The uselessness of Canada's climate alarmism

[Anonymous]

Justine is a denier.



Ottawa's climate plan ignores the science

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/ottawas-climate-plan-ignores-the-science



During the election, Prime Minister Trudeau ran as a bold leader in the fight against climate change. Yet even if we agree that the voters have given Trudeau's Liberals a mandate to enact policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, these policies should still make sense. Unfortunately, several features of Trudeau's climate agenda do not accord with standard economics.



First and most obvious, Trudeau supports a carbon tax that will rise by $15 per tonne each year starting in 2023 until maxing out at $170/tonne in 2030. His support for a carbon tax is in line with what many economists would recommend, as they view it as an efficient (i.e. least costly) way to communicate the harm of GHG emissions to businesses and households as they make decisions.



But the level of Trudeau's carbon tax is much higher than standard estimates of the "social cost of carbon," which quantifies the climate change damages flowing from an additional tonne of carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates the "social cost of carbon" in 2030 at $62 per tonne (measured in 2020 U.S. dollars using the standard 3 per cent discount rate). That means Trudeau's favoured carbon tax is more than double the appropriate level. At such high levels, Trudeau's carbon tax becomes counterproductive, because it causes more damage to Canadians (in the form of higher energy prices and reduced economic growth) than it would spare the world in climate change.



Beyond the specifics of Trudeau's carbon tax, a broader problem is adherence to the temperature targets set forth in the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Although many environmental activists take it for granted that policymakers should strive to respect such a ceiling, it's not supported by the literature.



For example, William Nordhaus won the 2018 Nobel Prize for his work on the economics of climate change. He believes climate change is a serious problem and supports a modest carbon tax that (in his projections) would limit global warming to 3.5 degrees by 2100. On the other hand, the Paris Agreement's tighter ceiling of 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius would slow economic growth so much that, according to Nordhaus' work, it would be better for humanity if governments did nothing at all to reduce GHG emissions, rather than foolishly pursuing such a draconian policy. The Paris temperature target is just another mismatch between Trudeau's climate policies and actual numbers in the expert literature.



As a final example, consider Trudeau's proposed "Clean Fuel Standard" (CFS), which requires those who produce and import fossil fuels to reduce the carbon emissions of their products, and it mandates for more electric vehicles. From the point of view of climate change economics, these top-down regulations/mandates are counterproductive in the presence of a carbon tax. One of the textbook virtues of a carbon tax is that it augments the price system so households and businesses face the right incentives when deciding whether to buy a conventional vehicle or an electric one; they don't need officials forcing a particular choice. By implementing a carbon tax that is far too high and imposing specific outcomes on how many electric vehicles must be made, Trudeau's government merely appears to be "tough on climate change" while ignoring actual recommendations from the expert literature.

[Anonymous]

The city of Vancouver is making it difficult for people with limited means to make ends meet.



Vancouver climate fees for new car purchases could cost up to $1,000



Drivers who are purchasing new cars in 2023 and beyond will need to pay even more in climate fees.



This comes on the heels of news that parking permits for Vancouver residential streets could begin in early 2022.



City officials are calling it a pollution charge, and it could cost drivers up to $1,000, on top of the $45 overnight parking permit fees.



Climate fees will be prescribed for high emission vehicles "to encourage decisions to choose low or zero emission vehicles."



A Vancouver City Council ruling on the matter is set to take place on October 5.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-charge-climate-fees-2023

[Anonymous]

Trudeau, the NDP and the Green's obsession with our rounding error emissions is so stupid. The only thing it does is reduce living standards in this country. If they were smart they would make LNG export facilities their environmental and industrial priority.



India says it has ample coal stocks for power sector



NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has ample coal stocks to meet power sector demand, a coal ministry statement said on Sunday, a day after the Delhi Chief Minister said a shortage of the fuel meant the Indian capital could face a power crisis



State-run Coal India Ltd is using its 40 million tonne stocks to replenish utilities, which together have 7.2 million tonnes of inventory, equivalent to four days' requirements, the ministry statement said.



