Tag Archives: Carbon Tax

Canada Road to Ruin Paved with Trudeau’s CO2 Intentions

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Bill Bewick explains in his National Post article Federal climate policy makes us poorer.  Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds and added images.

The clean fuel standard on top of an escalating carbon tax and onerous emissions
targets will make everything more expensive

Canada is in an affordability crisis. Despite the pain felt by Canadians every day at the till or the gas pump, the federal government’s passion for world-leading carbon taxes and regulations is driving up the cost of everything while making us collectively poorer.

Tax advocates say it is a small % of GDP. But it is still $10 Billion extracted from Canadian households.

Canada Day saw the Clean Fuel Standards (CFS) regulation come into effect. A week earlier they passed a “Sustainable Jobs Act” that seeks to help transition workers away from highly productive jobs in oil, gas and related industries despite growing global demand for these energy sources.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer projects that by 2030 the net CFS cost will be over $1,100 per household in Alberta and Saskatchewan. While it will add roughly 17 cents on a litre of fuel (in addition to the carbon tax, of course) most of the costs will be on Canadian businesses, which means less jobs, less tax revenue and higher prices, making life more expensive with less ability to pay for it.

The fact is the world will need oil for the next 20-30 years at least. Canada is the responsible, reliable supplier many in the world would already prefer to get their energy from. With Canadian oilsands producers aggressively pursuing net zero operations by 2050, there is no better place to get oil from.

The demand for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is booming globally. It should be vocally supported by anyone concerned with emissions since Canadian exports off our west coast would drive down the need for all the coal plants being built and planned in China and India. It also features an unprecedented level of Indigenous partnerships, offering an unparalleled opportunity for the economic self-sufficiency of countless communities.

Why would we “transition” these high-paying, unsubsidized jobs?
And transition them to what?

Well, the federal government seems to know that our oil and gas sector will have to shrink despite growing world demand. This is because in addition to steadily rising carbon taxes and the new CFS, they’ve arbitrarily demanded a 42 per cent reduction in emissions for the oil and gas sector in seven short years.

Requiring this drastic reduction by 2030 will force hasty and frantic changes as well as production cuts that will drive up energy prices for everyone while decreasing jobs and government revenues. That means more debt and more tax burden for Canadians, while hurting our economy and increasing our reliance on foreign oil.

An escalating carbon tax was supposed to let the economy decarbonize in an efficient way, but the federal government keeps piling on. This is crushing Canada’s competitiveness generally, especially after our American neighbours decided to go along with most of the rest of the world and not implement a carbon tax at all.

The fact that every manufacturer, farmer, trucker, and even commercial business owner on this side of the border has to pay these taxes on their fuel, heat, and power means everything is more expensive and will keep going up. Lower wages and job opportunities means we will be less and less able to afford it.

The government either says we must make these sacrifices for the planet, or that the green jobs they will transition to will be just as profitable and more sustainable. Their most recent example: the Volkswagen battery plant. There will be 3,000 jobs created, but the government will subsidize the plant with an estimated $13 billion. Does $4.3 million in taxpayer dollars per job sound sustainable to you?

As for our sacrifices saving the planet, carbon emissions are global. As Asia grows its economy, emissions are steadily rising. Canada can certainly “do its part” but other than massive LNG export to Asia, nothing we do with our declining 1.6 per cent share can meaningfully reduce overall global emissions.

There’s one more major federal policy being pursued that might be the most expensive of them all: the demand that every province’s electrical grid get to net zero by 2035. Canadian ratepayers spent billions to convert coal plants to gas and subsidize solar and wind projects. Now they are forcing us to get off natural gas entirely — a fuel source even the EU considers green.

Canadians care about reducing emissions and it is happening. Canadians also care about affordability. We need to demand our governments find a balance between the two. If Canada recalibrates our carbon policies to be part of the global parade instead of driving off an economic cliff, we can have both.

