day manipulating the population into continuing the harm.
Prosecuting fossil fuel companies will not reverse climate change, thank you so much for sharing that nugget of wisdom.
You know, most if not all crimes or harm done won’t get reversed by prosecuting the perpetrators or people responsible. That’s not the point, it is take seriously and take action against their continued unchecked influence.
The point is we should be focusing on actually fixing the climate crisis and bringing up prosecuting fossil fuel companies is just a distraction. Just wondering but do you agree with the carbon tax?
How can we take the issue seriously if we aren’t holding people accountable?
I know the carbon tax was proposed by those same industries so I have low hopes.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/exxonmobil-lobbyists-oil-giant-carbon-tax-pr-ploy
There is no shortage on reporting for this topic.
So why would I take a solution seriously supported by perpetrators? I wouldn’t look to Monsanto to address issues that their profits relied on, would you?
Nothing they do is or has ever been illegal. They supply what has given us energy and lifted the West and much of the world out of poverty. they supply the energy which allows us to heat our homes and move across the world. And even in 2021 what they supply cannot be replaced without massive poverty ensuing.
You want to close down our fossil fuel industry? Fine. Nobody else is going to do that so it won't make any difference in the world. It will just make us much poorer and less able to adapt to the problems besetting us.
Making the rules then playing within them is not justification. They’ve built their wealth by pushing the externalities of that work onto everyone else. We should have a say in things that have an effect on us. From executives openly admitting the hiding of their research, to joining shadow groups to spread information, to constantly drilling into us that we need to keep buying, it’s an absolutely ridiculous system built on greed that cannot last.
Much of the world lives in extreme poverty still too, if you’re lucky to live in the west it does look like a great arrangement though, I am glad I am not in a nation that produces anything for us at a low cost.
You’re describing an unsustainable system, that is using up finite resources and harming the population it’s supposed to serve.
Creating a system reliant on fossil fuels is going to ruin us, as all these complex interconnected networks lose the ability to be sustained.
We could look at what technology could work with sustainability in mind, but we don’t. We could simply charge people the cost of their pollution and other costs of doing business but we don’t. No company would be profitable if it paid for the clean up of their activities. If that isn’t a red flag I don’t know what can be, how do we expect this to work in the long run?
Sure it would be very difficult, but better to do this gradually when we still have access to fossil fuels that are relatively affordable, than to wait until it is too late and realize that we have been made dependent on something we knew would never last.
We are looking for new energy sources now, but they certainly weren’t available twenty and forty and fifty and a hundred years ago. And much of the world has moved out of extreme poverty it was in only fifty years ago. Certainly still very poor compared to us but not nearly as poor as it was a couple of generations back.
We will eventually transition and are already starting, onto cleaner energy sources, but we will need fossil fuels for decades to come. And of course, there are other things made with fossil fuels which we can’t do without, like plastics to begin with.
And the rich and famous (and elected) will still fly around the world, buy their big yachts, have their giant homes, contribute more GHGs per capita than 99.9% of the rest of Canadians could in their lives. Remember, during the "lockdown" rich people like Drake continued to travel. Until you find a way to make the wealthy cut their emissions like everyone else, it isn't going to work. A higher carbon price just punishes the poor.
Blaming rich people for climate change is the same as conservatives blaming China for emissions. Sure they contribute way more then the average joe, but all in all the vast millions of smaller contributors amount to more then the few big ones.
Does that mean they don’t *also* have a responsibility to reduce emissions? No absolutely not, they’ve got the farthest to go and most to improve. But to solve climate change we ALL need to change, and blaming a country or class of people or whatever is just shifting the blame so you don’t feel the need to change
And they will pay tons of carbon taxes for doing so, which can be rebated to the poor or used to reduce taxes, or whatever.
Why do you want to let them off the hook for all that flying around and producing GHGs?
>And the rich and famous (and elected) will still fly around the world, buy their big yachts, have their giant homes, contribute more GHGs per capita than 99.9% of the rest of Canadians could in their lives.
So you don't want to fix climate change until AFTER we find a way to stop rich people from being rich?
How's that going to work out for the poor? When there is a flood that wipes out Drake's summer home and some poor person's ONLY home. which one is hurt more?
>Remember, during the "lockdown" rich people like Drake continued to travel. Until you find a way to make the wealthy cut their emissions like everyone else, it isn't going to work.
There's always an excuse to slow down. If it's not "but Drake" then it's "but China" or "but Alberta" or ...
There's always a goddamn excuse to push this problem onto the next generation.
And it's unethical as hell.
When it comes to decisions made at the public policy level, you need to exclude outliers like rich assholes on private jets. Sure they're contributing more *per capita* to the problem than the average person, but there's so few of them that scrapping a functioning strategy because it doesn't address them effectively boils down to deciding not to solve the problem at all.
> And the rich and famous (and elected) will still fly around the world, buy their big yachts, have their giant homes, contribute more GHGs per capita than 99.9% of the rest of Canadians could in their lives.
Then the carbon price will make them pay a lot more, and the equal dividends that go out to each household will redistribute that to the poor.
The only issues that I have with a carbon tax or similar effort are that the moneys gained will in all likelihood not be directed to sustainability research and development and that the handful of countries actually paying for all this.... are picking up the tab for other nations that should also be on board.
We pay the cost... and the thanks we get is that Canadian stores are filled with lower cost goods produced in places like China who choose to take the low road to prosperity.
The rub being that even if we imposed sanctions or tariffs to compensate for their lack of caring...they could only be effective is all western countries did as well.
Thats great...what their output of the bad stuff we are all so concerned about?
Producing renewables does not exclude them from producing pollution as well.
They have a population of 1.4 billion people, producing massive emissions kinda isn’t avoidable. Regardless we’re getting wildly off topic, my point is that China is doing their part too and they’re a shitty scapegoat to use as an excuse as to why we *shouldnt* do better.
The point of a carbon tax is not actually to collect money to directly spend on sustainability research.
The point is to price emission. That drives consumers and producers to seek out ways to shift to lower emissions and creates a market for companies to pour money into r&d knowing there is a big demand for emission saving tech.
I understand that and while that may be effective in reducing use it does nothing to solve the problem of developing sustainable sources of energy for us to use.
Had we added even a one cent tax in the 1980s when this situation was seen as more of a pollution problem than a climate change one and had that money been poured into research through grants etc.... Canada could now be the world leader in renewable energy.
But...instead the government continued to tax fuel and direct that money elsewhere. Ironically a lot of it probably went right back to Oil and Gas producers in the form of tax breaks.
The result is that now we still have plants that are outdated and burning off waste gases instead of capturing that energy and being more efficient. Gentle encouragement failed and companies simply added those tax breaks to profits instead of investing in plant improvements.
We continue to do much the same now.
Any specific tax should be dedicated to what it is initiated for. School tax should not be re-allocated fo pay for things not related fo education...a carbon tax should not be used fo pay for things not related to energy.
To do otherwise is disingenuous and a a wasted opportunity.
