Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs

https://business.financialpost.com/

Why are carbon taxes so unpopular? According to the latest World Bank report on carbon pricing, 23 countries have carbon taxes (another dozen jurisdictions have only emission trading systems like the one recently dropped by Ontario).

At least two jurisdictions— Australia and Washington State – have disbanded carbon tax proposals in recent years. Another carbon tax will see its death if Alberta’s Conservative party leader, Jason Kenney, has his way in 2019.

In contrast, 176 countries have targets for renewable energy and/or energy efficiency and 110 jurisdictions have feed-in tariffs. With relatively so few countries using carbon taxes, a new paper published in WIREs Climate Change asks why this is the case — a question to which Canadian politicians should also pay attention this coming election year.

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https://business.financialpost.com/

They used to say that when you find yourself in a hole you should stop digging, but there’s a new law of holes being written just for Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Elected recently to pull his province out of the fiscal crater it’s in after 15 years of Liberal rule, Ford is now being scolded for easing up on the spadework.

Ford is accused of sending a message that Ontario is “closed for business” because he’s cancelling government renewable-energy contracts and carbon-permit programs that businesses had invested in. But the alternative is not cancelling them, which would mean sinking Ontario further into the muck of the last government’s punishingly expensive climate-control agenda.

And if tearing up contracts for new wind farms and cancelling carbon permits leaves businesses nervous about making deals with government, so be it. Let them focus instead on building actual wealth in the private sector.

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https://www.thestar.com/

OTTAWA—The Trudeau government is scaling back its carbon tax plan over concerns about competitiveness, a move being hailed by Ontario’s environment minister as a welcome “climb-down” and decried by environmentalists as putting short-term economic interests ahead of the health of the planet.

Under the new plan, which Environment and Climate Change Canada quietly published online last Friday, Ottawa will deliver higher rebates to heavy emitters as part of a strategy to keep them competitive and to discourage them from relocating to places where regulations are less expensive.

Starting Jan. 1, 2019, Ottawa will tax companies $20 for every tonne of greenhouse gas they emit, a levy that will ramp up to $50 per tonne in 2022.

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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The federal government will drastically reduce the scope of its planned carbon tax to address competitiveness concerns as it prepares to replace Ontario’s cap-and-trade system with its own levy.

After a closed-door meeting with industry officials last week, Environment and Climate Change Canada issued new guidelines that lower the percentage of emissions on which large polluters will have to pay the carbon tax and offer bigger breaks for energy-intensive companies that face tough international competition. The guidelines will be imposed on every province that doesn’t meet the federal standard for carbon pricing.

Companies will try to pass along any costs of the carbon tax to consumers, but industry leaders say they may have to absorb it in competitive markets. The reduced tax means businesses will have fewer costs to pass along, face less competitive pressure and likely produce higher emissions.

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https://torontosun.com/

“Canada is responsible for just 1.5% of worldwide greenhouse
gases, including the oilsands. Even if we shut in all our oil,
other countries would pick up our market share, meaning we
can impoverish ourselves, but the same amount of oil will still
be burned, likely with even more emissions.

It is naïve to think stopping Energy East or Trans Mountain or
other pipelines and megaprojects will save the planet. All it
will do is beggar Canadian companies, cost Canadian jobs and
make it even harder for Canadian governments to balance their
books.”

With the new Ontario government of Premier Doug Ford announcing it will fight the federal Liberal government’s national carbon tax, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s flagship “green” initiative is in far more jeopardy than might be obvious.

Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Ian Brodie, has pronounced the carbon tax “politically dead,” while former Liberal whisperer Warren Kinsella tweeted the tax is “dead, pretty much.”

Prince Edward Island’s government also announced this month that it was out. And Newfoundland and Labrador is assumed to be exiting, too, since it had sent signals it would do whatever Ontario did.

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https://business.financialpost.com/

Opinion: Australian Liberals kept their ‘blood oath’ to axe carbon taxes — and they are still on target for emissions reductions

Canada’s carbon pricing lobby has plenty of frantic arguments for why Ontario Premier Doug Ford should abandon his plan to repeal the province’s cap-and-trade carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme. But unclutch those pearls, folks.

This carbon tax can be scrapped without causing political chaos, financial ruin or environmental devastation. Given international experience, legislating away a price on carbon dioxide shouldn’t even be considered a ground-breaking event. (Unless you consider Canadian politicians keeping their word to be a ground-breaking event.)

Premier Ford says his first piece of business when the Ontario legislature reconvenes will be to get rid of cap-and-trade. This won’t be a problem. Cap-and-trade was created by legislation and it can be eliminated in precisely the same way.

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https://nationalpost.com/

It’s hard to keep the flock under control if the high priests can’t be trusted

Jerry Brown was castigating the current resident of the White House the other day for his attitude towards climate change. “I don’t think President Trump has a fear of the Lord, the fear of the wrath of God, which leads one to more humility,” scolded Brown, who is in his final months as governor of California due to term limits. “And this is such a reckless disregard for the truth and for the existential consequences that can be unleashed.”

Brown famously trained as a Jesuit priest, so his theological hyperbole is entirely in character. But it also underlines an aspect of climate doctrine that threatens the very message he hopes to deliver.

Environmentalists long ago turned to faith as a recruitment tool. It was far easier and more effective than trying to explain the science, which was neither simple nor straightforward, is troubled by inconsistencies and challenged by dissidents in any case.

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https://nationalpost.com/

Every sane person is opposed to the pollution of the environment but there is no justification for the self-punitive nonsense of the Paris climate accord

It is 30 years this past week that Dr. James Hansen, then well into the first of more than three decades as head of the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)-Goddard Institute for Space Studies, testified to a U.S. Senate committee that the then-current heat wave in Washington was caused by the relationship between “the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

This was the starting gun of a mighty debate about the existence, cause and consequences of global warming.

Hansen was embraced by the environmental movement, from authentic scientists like David Suzuki to well-meaning faddists like the Prince of Wales, to cynical interlopers from the defeated international left grasping at anything to debunk and confound capitalism, like Naomi Klein, to complete charlatans like former U.S. vice-president Al Gore.

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http://torontosun.com/

As polling across Canada shows support for carbon pricing plummeting now that it’s a reality as opposed to an idea, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must be wondering what went wrong? Ditto Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Last year, with great, self-congratulatory fanfare, she imposed a cap and trade scheme, another name for a carbon tax, on Ontarians. That’s one reason she’s poised to lose her job in the province’s June 7 election, her Liberal government trailing both the Progressive Conservatives and NDP in the polls.

An Ipsos/Global poll released Monday found more than seven in 10 eligible Ontario voters — 72% — believe carbon taxes are just an excuse by government to grab more money from them, with 68% calling them mere symbolism.

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http://business.financialpost.com/

Canada’s charitable regime is in need of comprehensive review and reform

For more than a decade Vivian Krause, a Vancouver researcher and writer with more determination than the Winnipeg Jets, has been following and documenting the activities of charities that fund opposition to Canada’s oil industry.

Krause has dug into the corners of the so-called charitable activities of a collection of powerful political organizations, funded by U.S. foundations, whose objectives include, among other things, “shutting down” Canada’s oilsands.

Readers of this page will be familiar with Krause’s work. The Girl Who Played with Tax Data lists more than a dozen of her FP Comment reports going back to 2010. Others followed.

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