See Also Canada Budget Officer Quashes Climate Alarm

Claim: Australia is Opposing an International Shipping Carbon Tax Proposal

Carbon tax rubber stamp over tree icon isolated on white background

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

The Sydney Morning Herald has accused Australia of siding with Russia, China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia to sink a Pacific Islands proposal for a $100 / ton of carbon levy on marine shipping emissions.

Australia sides with China, Russia in bid to sink Pacific nations’ climate plan

By Nick O’Malley
July 3, 2023 — 5.00am

London: Australia has been criticised for siding with China and Russia to oppose a popular plan from a group of Pacific Island nations to tackle carbon emissions from the shipping industry.

…

An ambitious proposal conceived and championed by Pacific Island nations including Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands — which has one of the world’s largest shipping fleets registered to its flag — would introduce a $100 per tonne levy on maritime emissions in order to make cleaner fuels cost-competitive with the dirtier heavy fuel oil that is the industry standard.

But The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to three sources present in closed preliminary discussions who said opposition to the proposal has hardened among a group of about 20 nations including China, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Australia. This masthead has seen documentation that confirms their accounts.

…

Though Australia has voiced support for aligning the industry with Paris Agreement climate targets of holding warming to 1.5 degrees, the sources said it remained opposed to the shipping levy as proposed by the Pacific nations. Alternative proposals could also be debated and it is not clear which, if any, Australia might support.

…Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-sides-with-china-russia-in-bid-to-sink-pacific-nations-climate-plan-20230630-p5dky1.html

What a surprise, nations which depend on long distance international shipping have opposed a measure which would shut down international shipping.

All this would be a non-issue if greens relaxed their opposition to nuclear energy. If shipping companies were allowed to install nuclear power plants on cargo ships, there would be no maritime emissions to tax.

Virginia one step closer to withdrawing from RGGI

From CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. 

Governor Glenn Youngkin’s pledge to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was approved on June 7 by the state’s Air Pollution Control Board, raising the prospects that Virginia’s ratepayers may soon be rid of an onerous RGGI-related carbon tax.

“Today’s common-sense vote by the Air Board to repeal RGGI protects Virginians from the failed program that is not only a regressive tax on families, but also does nothing to reduce pollution,” Youngkin, a Republican, said in a statement after the vote.

Now that Youngkin’s proposal has cleared the Air Pollution Control Board, it will move to an executive review period, after which it is expected to be posted in the Virginia Register. Once it is posted in its final form, environmental groups favorable to RGGI are expected to file lawsuits challenging the governor’s move. The state’s administrative procedures, coupled with the threatened lawsuits, mean Virginia’s exit from RGGI will still take some time.

RGGI is a regional compact among 12 mid-Atlantic and Northeast states to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants. As part of RGGI’s cap-and-trade program, participating states require power plants of a certain capacity to purchase allowances, also called credits, to emit carbon dioxide (CO2). Virginia joined RGGI in 2021 under Governor Ralph Northam (D).

Trumpeted as a way for Virginians to combat climate change, participation in RGGI, however, contains a legal stipulation that has come back to haunt the program. The 2020 law that “authorized,” but did not mandate, Virginia to join the compact included language saying the costs of allowances purchased through RGGI would be deemed “environmental compliance costs” that may be recovered from ratepayers from the state’s largest utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power.

RGGI’s Carbon Tax

In this way, what was sold as a cap-and-tax plan became a cap-and-tax scheme.

“The imposition of the RGGI ‘carbon tax’ fails to offer any incentive to change behavior,” a 2022 Youngkin administration report noted. “Current law allows power generators, such as Dominion Energy, to pass on all their costs for the carbon credits.”

Dominion Energy imposed, but later removed, the surcharge from its Virginia customers’ monthly bills. But despite the Air Pollution Control Board’s recent decision, the surcharge could be reimposed as early as September 1, 2023, and run for 12 months while the courts decide the fate of Youngkin’s action. As noted by Steve Haner of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, “the tax will still be on electricity bills and very visible” while the litigation sorts itself out.