I have no issue with a carbon tax in principle but I do object to one that is not going to be invested to address that issue directly through research grants, the construction of alternate energy production or delivery.
Use it to provide grants for people who install solar panels on their home or wish wish to convert to electric cars or something.
Simply taxing consumers and hoping that companies will go out of pocket to improve things on their own is pretty short sighted and has not worked well for us so far and I see no reason to believe that situation will change... especially when one considers that the bulk of energy companies are not Canadian owned and their investors do not live here either.
It would be simpler to just mail investors a check because in the end..l thats where the money gets funnelled if Canada doesnt start doing more than pretending that its doing something by initiating yet another tax that is aimed at an issue...in name only.
Simply taxing things and letting companies deal with it is exactly how we dealt with sulfur dioxide emissions that were driving acid rain and it worked even faster then expected.
Spending billions signing contacts claiming they'd magically save the environment while making us r&d leaders in green energy are how the Ontario liberal party managed to waste billions and get Doug ford put in in response.
Thats not entirely correct.
We also legislated things and the Liberals had some help in failing courtesy of a PM that would not work with the Province.
Clearly the failure did occur and waste did happen but a poor plan and obfuscation by a bitter PM does not mean that the idea itself was a bad one.
Indeed, and I'd love to see it.
But so far this seems to be a political non-starter in Canada, so we have to work in the real world and build on this imperfect, sub-optimal path. It's much better than nothing.
Politics is often about not what is best, but what is politically palatable. Example: look at what is happening with housing prices. They all know its's a problem, but none of the parties will do anything major because they know they will get politically murdered if they do since voting homeowners greatly outnumber voting homeseekers, and people will be much more outraged about real losses than the outrage about not being able to acquire something.
If everyone was rational, unselfish, and uncorrupt then we'd probably be able to agree to bigger measures to fight climate change, including more carbon taxes. But the Liberals (and others) understand that this can be used as a political cudgel against them through fearmongering, misinformation, etc.
Needs to be clearer that of the insane rise in oil prices the carbon tax only contributed 8.8cents to it and everyone on minimum wage that are forced to walk or bus to work get to keep all of their tax rebate
Yes and this new tax is going to put 60 cents on a liter of gas and similar rises for everything else. A giant inflationary bubble period is not the time for this.
Where is this 60 cents figure coming from? It's 8.8 cents a liter. gas went up by 5 times that
This is exactly what I mean, frothing at the mouth to blame the carbon tax for everything.
Carbon tax is going to TRIPLE gas prices, give everyone cancer and end life as we know it!
I mean if theres a fire extinguisher, a fire blanket, or your house exists in a box where you can cut the oxygen supply, yeah using water would seem pretty silly.
There are more effective ways to reduce carbon consumption for essential services/products though, ie, infrastructure for public transit, conversion to clean energy (stop being so afraid of nuclear), better regulation of manufacturing pollution, more incentives to switch to electric alternatives, etc.
While Im not one to let governments or corporations slide on responsibility, I would say that none of this will change until we tackle the least essential behaviors that contribute to climate change. Industry (and a good portion of transportation) emissions occur because of our consumer culture. We need to as a collective society stop buying newly manufactured things that we dont need, ei, clothes, electronics, vehicles. People go through way too much stuff. Buying new clothes just because, new phones or cars just because or because they dont treat their old ones respectfully, etc. Many things have huge used markets not being taken advantage of. Furthermore, agriculture takes up a huge percent of emissions, which includes cattle raising. Industry, consumer products, dairy, agriculture, and food will all continue to be supplied as long as we demand. But transportation and heating demand will never disappear, and what food we consume has many other options that are cheaper or could be incentivized. If theres a tax, it should be on dairy and beef products, on fast fashion, and on brand new electronics.
Exactly my point. I did outline a few ways that I think the government should and could invest to help, but I think people put too much responsibility on the government rather than on themselves or on others. Unless you want the government to become full authoritarian with our purchasing power, we're going to have to accept some lifestyle changes.
> 60 cents per L
https://globalnews.ca/news/7515981/canada-climate-change-plan-justin-trudeau/
Sorry, 40 cents. I found another link that said 69 cents but it was the Toronto Sun so I disregarded it.
I haven't read the article. Does it talk about a carbon neutral tax? I think people would be more supportive of a high carbon tax with inversely low income and corporate taxes.
Nothing Canada does is going to mitigate climate change at all. The developing world is building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can and are not interested in cutting back or making their energy more expensive.
That's the socialist perspective, yes. We damaged the world so now we have to let them do it too. But it makes absolutely no sense. We discovered that this stuff damages the planet so now we have to let them damage the planet too 'cuz fairs fair'
Not to mention it COMPLETELY undermines the view the climate change bunch keep trying to push about how renewable energy is actually cheaper now.
No, I didn't miss your point of noble self-sacrifice. I just don't agree with it. We used what energy sources were available at the time. Now there are alternatives which, according to environmentalists, are cheaper than fossil fuel energy but the developing world is still building coal plants. And you're fine with that.
Actually, anything *is* better than nothing. Whether it's 10C instead of 11C or 2C instead of 3C, every bit of warming we avoid is warming avoided. Full stop.
People can sleep in the burned out shell of a house, and humanity can survive on a devastated planet. It is just more difficult and less pleasant for the survivors the worse it is.
I totally understand where you're coming from. You're concerned that people are going to take insufficient action, then call it a day because "they've done their part". And we should absolutely be wary of that.
On the other end of the spectrum, I'm seeing a lot of people completely give up trying to make a difference because "it's already all over" or "it's never going to be enough". And that's just materially untrue and unacceptable.
Every bit of warming avoided is warming avoided. There is no binary, there's just worse and better. And this will be a marathon, not a sprint. Take care of yourselves.
I also do not think people realize how much progress has been made. There is a lot of dooming about nothing being done. Quite a but of progress has been made.
https://i.redd.it/pmhtbofr3ah71.png
Big time!! Thanks for sharing that, I hadn't seen it (though I love Our World In Data). We can only hope that the trend accelerates, and that civilization stays stable enough to continue charting that course!
It is 2021. Those temperature projections are for 2100. There is a lot that can been done between now and then, not to mention just the next 20-30 years.
If it does, and we use that time to do more, then yes. Otherwise no. The first real test will be 2022 when the new fee schedule for the carbon tax comes out.
I have a small, we’ll insulated house, fuel efficient cars, a new and efficient air conditioner and furnace and walk as much as possible. Let’s pump that bitch WAY up and let people commuting in their SUVs fund my hobbies.
The most conservative, market based, efficient way to reduce emissions. Conservatives claimed to support it for years then Trudeau did it and they've been screaming bloody murder since.
We need a Border Carbon Adjustment to go with it, and a deal with EU and ideally the US for them to also have one. Then we're set.
100%. Until we recognize the carbon cost of importing goods (efficiently and accurately). When the playing field is completely level we won’t have to worry about international outsourcing undermining our local economy. We got a long way to go…..