In a separate statement, the power ministry said coal supplies to power utilities on Saturday rose to 1.92 million tonnes, while consumption was 1.87 million tonnes.



It said the level of coal stocks held by power companies will rise as Coal India is ramping up the supplies.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2021-10-10/india-says-it-has-ample-coal-stocks-for-power-sector

[Anonymous]

Trudeau, the NDP and the Green's obsession with our rounding error emissions is so stupid. The only thing it does is reduce living standards in this country. If they were smart they would make LNG export facilities their environmental and industrial priority.



India says it has ample coal stocks for power sector



NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has ample coal stocks to meet power sector demand, a coal ministry statement said on Sunday, a day after the Delhi Chief Minister said a shortage of the fuel meant the Indian capital could face a power crisis



State-run Coal India Ltd is using its 40 million tonne stocks to replenish utilities, which together have 7.2 million tonnes of inventory, equivalent to four days' requirements, the ministry statement said.



In a separate statement, the power ministry said coal supplies to power utilities on Saturday rose to 1.92 million tonnes, while consumption was 1.87 million tonnes.



It said the level of coal stocks held by power companies will rise as Coal India is ramping up the supplies.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2021-10-10/india-says-it-has-ample-coal-stocks-for-power-sector

What all the parties in parliament are doing to Canadians in the name of "climate.action" is dumb. Unless of course they are trying to destroy blue collar workers, and the bastards probably are.

[Anonymous]

We have a carbon tax. It's slated to go to $170/tonne by 2030. If it's the right tax, then also capping oil and gas emissions constitutes doing "more, more expensively, in more complex ways in other parts of their economy."



Many of those oil and gas activities could be — probably are, given current world prices — very valuable. If they can survive after paying their carbon tax, let them. If oil and gas companies can figure out ways to reduce their carbon-intensity and survive the carbon tax, more power to them. By the prime minister's own argument, that's exactly what should happen.



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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presents his national statement as part of the World Leaders' Summit of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland on Nov. 1, 2021. © Provided by Financial Post Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presents his national statement as part of the World Leaders' Summit of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland on Nov. 1, 2021.



Video player from: YouTube (Privacy Policy, Terms)

My colleague John Ivison wrote yesterday that he agrees with Justin Trudeau about as often as there is a solar eclipse, so he was surprised to find himself agreeing with something the prime minister said in Glasgow about carbon taxes. Well, pass me those ultraviolet blockers and make it a double blue moon, because I also agreed with something Trudeau said in Glasgow about carbon taxes (though is it really so surprising that people arriving in Scotland should suddenly be overcome with good sense?).





What struck me as sensible was the following statement : "As people look at the hard work of reducing emissions, they'll realize that not putting a price on pollution in their jurisdictions is going to mean having to do more, more expensively, in more complex ways in other parts of their economy."



Exactly! That is the entire case for a carbon tax summed up in 42 words, which is only 15 or 20 more than necessary. Granted, "pollution" is a tendentious term for carbon dioxide, a substance essential to life as we know it. But if you're convinced that, at the global margin, production of more carbon dioxide has harmful effects, you should impose a tax on it equal to your best estimate of the harmful effects and then just police the tax.



Where the extra carbon dioxide comes from activities that have high social value, people will pay the tax, mutter darkly while doing so and keep on with those activities — which is exactly what you want them to do: if the benefits of the activity exceed its costs, now including any damage to the environment, you want that activity to continue.



On the other hand, if the benefits of the activity aren't very great, then its normal costs plus the carbon tax will exceed them and the activity will die out — which is also what you want. Activities whose benefits are less than their normal costs plus their environmental costs shouldn't continue.



Moreover, it's not actually all-or-nothing, survive-or-die. If the people engaging in lower-benefit activities can figure out relatively inexpensive ways to reduce their carbon dioxide output, then some of these activities can continue, too — being no longer so harmful.



The beauty of all this, as economists have long argued, is that it's automatic. Once the carbon price is set, all decisions are taken locally. The government can't quite retire from the field: it has to enforce the tax. But that's all it has to do. Forty million Canadians, responding to the tax, will figure out the least-cost way of dealing with the problem.



