justin-trudeau-christy-clark-carbon-price.jpg

B.C. In No Position to Stonewall on National Carbon Pricing Plan

By Matt Horne for the Pembina Institute.

With Canada’s first credible national climate change plan within reach, Tweet: Now’s not the time to be watering down core climate policies that would help reduce emissions http://bit.ly/2h7vSCX #bcpoli #cdnpolinow is not the time to be watering down core policies that would help reduce emissions. That’s why the federal government should reject Premier Christy Clark’s posturing on carbon pricing and stick to the pan-Canadian carbon price committed to in October.

The Premier has been arguing that cap-and-trade systems to cut carbon pollution in Ontario and Quebec won’t be as stringent as B.C.’s carbon tax, and as a result that B.C. shouldn’t need to increase the carbon tax in line with Trudeau’s plan.

When Prime Minister Trudeau announced the national carbon-pricing plan from the House of Commons, he provided provinces with an immense amount of flexibility to comply with the plan. Provinces can implement their own carbon pricing system, or they can allow the federal government to do so for them (as the Yukon plans to do). Provinces can choose between implementing a carbon tax, or implementing cap-and-trade. And, importantly, provinces retain full control over the use of all carbon pricing revenue levied in their jurisdiction.

B.C. has all of those same options.

It can choose to increase its carbon tax in line with, or ahead of, the federal price floor — an approach that would allow B.C. to have its carbon tax freeze run up to nine years. It could adopt a cap-and-trade system like Quebec with a cap at least as stringent as Canada’s 2030 target (30 per cent below 2005 levels). It could probably even go back to the hybrid model that the province originally envisioned — with a carbon tax applied to heating and transportation fuels and cap-and-trade applied to industry.

Instead of continuing to make flawed claims of its climate leadership, B.C. would be better served picking an approach that meets the national standard. B.C. has work left to do to get its own house in order: the province still doesn’t have a 2030 target despite year-old advice from the premier’s advisory panel to establish one.

And where B.C. does have targets, the picture isn’t good.

The province will miss its 2020 target by a wide margin because it has stalled on new actions since 2012, and there is a massive gap between its 2050 target and projections based on current policies.

When Prime Minister Trudeau announced the national carbon-pricing plan, our view was that the growing incentive to cut carbon pollution would be a big positive for the country from coast to coast to coast. It was also a clear fit with the climate and clean growth ambitions that the first ministers agreed to in the Vancouver Declaration.

Let’s make sure it stays that way by sticking to the plan.

Image: Christy Clark and Justin Trudeau. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

We’ve got big plans for 2024
Seeking out climate solutions, big and small. Investigating the influence of oil and gas lobbyists. Holding leaders accountable for protecting the natural world.

The Narwhal’s reporting team is busy unearthing important environmental stories you won’t read about anywhere else in Canada. And we’ll publish it all without corporate backers, ads or a paywall.

How? Because of the support of a tiny fraction of readers like you who make our independent, investigative journalism free for all to read.

Will you join more than 6,000 members helping us pull off critical reporting this year?
We’ve got big plans for 2024
Seeking out climate solutions, big and small. Investigating the influence of oil and gas lobbyists. Holding leaders accountable for protecting the natural world.

The Narwhal’s reporting team is busy unearthing important environmental stories you won’t read about anywhere else in Canada. And we’ll publish it all without corporate backers, ads or a paywall.

How? Because of the support of a tiny fraction of readers like you who make our independent, investigative journalism free for all to read.

Will you join more than 6,000 members helping us pull off critical reporting this year?

Manitoba funds mining exploration in threatened caribou habitat inside provincial park

Manitoba’s efforts to champion its critical mineral sector may be putting one of the province’s most iconic species at risk. During the Prospectors and Developers...

Continue reading

Recent Posts

Thousands of members make The Narwhal’s independent journalism possible. Will you help power our work in 2024?
Will you help power our journalism in 2024?
… which means our newsletter has become the most important way we connect with Narwhal readers like you. Will you join the nearly 90,000 subscribers getting a weekly dose of in-depth climate reporting?
A line chart in green font colour with the title "Our Facebook traffic has cratered." Chart shows about 750,000 users via Facebook in 2019, 1.2M users in 2020, 500,000 users in 2021, 250,000 users in 2022, 100,000 users in 2023.
… which means our newsletter has become the most important way we connect with Narwhal readers like you. Will you join the nearly 90,000 subscribers getting a weekly dose of in-depth climate reporting?
A line chart in green font colour with the title "Our Facebook traffic has cratered." Chart shows about 750,000 users via Facebook in 2019, 1.2M users in 2020, 500,000 users in 2021, 250,000 users in 2022, 100,000 users in 2023.
Overlay Image