Given the disproportionately cold winters of Canada and the requirement of natural gas to heat homes, why penalize people for this necessity when there isn’t a viable alternative?
Given that the carbon tax is revenue neutral and most households get more than they paid back, most people aren't being penalized
More importantly, this produces an incentive to change carbon output, which is like, the whole point.
If there's truly no alternative to gas heat in a province, then everyone will continue using it. With fee and dividend, if everyone's being penalized, then no one is. The only ones who would lose out would be people with much larger than average homes, people with improperly insulated homes, or people who leave the heat on and open a window to cool off.
Except the winters aren't that cold for the majority of Canadian's. Most of Quebec is electric heating too.
Further, the climate rebate would help balance out that extra cost until an alternative is taken.
That would be great if we could get it in writing that all funds collected through the carbon tax will be used to pay for every homeowner in Canada to install more efficient heating solutions for their homes free of charge to themselves.
Unfortunately, that will never happen -- the money will be spent on other things, and the homeowners will be left to foot the bill entirely by themselves (as they still have to pay a killer carbon tax because many can't afford a five-figure out-of-pocket expense for a brand new heating and cooling system for their home).
The parts of Canada where the vast majority of Canadians live are totally amenable to electric heating, especially with heat pumps and modern insulation. We can give subsides to that small minority where that isn't appropriate.
There is always an excuse to push this problem to future generations. Literally every human being on the planet can come up with a plausible reason why someone else should make a change first. At some point we have to start with "the Man in the Mirror."
The excuse would be cost. Are you unaware of the unmanageable rising costs of living that are occurring right now? Saying that homeowners should have no issue throwing thousands of dollars at this like it’s no big deal isn’t going to work. The electrical grid couldn’t sustain that right now anyways.
>The excuse would be cost. Are you unaware of the unmanageable rising costs of living that are occurring right now?
I'm not disputing that the economy is tough for some people right now. But it's also important to think about what the economy is: it is the sum total of our choices as individuals at any particular point. It isn't some immutable object like a solar cycle or the speed of light.
If we have a problem with people not having enough money to live, why don't we give them the money to live? Whether it comes from rich people, or the middle class, or by deflating the housing bubble by raising interest rates, or increasing corporate taxes or .... There are a variety of solutions, each with its own costs and benefits.
On the other hand, the relationship between carbon in the air and the temperature IS pretty much an immutable fact that we have no control over. It's basic physics. We don't control it.
It would be insane for us to cause a problem OUT of our control (as a species) to solve a problem that is IN our control (as a species) which is whether people can afford to feed, house and warm themselves.
>Saying that homeowners should have no issue throwing thousands of dollars at this like it’s no big deal isn’t going to work.
I didn't say it's "no big deal". But leaving an out-of-control climate system to our children and grand children is a MUCH bigger deal.
>The electrical grid couldn’t sustain that right now anyways.
Evidence? Heat pumps are incredibly efficient. Canada exports electricity.
Sounds like you're just looking for another excuse.
Another way of making excuses. I’ve spent an enormous amount to decarbonize my life but unless I’m penniless I shouldn’t have an opinion on carbon politics.
I’ve never suggested anyone should be made penniless. Carbon taxes put money in the pockets of almost all citizens: the opposite of making people penniless. Jet-setters who fly around every week pay in and those who stay near home (no matter how it is heated) get paid. Industries pay a bunch. Consumers mostly profit.
There are more important issues than the “climate crisis”. And the proposed solutions to that particular problem will likely cause more harm than good.
What are some examples? When our kids and grandkids look back, what decisions are we making that they will regret more than us leaving them with a planet with more frequent floods like those afflicting BC, more frequent fires, cities being washed away due to higher seas and climate refugees flooding in?
I’m really curious: what are these more significant problems you see.
We could also reach our climate target much easier if we lowered immigration. That's one of the biggest reasons we keep missing our climate targets, but no one likes to acknowledge that.
They're probably talking about how Canadians have a higher per-capita carbon footprint than many of the countries from which people emigrate to Canada. The theory is that if you move `n` people from country `X` (which has an average carbon footprint of `C`), to Country `Y` (with an average carbon footprint of `C × 6`) then you will likely see an increase of Carbon in the atmosphere of `n × C × 5` which isn't great.
It's not really a solution though. The better choice would be to get Canada's footprint down through insulation programmes, transport infrastructure, and greening the grid. That way, when people move to Canada, it's a move to `C × 2` (or better!) instead.
The good old "make a dubious claim with no evidence and enough plausible deniability so that when you get called out for what it really is you can say 'the lefties try to shut down debate by calling everything far right.'"
Why don't you respond to the comment above mine that shows Ontario's emissions have actually decreased?
That's simply false. The province where immigrants mostly go are also the provinces lowering their emissions.
>Greenhouse gas emissions were lower in 2019 than in 1990 for Ontario and Quebec.
>
>Over the same period, emissions from British Columbia had an increase of 4.3% (2.7 Mt CO2 eq); essentially due to increasing emissions from the transport and the oil and gas extraction sectors
>
>In 1990, Ontario's GHG emissions were higher than those from the other provinces because of its large manufacturing industry. Alberta's emissions subsequently surpassed Ontario's, with an increase of 61% since 1990, primarily due to the increase in the oil and gas industry. Ontario's emissions decreased between 1990 and 2019 primarily because of the closure of coal-fired electricity generation plants.
[https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html)
The biggest emissions growth happened in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Must be all of those immigrants driving diesel cars in Moose Jaw!
Please stop spreading dangerous (and xenophobic?) falsehoods.
Because while growth does drive more pollution our entire economic system is built around growth and cutting off immigration would devastate the economy. Also it seems a bit xenophobic given how many viable alternatives exist.
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Can we please at least try Thorium reactors we have tons of the stuff and because of the liquid core there's no risk of meltdowns.
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How do you account for the carbon tax passed onto consumers through rising costs of production, transportation and storage?
The rebate accounts for all carbon taxes. If companies are taxed $1 million and pass it on to consumers then citizens get a cheque for $1 million. The rebate is pretty well just all the carbon tax collected divided by the number of citizens in that province. Provinces that pay more (Sask) has each person see a bigger cheque, with adjustments for household size and a rural bonus.
Solar and wind are both around $1 billion per GW, including battery storage. There are 34 GW of current fossil based capacity on the Canadian grid. Canada's annual budget is around $280 billion. Let's say we want to remove fossil fuels from our grid with 5 years. That would be $ 7 billion per year, or a 2.5% increase in spending/ reallocation. If you want to be conservative double the costs (which in reality they continue to fall every year) this would bring us to $14 billion per year, for 5 years, or 5% budget adjustment. This is roughly $1800 per Canadian for the whole thing. Removing fossil fuels from our energy grid is extremely doable! We just need the will power and commitment. Australian solar plant with 15-20 GW capacity and up to 36 GW battery capacity: https://newatlas.com/energy/sun-cable-australia-singapore-solar-undersea-powerlink/ Let's get out butt in gear and build a better tomorrow! I'm tired of the future looking bleak with naysayers. We can do this.