The prime minister's Glasgow statement suggests he understands all that. Which is why the government's decision to also cap emissions in the oil and gas sector is so puzzling. We have a carbon tax. It's slated to go to $170/tonne by 2030. If it's the right tax, then also capping oil and gas emissions constitutes doing "more, more expensively, in more complex ways in other parts of their economy."



Many of those oil and gas activities could be — probably are, given current world prices — very valuable. If they can survive after paying their carbon tax, let them. If oil and gas companies can figure out ways to reduce their carbon-intensity and survive the carbon tax, more power to them. By the prime minister's own argument, that's exactly what should happen.



The economy is a gigantic, complex black box that no single person or artificial intelligence can even begin to understand — not Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos or IBM's Watson, to say nothing of Justin Trudeau or Stephen Guilbeault. But it is infinitely adaptable. Force it to take a cost into account and it will do all the calculations for you and spit out the least-cost way of accommodating the new constraint you've imposed.



Or do you suppose there's political gain to be had from euthanizing the country's oil and gas sector? There are no seats to be lost in Alberta for carbon-eradicators and haven't been for a couple of generations, not since Pierre Trudeau declared the first war on oil and gas in 1980. And there may be seats to be gained in the east: some central Canadians seem as contemptuous of Albertans as they are of Americans.

[cc]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/07/few-willing-to-change-lifestyle-climate-survey
Few Willing To Change Lifestyle To Save The Planet, Climate Survey Finds






Citizens are alarmed by the climate crisis, but most believe they are already doing more to preserve the planet than anyone else, including their government, and few are willing to make significant lifestyle changes, an international survey has found.



"The widespread awareness of the importance of the climate crisis illustrated in this study has yet to be coupled with a proportionate willingness to act," the survey of 10 countries including the US, UK, France and Germany, observed.

[Anonymous]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/07/few-willing-to-change-lifestyle-climate-survey
Few Willing To Change Lifestyle To Save The Planet, Climate Survey Finds







Citizens are alarmed by the climate crisis, but most believe they are already doing more to preserve the planet than anyone else, including their government, and few are willing to make significant lifestyle changes, an international survey has found.



"The widespread awareness of the importance of the climate crisis illustrated in this study has yet to be coupled with a proportionate willingness to act," the survey of 10 countries including the US, UK, France and Germany, observed.

As we saw from the C02 emissions festival that was COP26 national leaders are not going to make any significant changes either.

[Anonymous]

[Bricktop]

Australia is leading the way!!!!



https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/australia-ranked-last-of-60-countries-for-policy-response-to-climate-crisis

[Anonymous]

Australia is leading the way!!!!



https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/australia-ranked-last-of-60-countries-for-policy-response-to-climate-crisis

:20utj4j_th:  ac_drinks

[Anonymous]

Australia is leading the way!!!!



https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/australia-ranked-last-of-60-countries-for-policy-response-to-climate-crisis

The Guardian?? The ranking listed Australis behind Indai, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Latvia, Thailand, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Algeria and Malaysia, That CCPI report is as believable as the Clinton's Trump-Russia collusion scam.

[Odinson]

A more efficient combustion engine.



A more clean burning fuel.



A carbon dioxide filter to every car.





Surely demolishing 1,5 billion cars and then replacing them with new electric cars, is not the most green solution.

[Anonymous]

Surely demolishing 1,5 billion cars and then replacing them with new electric cars, is not the most green solution.

It's not even close to being possible either.

[Anonymous]

The Paris Climate Agreement will cost $100 trillion US dollars to reduce global temperatures .3 degrees by the end of this century. And that is if everything they promise actually happens.

[Anonymous]

When it comes to climate change, Canada is not the problem. So why then does Trudeau constantly remind us that we need to do more to protect the climate?



A look at the data will show you that Canada's climate emissions have stayed at relatively the same levels in the past 20 years, while other countries like China continue to pollute at breakneck speeds.



Anthony Furey has more to say on this in his latest video.