Current RGGI participants are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. Participating states decide individually how they will disburse the funds raised by periodic auctions of RGGI allowances. “In Virginia most proceeds from the sale of allowances – which have reached nearly $590 million so far – are divvied up between efforts to assist localities affected by recurrent flooding and sea-level rise and a state-administered account to support energy efficiency programs for low-income individuals,” the Associated Press noted.

The division of the spoils is designed to create support for the program by assuring a flow of cash to carefully selected constituencies. In the case of the energy efficiency programs for low-income people, however, whatever benefits – if any – they derive from the program must compete with the higher monthly power bills resulting from the RGGI carbon tax.

A Dog Chasing Its Tail

Other than redistributing money coerced from third parties, forcing people to pay higher electricity bills, and keeping the “climate change” beat going, what exactly have RGGI and like-minded schemes accomplished?

“Worldwide, despite feverish efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the CO2 in the atmosphere keeps rising, even as U.S. emissions have been dropping for decades, long before RGGI came to Virginia,” the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s Haner points out.

Author

  • Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.
  • Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country.
  • He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.
  • He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.
  • Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh.
  • He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

SCMP Admits a Regional Asian Carbon Tax Could Lead to Human Rights Abuses

Protesters hold placards during a rally in Sydney on July 1, 2011 against Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s plans to introduce a carbon tax. A powerful industry alliance is preparing to launch a multi-million dollar campaign designed to derail PM Julia Gillard’s plans to price carbon, reports said July 1, 2011. AFP PHOTO / Greg WOOD (Photo credit should read GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… However, a sufficiently high carbon tax with steady annual increases would still be the biggest game-changer.”

Climate change: region must follow Singapore’s example and enact carbon tax strategy

A region-wide carbon tax is long overdue to pave the way for a speedy reduction of emissions to protect the environment and accelerate green innovation

Chee Yik-wai
Published: 4:15pm, 11 Jun, 2023

Many people in Southeast Asia are feeling the effects of El Nino, as regional governments struggle to cope with unprecedented heatwaves. Electricity bills have shot up for many families trying to beat the heat, for example.

This raises the question of what can be done to tackle the problem. On that front, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) appears to be lagging behind the developed world in the carbon trading market and also in implementing a carbon tax.

…

A recent joint investigation by The Guardian, German weekly Die Zeit and the investigative group SourceMaterial has exposed the potential vulnerabilities and ineffectiveness of large-scale carbon trading projects worldwide, many promoted by Verra, the world’s biggest carbon credit provider. It found that investments by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations into Verra’s carbon credits were largely worthless, and ineffective at stopping rainforest destruction.

It also found evidence of forced evictions of local communities at a forest-based carbon offsetting project funded by Disney and jointly operated by Conservation International in the Peruvian Amazon, leading to Verra CEO David Antonioli’s resignation. This has shaken confidence in the company and the carbon trading industry.

These are the kind of issues an Asean carbon trading market could face. Thus, more collaboration is needed on evaluation standards and rules for exchange to improve pricing mechanisms. However, a sufficiently high carbon tax with steady annual increases would still be the biggest game-changer.

…

Chee Yik-wai is a Malaysia-based intercultural specialist and the co-founder of Crowdsukan focusing on sport diplomacy for peace and development

Read more: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3223505/climate-change-region-must-follow-singapores-example-and-enact-carbon-tax-strategy

I’m horrified. Are carbon taxes going to be a path to normalising human rights abuses and forced evictions? Is it going to become OK for governments and corporations to mistreat vulnerable people, providing that abuse leads to more carbon offsets?

Given renewables are supposed to be cheaper than coal, why not let simple economics drive the transition? That way greens get their emissions reduction without collateral harm to vulnerable people.

Of course, if it turns out claims renewables are cheaper are all a pack of lies, well that would explain the apparent green determination to drive acceptance that human rights abuses are less important than CO2 emissions, and their drive to coerce people to go green with punitive taxes.