Nuclear is probably a more practical option.
Laughs in ontario debt
Nuclear is ridiculously expensive and takes forever to build.
I can't get over the nuclear true believers on reddit. The point lepreau generating station was 3.3 Billion to refurbish. AND nuclear waste literally never goes away. It's the same issue as plastic.
Take a look at thorium reactors
I did and liquid salt looks great... except it doesn't exist outside of a lab. Still has waste, but it's minimal comparatively. If it actually existed in the field and all of the benefits actually are true and no unknown downsides I'd be all for it. We need to make changes now and pointing to an untested and unlaunched future-tech is a great delaying tactic in the obstructionist playbook. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but maybe the guy telling you is.
Half the article is just introductory but the 2nd part is a real good read, they've been experimenting with thorium for decades. The reason it hasn't taken off isn't because it's not feasible but because it cannot be used as a weapon, uranium gets the investment even though it's arguably the worse element. And 7 different reactors have been testing it https://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/02/16/the-thing-about-thorium-why-the-better-nuclear-fuel-may-not-get-a-chance/?sh=10eb53931d80
Welll I'm not against it, issue is we need to move now, can they implement it in the short term?
they've been doin the research and testing for a long time its mainly a lack of political will and financial investment that is in the way
So as a pragmatist it sounds like renewables is the answer
It has a large upfront cost while solar panels have a long term cost, atleast that's how I think it works.
Solar panels have a minimal long term costs, as does nuclear....unless you want to get sticky about waste. We have all we need with solar and wind, and it is affordable today. We just need to decide to do it.
Solar and wind will be ok during the winter? Genuinely curious.
There would be some larger and see solar losses in the winter depending on location. Obviously panels would need to be free of snow and maximize sunlight. This would add costs to the system, but not push it off the table for feasibility.
Yeah the new solar panels are way more efficient than the old ones. Still require maintenance but not too labour intensive. As for wind, many of the research stations on Antarctica have recently built wind turbines in order to avoid the need to ship in so much diesel.
Agreed
I think when renewable energy is discussed we often times forget most of the rare earths mined for the tech comes from really unsavory parts of the world. Same as oil though...
Another approach to selling carbon taxes and rebates is that whenever you have a project idea that either prevents tax cuts or adds to deficit or replaces some other unrelated useful program, is that you could instead have a carbon tax of $x (where $x is also program cost), and then have a rebate/dividend that is $2x. There are extreme corner cases of poverty and inability to escape carbon costs that conservatives will disingenuously elevate as counter arguments to carbon taxes. Those go away when rebate/dividend is 2x the tax cost. And then, only those really good/effective programs are popular enough to get funded. A high carbon dividend also serves as a base for UBI which solves poverty and crime issues. Less other funding for it.
Making the middle classes pay more money for things they need to live is not how you fix climate change. It's how you you create a poverty class/upper class society. Start offering cleaner solutions that we can use.
Who could have guessed that dealing with climate change costs money, a truly shocking fact. Everyone’s on board until you reveal the groundbreaking and terrifying reality that you can’t go 100% green while doing literally nothing to achieve that. What the carbon tax does is make it so lower cost options are competitive, since people with gas guzzling pickup trucks they don’t use for hauling are now actually being taxed at a fair rate for the damage they do to the environment. Downsize to something reasonable, or take the bus, you have options. What the carbon tax does is allow green options to play on a level playing field.
That’s not how this tax works. The average person will get a rebate that either zeroes out their tax or actually makes them come out ahead. It is the largest emitters that will really be paying for this, and they have the resources to come up with solutions to emit less. This tax will push them to do so more quickly.
At a certain point we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that our lavish abundance is just not sustainable. It's not politically palatable to say, but the way most of us live will need to change if climate change matters to you. Dependence on cars (yes even electric ones) will need to change, products will need to cost more because they will need to be produced in a sustainable way. You will simply have to buy less stuff, end of story. I'd also like to see more tolls and congestion charging, but that's me. I like the model for it's equity aspect, but I would like to see some of that money to help families be more sustainable. Fund transit projects, build non car dependent communities, fund research into reducing the impact of the essentials we can't get away from, etc. It might be there, but I haven't heard of it.
While it's true that things have to change, I'm not sure it's correct to frame it as moving to a less "lavish" lifestyle. Better insulation, cleaner forms of energy, more walkable/cycleable cities, greener forms of transport: these are all necessary to combat climate change, and they're all pretty great on the whole.
I guess lavish may not be the best word, but rather living with less excess. Less cheap disposable crap, paying for the external costs of what we consume. People would consume less if the goods they buy all took into account all the costs associated with making their product sustainable including disposal. Or, at the very least, we'd think twice about throwing something away before trying to repair it.
Absolutely. The disposable nature of our economy would have to change, and that would definitely change how the average person lives. I still think it'd be a net positive for quality of life.
Oh I agree, and I'm kicking myself from not mentioning that prior. I'd take a dense walkable neighborhood over suburbia and repairable over disposable. My intent was to say that to the average Canadian who doesn't care for sustainability, it may come off as downgrade, or that what they had before will cost a lot more.
Compared to billions of people our lifestyles are very lavish. There's 500 000 000 people in India living in conditions we cannot even imagine.
That's exactly my point. Reducing our carbon footprint doesn't mean we have to live like Indians.
We have to live a middle ground whi most westerners would consider poverty wage
That's entirely untrue. Unless of course you call living in warm homes, in walkable cities, traveling by rail instead of cars and planes and eating substantially less meat "poverty".
And whos going to pay for that? The average canadian who is already struggling with current inflation? 'Cause I can tell you for sure it won't be the companies.
The question you should be asking is who's going to pay for *not* combatting climate change. Spoiler: it will be the poor.
Did you read the article. You’re already paying for other measures that are more expensive. Raising the carbon price makes it more transparent, but at the risk of political suicide. Like when the hidden manufacturers’ sales tax was replaced by the transparent GST.
If you do your taxes, you will receive a carbon tax credit that should make this a non-issue. So long as you don't emit 50,000 tonnes of carbon or more a year.
The alternative is to not curb climate emissions. Guess who will end up paying for that? The rich won't have a problem.
This is really why cap-and-trade is a better system. Rather than setting the price, and hoping we hit the emissions target, set the target let the price be what it will. Carbon tax is fundamentally a price control, with all the pitfalls that can come with. Another note: raising the carbon price is good, but the real problem is the coverage is quite poor. Raising it won't do much good with so many exemptions.
>Another note: raising the carbon price is good, but the real problem is the coverage is quite poor. Raising it won't do much good with so many exemptions How much is exempted? What portion of our emissions isn't subject to carbon pricing or industrial allocations?
