Wait, what? What did the federal environment minister just say?
If I heard her right, Catherine McKenna announced there would be no increase in the federally-mandated levy on carbon dioxide (and equivalent) emissions — the carbon tax — beyond the $50 per tonne it is scheduled to reach in 2022. Here’s the quote: “The price will not go up…. the plan is not to increase the price post-2022.”
This strikes me as a remarkable turn of events. The federal Liberals have invested heavily in the idea of carbon pricing as the centrepiece of a national campaign to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 per cent from 2005 levels — the commitment to which both the past Conservative and the present Liberal government agreed as this country’s contribution to the Paris climate agreement.
And yet it was always apparent that, on present policies, we would not hit our target: rather than fall from 732 to 513 megatonnes by 2030, as promised in Paris, emissions are currently projected to fall only to 592 MT. It was commonly supposed until now that, to close that 79 MT gap, the carbon tax would have to rise beyond $50 after 2022, even if the Liberals were unwilling to admit it.
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