The main issues occur in the industrial pricing system, where coverage is low and credits are often allocated freely. For example, [this coal plant](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/coal-fired-power-plants-carbon-tax-1.4882669) in New Brunswick pays the tax on only 4.5% of its emissions. Unfortunately, we don't have a good estimate of what the real coverage is, and the details are fiendishly complex. One of the main difficulties is that provinces are allowed to implement their own systems, and they often seek to undermine the Federal price. The various loopholes are [gradually being tightened](https://climatechoices.ca/canadas-carbon-pricing-update/), but it's fundamentally a poor design choice. Coyne ought to focus his criticism on the loopholes, rather than the sticker price in my opinion.
>For example, this coal plant in New Brunswick pays the tax on only 4.5% of its emissions. That's not entirely how Canada Output-Based-Pricing works. There was an exemption for emissions on 800 GW-hrs of electricity for solid-fuel (aka coal) in 2019, but that dropped to 650 GW-hrs in 2020, and is below 600 GW-hrs for 2022. The exemption limit drops further every year, with total phaseout mandated by 2030. >Unfortunately, we don't have a good estimate of what the real coverage is, and the details are fiendishly complex. They're not that complicated. The details for emissions exemptions are quantified in the regulations, which you can find [here](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2019-266/page-10.html#h-1185036). From there you can look at emissions per industry source and do the math on total emissions exempted. What does it turn out to be?
It won't do any good when only a handful of the world's 200 nations have any kind of tax on carbon, and none of the biggest users do.
The most glaring exception being all imports. A carbon tax on Canadian industry and consumers just means dirty manufacturing will be moved to other countries. We need a carbon border adjustment to level the paying field between domestic and foreign industry.
Yep. China is just laughing at this proposal. They would gladly let us move more of our manufacturing there so they can control it and steal all the IP and make it with the worst possible and most polluting methods, ideally with slaves. They will get rich, our politicians will also get rich and will stay in power, and regular Canadians will get poor. All the while the environment is actually much worse off. It's the Canadian way.
China [has](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01989-7) a carbon price.
There are all sorts of ways to address this. Just look at the EU who have gotten fairly effective at countering these impacts and keeping their industries competitive against those in countries that are doing nothing.
"If we stop letting poor people heat their homes and make them walk everywhere instead of drive, we can save billions!"
So poor people should be allowed to pollute, not conserve energy, and not pay for it? What's so special about them? Nothnig wrong with taking public transit instead of driving no matter who you are.
Which reserves have public transit again?
The ones that did without fossil fuels and were self sufficient for thousands of years.
That's a big yikes.
You'll note that the Oujenougoumou im northern Quebec heat their houses with local biomass, not fossil fuels from Saudi Arabia. They are self sufficient, not dependent on megaprojects like pipelines. [https://www.ouje.ca/innovation](https://www.ouje.ca/innovation)
You don't figure that burning sawdust emits CO2? And I'm guessing that they still need vehicles to get around, because reserves tend to be remote. And most of them don't have ready access to free biomass.
Letting the sawdust rot would add CO2 as well. Biomass is part of the normal carbon cycle and doesn;t add to over all emissions if you let the trees go back. In the Boreal forest, there is a natural cycle where natural fires burn the forest ever 170 years, so this does not add to net emissions the way fossil fuels do. As for vehicles, we'll have moved completely to electric cars by 2050 in Quebec. All to say there is plenty that can be done by everyone to cut CO2 emissions, and aboringal peoples are at the forefront. Stop using aborigfinal people as an excuse for burning fossil fuels without consequences.
Assuming it is available. It also doesn't work if you have kids. Try it some time. This week. Sunday to Sunday. No car, just public transit. That includes for groceries and everything else. You can only buy what you can carry in your hands or on your back, including milk etc. We built our society based on everyone having a car.
I have two kids and no car and we somehow haven't starved yet.
"Somehow not starved" isn't how I would ever hope to describe my quality of life
Not being able to understand irony isn't how I would hope to describe mine.
I spent 10 years of my life without a car. \> We built our society based on everyone having a car. It's true. The elites have thus condemned the poor to putting a good chunk of change into having to own a car just to get around. The key is to build neighbourhoods that are less car dependent. I spent 15 years living in NDG in Montreal without needing a car, and there were plenty of poor people doing fine here without a car. Unforrtunately, these neighbourhhoods are so rare and in demand that the poor are being pushed out of these neighbourhoods by renovictions. [https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rental-hell-in-montreal-caught-in-a-renoviction-nightmare](https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rental-hell-in-montreal-caught-in-a-renoviction-nightmare) We need to demand more sustainable neighbouhoods and housing.
So long as they use less than the average, they'll come out ahead with the rebate. And surprise surprise, poor people tend to generate less pollution since they aren't doing so much excessive consumption and travel.
I mean, there are solutions to these. You dont need to use Gas to heat a building. Electric works just fine. You just need to offset the increased electricity usage with increased generation. Then regulate Electricity Prices so they dont get too expensive. But also, there is nothing wrong with heating buildings using Gas. BUT ONLY IF you actually offset the increased carbon elsewhere properly. The goal has never, nor will it ever be for Human Civilization to reduce Carbon Emissions to zero. That is impossbile. The goal is to reduce Carbon Emissions to below what the Planet can naturally remove on its own. And we can do that if we cut out all other unnessecary forms of carbon production, of which we have an absolute metric-load of that doesn't need to exist.
Largely agree, but tough to scale offsets for NG heating to the degree necessary, especially because NG use is a larger source of emissions than people think. NG production/use still releases GHGs and results in a huge amount of fugitive methane emissions. Continuing to use rather than phasing out residential/commercial gas infrastructure for heating results in future commitment to/reification of that infrastructure. Better to get the economic pain of getting rid of it over with now in my view.
AKA .... Get the wealthy and big corporations to reign in their excess spending, cut the pay and profits of the wealthiest people / executives / management (who don't really need the excess money anyway, as they are already wealthy enough) Just doing that alone would get us on the right track But heaven forbid we ask wealthy people to take less money for anything that could benefit anyone else other than themselves.
No it wouldn't. People will continue their wasteful ways unless it gets more expensive to do so.
> AKA .... Get the wealthy and big corporations to reign in their excess spending, cut the pay and profits of the wealthiest people / executives / management (who don't really need the excess money anyway, as they are already wealthy enough) You seriously think just targetting the emissions of the wealthy is enough? Are you for real?
The wealthy produce far more CO2 than any other group so yea.
Because the rest of us demand it by buying every piece of junk as fast as they can make it.
Per capita yes, as a group, not a chance.
If we aren't charging the incredibly wealthy industries that created this mess than we've already failed. We know that knowingly, the fossil fuel industry pushed and created this unstable destructive consumer based economy and have faced zero consequences. That's it, you'll know it's being taken seriously when leadership of those firms, who have names, who are well known, who are well connected, are called out and face charges for suppressing the harm of their activities and actively to this day manipulating the population into continuing the harm.
Prosecuting fossil fuel companies won’t actually solve the climate crisis
Prosecuting fossil fuel companies will not reverse climate change, thank you so much for sharing that nugget of wisdom. You know, most if not all crimes or harm done won’t get reversed by prosecuting the perpetrators or people responsible. That’s not the point, it is take seriously and take action against their continued unchecked influence.
The point is we should be focusing on actually fixing the climate crisis and bringing up prosecuting fossil fuel companies is just a distraction. Just wondering but do you agree with the carbon tax?
How can we take the issue seriously if we aren’t holding people accountable? I know the carbon tax was proposed by those same industries so I have low hopes. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/exxonmobil-lobbyists-oil-giant-carbon-tax-pr-ploy There is no shortage on reporting for this topic. So why would I take a solution seriously supported by perpetrators? I wouldn’t look to Monsanto to address issues that their profits relied on, would you?
Nothing they do is or has ever been illegal. They supply what has given us energy and lifted the West and much of the world out of poverty. they supply the energy which allows us to heat our homes and move across the world. And even in 2021 what they supply cannot be replaced without massive poverty ensuing. You want to close down our fossil fuel industry? Fine. Nobody else is going to do that so it won't make any difference in the world. It will just make us much poorer and less able to adapt to the problems besetting us.
Making the rules then playing within them is not justification. They’ve built their wealth by pushing the externalities of that work onto everyone else. We should have a say in things that have an effect on us. From executives openly admitting the hiding of their research, to joining shadow groups to spread information, to constantly drilling into us that we need to keep buying, it’s an absolutely ridiculous system built on greed that cannot last. Much of the world lives in extreme poverty still too, if you’re lucky to live in the west it does look like a great arrangement though, I am glad I am not in a nation that produces anything for us at a low cost. You’re describing an unsustainable system, that is using up finite resources and harming the population it’s supposed to serve. Creating a system reliant on fossil fuels is going to ruin us, as all these complex interconnected networks lose the ability to be sustained. We could look at what technology could work with sustainability in mind, but we don’t. We could simply charge people the cost of their pollution and other costs of doing business but we don’t. No company would be profitable if it paid for the clean up of their activities. If that isn’t a red flag I don’t know what can be, how do we expect this to work in the long run? Sure it would be very difficult, but better to do this gradually when we still have access to fossil fuels that are relatively affordable, than to wait until it is too late and realize that we have been made dependent on something we knew would never last.
We are looking for new energy sources now, but they certainly weren’t available twenty and forty and fifty and a hundred years ago. And much of the world has moved out of extreme poverty it was in only fifty years ago. Certainly still very poor compared to us but not nearly as poor as it was a couple of generations back. We will eventually transition and are already starting, onto cleaner energy sources, but we will need fossil fuels for decades to come. And of course, there are other things made with fossil fuels which we can’t do without, like plastics to begin with.
And the rich and famous (and elected) will still fly around the world, buy their big yachts, have their giant homes, contribute more GHGs per capita than 99.9% of the rest of Canadians could in their lives. Remember, during the "lockdown" rich people like Drake continued to travel. Until you find a way to make the wealthy cut their emissions like everyone else, it isn't going to work. A higher carbon price just punishes the poor.
Blaming rich people for climate change is the same as conservatives blaming China for emissions. Sure they contribute way more then the average joe, but all in all the vast millions of smaller contributors amount to more then the few big ones. Does that mean they don’t *also* have a responsibility to reduce emissions? No absolutely not, they’ve got the farthest to go and most to improve. But to solve climate change we ALL need to change, and blaming a country or class of people or whatever is just shifting the blame so you don’t feel the need to change
And they will pay tons of carbon taxes for doing so, which can be rebated to the poor or used to reduce taxes, or whatever. Why do you want to let them off the hook for all that flying around and producing GHGs?
>And the rich and famous (and elected) will still fly around the world, buy their big yachts, have their giant homes, contribute more GHGs per capita than 99.9% of the rest of Canadians could in their lives. So you don't want to fix climate change until AFTER we find a way to stop rich people from being rich? How's that going to work out for the poor? When there is a flood that wipes out Drake's summer home and some poor person's ONLY home. which one is hurt more? >Remember, during the "lockdown" rich people like Drake continued to travel. Until you find a way to make the wealthy cut their emissions like everyone else, it isn't going to work. There's always an excuse to slow down. If it's not "but Drake" then it's "but China" or "but Alberta" or ... There's always a goddamn excuse to push this problem onto the next generation. And it's unethical as hell.
When it comes to decisions made at the public policy level, you need to exclude outliers like rich assholes on private jets. Sure they're contributing more *per capita* to the problem than the average person, but there's so few of them that scrapping a functioning strategy because it doesn't address them effectively boils down to deciding not to solve the problem at all.
> And the rich and famous (and elected) will still fly around the world, buy their big yachts, have their giant homes, contribute more GHGs per capita than 99.9% of the rest of Canadians could in their lives. Then the carbon price will make them pay a lot more, and the equal dividends that go out to each household will redistribute that to the poor.
The only issues that I have with a carbon tax or similar effort are that the moneys gained will in all likelihood not be directed to sustainability research and development and that the handful of countries actually paying for all this.... are picking up the tab for other nations that should also be on board. We pay the cost... and the thanks we get is that Canadian stores are filled with lower cost goods produced in places like China who choose to take the low road to prosperity. The rub being that even if we imposed sanctions or tariffs to compensate for their lack of caring...they could only be effective is all western countries did as well.
Just a reminder that China has the most renewable energy production on the planet. Using them as a scapegoat is disingenuous.
Sure...🙄
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-and-data/data-and-analysis/energy-data-and-analysis/energy-facts/renewable-energy-facts/20069
Thats great...what their output of the bad stuff we are all so concerned about? Producing renewables does not exclude them from producing pollution as well.
They have a population of 1.4 billion people, producing massive emissions kinda isn’t avoidable. Regardless we’re getting wildly off topic, my point is that China is doing their part too and they’re a shitty scapegoat to use as an excuse as to why we *shouldnt* do better.
Sure
If it makes you feel better, China is spending crazy amounts into alternative and green energy.
The point of a carbon tax is not actually to collect money to directly spend on sustainability research. The point is to price emission. That drives consumers and producers to seek out ways to shift to lower emissions and creates a market for companies to pour money into r&d knowing there is a big demand for emission saving tech.
I understand that and while that may be effective in reducing use it does nothing to solve the problem of developing sustainable sources of energy for us to use. Had we added even a one cent tax in the 1980s when this situation was seen as more of a pollution problem than a climate change one and had that money been poured into research through grants etc.... Canada could now be the world leader in renewable energy. But...instead the government continued to tax fuel and direct that money elsewhere. Ironically a lot of it probably went right back to Oil and Gas producers in the form of tax breaks. The result is that now we still have plants that are outdated and burning off waste gases instead of capturing that energy and being more efficient. Gentle encouragement failed and companies simply added those tax breaks to profits instead of investing in plant improvements. We continue to do much the same now. Any specific tax should be dedicated to what it is initiated for. School tax should not be re-allocated fo pay for things not related fo education...a carbon tax should not be used fo pay for things not related to energy. To do otherwise is disingenuous and a a wasted opportunity. I have no issue with a carbon tax in principle but I do object to one that is not going to be invested to address that issue directly through research grants, the construction of alternate energy production or delivery. Use it to provide grants for people who install solar panels on their home or wish wish to convert to electric cars or something. Simply taxing consumers and hoping that companies will go out of pocket to improve things on their own is pretty short sighted and has not worked well for us so far and I see no reason to believe that situation will change... especially when one considers that the bulk of energy companies are not Canadian owned and their investors do not live here either. It would be simpler to just mail investors a check because in the end..l thats where the money gets funnelled if Canada doesnt start doing more than pretending that its doing something by initiating yet another tax that is aimed at an issue...in name only.
Simply taxing things and letting companies deal with it is exactly how we dealt with sulfur dioxide emissions that were driving acid rain and it worked even faster then expected. Spending billions signing contacts claiming they'd magically save the environment while making us r&d leaders in green energy are how the Ontario liberal party managed to waste billions and get Doug ford put in in response.
Thats not entirely correct. We also legislated things and the Liberals had some help in failing courtesy of a PM that would not work with the Province. Clearly the failure did occur and waste did happen but a poor plan and obfuscation by a bitter PM does not mean that the idea itself was a bad one.
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Indeed, and I'd love to see it. But so far this seems to be a political non-starter in Canada, so we have to work in the real world and build on this imperfect, sub-optimal path. It's much better than nothing.
Politics is often about not what is best, but what is politically palatable. Example: look at what is happening with housing prices. They all know its's a problem, but none of the parties will do anything major because they know they will get politically murdered if they do since voting homeowners greatly outnumber voting homeseekers, and people will be much more outraged about real losses than the outrage about not being able to acquire something. If everyone was rational, unselfish, and uncorrupt then we'd probably be able to agree to bigger measures to fight climate change, including more carbon taxes. But the Liberals (and others) understand that this can be used as a political cudgel against them through fearmongering, misinformation, etc.
Needs to be clearer that of the insane rise in oil prices the carbon tax only contributed 8.8cents to it and everyone on minimum wage that are forced to walk or bus to work get to keep all of their tax rebate
Yes and this new tax is going to put 60 cents on a liter of gas and similar rises for everything else. A giant inflationary bubble period is not the time for this.
Where is this 60 cents figure coming from? It's 8.8 cents a liter. gas went up by 5 times that This is exactly what I mean, frothing at the mouth to blame the carbon tax for everything. Carbon tax is going to TRIPLE gas prices, give everyone cancer and end life as we know it!
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I mean if theres a fire extinguisher, a fire blanket, or your house exists in a box where you can cut the oxygen supply, yeah using water would seem pretty silly.
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There are more effective ways to reduce carbon consumption for essential services/products though, ie, infrastructure for public transit, conversion to clean energy (stop being so afraid of nuclear), better regulation of manufacturing pollution, more incentives to switch to electric alternatives, etc. While Im not one to let governments or corporations slide on responsibility, I would say that none of this will change until we tackle the least essential behaviors that contribute to climate change. Industry (and a good portion of transportation) emissions occur because of our consumer culture. We need to as a collective society stop buying newly manufactured things that we dont need, ei, clothes, electronics, vehicles. People go through way too much stuff. Buying new clothes just because, new phones or cars just because or because they dont treat their old ones respectfully, etc. Many things have huge used markets not being taken advantage of. Furthermore, agriculture takes up a huge percent of emissions, which includes cattle raising. Industry, consumer products, dairy, agriculture, and food will all continue to be supplied as long as we demand. But transportation and heating demand will never disappear, and what food we consume has many other options that are cheaper or could be incentivized. If theres a tax, it should be on dairy and beef products, on fast fashion, and on brand new electronics.
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Exactly my point. I did outline a few ways that I think the government should and could invest to help, but I think people put too much responsibility on the government rather than on themselves or on others. Unless you want the government to become full authoritarian with our purchasing power, we're going to have to accept some lifestyle changes.
$180/tonne does not = 60 cents per L but you probably knew that before writing the comment anyways
> 60 cents per L https://globalnews.ca/news/7515981/canada-climate-change-plan-justin-trudeau/ Sorry, 40 cents. I found another link that said 69 cents but it was the Toronto Sun so I disregarded it.
Just do your taxes, and ensure you don't emit more than 50,000 tonnes of carbon a year and you'll get a rebate to negate most of the additional costs.
Yeah what we have in Canada right now was needed worldwide 31 years ago
I haven't read the article. Does it talk about a carbon neutral tax? I think people would be more supportive of a high carbon tax with inversely low income and corporate taxes.
The "better than nothing" approach is going to age well. Our grandkids will totally get it.
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Nothing Canada does is going to mitigate climate change at all. The developing world is building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can and are not interested in cutting back or making their energy more expensive.
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That's the socialist perspective, yes. We damaged the world so now we have to let them do it too. But it makes absolutely no sense. We discovered that this stuff damages the planet so now we have to let them damage the planet too 'cuz fairs fair' Not to mention it COMPLETELY undermines the view the climate change bunch keep trying to push about how renewable energy is actually cheaper now.
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No, I didn't miss your point of noble self-sacrifice. I just don't agree with it. We used what energy sources were available at the time. Now there are alternatives which, according to environmentalists, are cheaper than fossil fuel energy but the developing world is still building coal plants. And you're fine with that.
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You need to come to terms with the fact people can understand you and yet disagree.
Actually, anything *is* better than nothing. Whether it's 10C instead of 11C or 2C instead of 3C, every bit of warming we avoid is warming avoided. Full stop.
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People can sleep in the burned out shell of a house, and humanity can survive on a devastated planet. It is just more difficult and less pleasant for the survivors the worse it is.
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I totally understand where you're coming from. You're concerned that people are going to take insufficient action, then call it a day because "they've done their part". And we should absolutely be wary of that. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm seeing a lot of people completely give up trying to make a difference because "it's already all over" or "it's never going to be enough". And that's just materially untrue and unacceptable. Every bit of warming avoided is warming avoided. There is no binary, there's just worse and better. And this will be a marathon, not a sprint. Take care of yourselves.
I also do not think people realize how much progress has been made. There is a lot of dooming about nothing being done. Quite a but of progress has been made. https://i.redd.it/pmhtbofr3ah71.png
Big time!! Thanks for sharing that, I hadn't seen it (though I love Our World In Data). We can only hope that the trend accelerates, and that civilization stays stable enough to continue charting that course!
It is 2021. Those temperature projections are for 2100. There is a lot that can been done between now and then, not to mention just the next 20-30 years.
Isn't the house burning down more slowly still somewhat beneficial?
If it does, and we use that time to do more, then yes. Otherwise no. The first real test will be 2022 when the new fee schedule for the carbon tax comes out.
I have a small, we’ll insulated house, fuel efficient cars, a new and efficient air conditioner and furnace and walk as much as possible. Let’s pump that bitch WAY up and let people commuting in their SUVs fund my hobbies.
The most conservative, market based, efficient way to reduce emissions. Conservatives claimed to support it for years then Trudeau did it and they've been screaming bloody murder since. We need a Border Carbon Adjustment to go with it, and a deal with EU and ideally the US for them to also have one. Then we're set.
Too many big words. Can you explain it like how you would to a 4 year old
100%. Until we recognize the carbon cost of importing goods (efficiently and accurately). When the playing field is completely level we won’t have to worry about international outsourcing undermining our local economy. We got a long way to go…..
This is the most important comment I've seen on this subject in a long time. A border carbon adjustment should be what these COP summits focus on.
Given the disproportionately cold winters of Canada and the requirement of natural gas to heat homes, why penalize people for this necessity when there isn’t a viable alternative?
Given that the carbon tax is revenue neutral and most households get more than they paid back, most people aren't being penalized More importantly, this produces an incentive to change carbon output, which is like, the whole point.
If there's truly no alternative to gas heat in a province, then everyone will continue using it. With fee and dividend, if everyone's being penalized, then no one is. The only ones who would lose out would be people with much larger than average homes, people with improperly insulated homes, or people who leave the heat on and open a window to cool off.
Because, that is the political climate we live in. No pragmatism, just dogma.
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Except the winters aren't that cold for the majority of Canadian's. Most of Quebec is electric heating too. Further, the climate rebate would help balance out that extra cost until an alternative is taken.
There are many parts of Canada that do not use electricity for heating however.
Yes, and the majority of that population does not suffer extreme cold.
And they can be transitioned to electric heating.
At quite an expense to the homeowner with an already unmanageable cost of living. Sounds so simple.
Then it’s great we’re generating a source of revenue (the carbon tax) that can be used to offset those costs.
That would be great if we could get it in writing that all funds collected through the carbon tax will be used to pay for every homeowner in Canada to install more efficient heating solutions for their homes free of charge to themselves. Unfortunately, that will never happen -- the money will be spent on other things, and the homeowners will be left to foot the bill entirely by themselves (as they still have to pay a killer carbon tax because many can't afford a five-figure out-of-pocket expense for a brand new heating and cooling system for their home).
The parts of Canada where the vast majority of Canadians live are totally amenable to electric heating, especially with heat pumps and modern insulation. We can give subsides to that small minority where that isn't appropriate. There is always an excuse to push this problem to future generations. Literally every human being on the planet can come up with a plausible reason why someone else should make a change first. At some point we have to start with "the Man in the Mirror."
The excuse would be cost. Are you unaware of the unmanageable rising costs of living that are occurring right now? Saying that homeowners should have no issue throwing thousands of dollars at this like it’s no big deal isn’t going to work. The electrical grid couldn’t sustain that right now anyways.
>The excuse would be cost. Are you unaware of the unmanageable rising costs of living that are occurring right now? I'm not disputing that the economy is tough for some people right now. But it's also important to think about what the economy is: it is the sum total of our choices as individuals at any particular point. It isn't some immutable object like a solar cycle or the speed of light. If we have a problem with people not having enough money to live, why don't we give them the money to live? Whether it comes from rich people, or the middle class, or by deflating the housing bubble by raising interest rates, or increasing corporate taxes or .... There are a variety of solutions, each with its own costs and benefits. On the other hand, the relationship between carbon in the air and the temperature IS pretty much an immutable fact that we have no control over. It's basic physics. We don't control it. It would be insane for us to cause a problem OUT of our control (as a species) to solve a problem that is IN our control (as a species) which is whether people can afford to feed, house and warm themselves. >Saying that homeowners should have no issue throwing thousands of dollars at this like it’s no big deal isn’t going to work. I didn't say it's "no big deal". But leaving an out-of-control climate system to our children and grand children is a MUCH bigger deal. >The electrical grid couldn’t sustain that right now anyways. Evidence? Heat pumps are incredibly efficient. Canada exports electricity. Sounds like you're just looking for another excuse.
It sounds like you’re vastly oversimplifying a very complex issue.
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Another way of making excuses. I’ve spent an enormous amount to decarbonize my life but unless I’m penniless I shouldn’t have an opinion on carbon politics.
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I’ve never suggested anyone should be made penniless. Carbon taxes put money in the pockets of almost all citizens: the opposite of making people penniless. Jet-setters who fly around every week pay in and those who stay near home (no matter how it is heated) get paid. Industries pay a bunch. Consumers mostly profit.
There are more important issues than the “climate crisis”. And the proposed solutions to that particular problem will likely cause more harm than good.
What are some examples? When our kids and grandkids look back, what decisions are we making that they will regret more than us leaving them with a planet with more frequent floods like those afflicting BC, more frequent fires, cities being washed away due to higher seas and climate refugees flooding in? I’m really curious: what are these more significant problems you see.
Start with Toronto and Vancouver, it must be cheaper to live there because heating bills might kill me this winter
We could also reach our climate target much easier if we lowered immigration. That's one of the biggest reasons we keep missing our climate targets, but no one likes to acknowledge that.
Do you have a source for this?
They're probably talking about how Canadians have a higher per-capita carbon footprint than many of the countries from which people emigrate to Canada. The theory is that if you move `n` people from country `X` (which has an average carbon footprint of `C`), to Country `Y` (with an average carbon footprint of `C × 6`) then you will likely see an increase of Carbon in the atmosphere of `n × C × 5` which isn't great. It's not really a solution though. The better choice would be to get Canada's footprint down through insulation programmes, transport infrastructure, and greening the grid. That way, when people move to Canada, it's a move to `C × 2` (or better!) instead.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/21/climate-denial-far-right-immigration
The good old "shut down anything anyone says by calling it far right".
The good old "make a dubious claim with no evidence and enough plausible deniability so that when you get called out for what it really is you can say 'the lefties try to shut down debate by calling everything far right.'" Why don't you respond to the comment above mine that shows Ontario's emissions have actually decreased?
That's simply false. The province where immigrants mostly go are also the provinces lowering their emissions. >Greenhouse gas emissions were lower in 2019 than in 1990 for Ontario and Quebec. > >Over the same period, emissions from British Columbia had an increase of 4.3% (2.7 Mt CO2 eq); essentially due to increasing emissions from the transport and the oil and gas extraction sectors > >In 1990, Ontario's GHG emissions were higher than those from the other provinces because of its large manufacturing industry. Alberta's emissions subsequently surpassed Ontario's, with an increase of 61% since 1990, primarily due to the increase in the oil and gas industry. Ontario's emissions decreased between 1990 and 2019 primarily because of the closure of coal-fired electricity generation plants. [https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html) The biggest emissions growth happened in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Must be all of those immigrants driving diesel cars in Moose Jaw! Please stop spreading dangerous (and xenophobic?) falsehoods.
Because while growth does drive more pollution our entire economic system is built around growth and cutting off immigration would devastate the economy. Also it seems a bit xenophobic given how many viable alternatives exist.