That’s. That’s the whole point. Things costing their true value.
Business exist to make money (even non profits need to make enough money from either sales or donations to cover operating costs). If something costs them more, it’s going to cost their customers more. This way negative externalities aren’t swept away to become an unmanageable problem in the future. The true cost of consumption is reflected in the price we pay.
What you’re describing as a bad thing is really the system working for good, as it was intended.
Unfortunately they are correct as the carbon tax in Canada is indeed a racket. It’s only on consumer consumption.
oil exports, our largest source of emissions, are exempt
agriculture and forestry, the next largest, also exempt
shipping and rail, oh look, exempt
heavy industry can buy phoney carbon credits for $5/ton instead of paying the $65/ton tax. Some of these are for forests that have already burned down
oh yeah the greatest emission source last year, dwarfing all others, 80% of our total emissions came from the massive forest fires for which our policy is just to LET THEM BURN
So the only people who carry the burden of the Canadian carbon tax are the ordinary taxpayers. But hey, the optics are good! Looks very progressive. Despite the fact that Canadian consumer consumption is the definition of a drop in the bucket that is global emissions.
If Canada wanted to make a difference they would nationalize the grid, build nuclear and renewables. Or forget it all for now and just put out the damn fires!
Edit: I forgot one more, as imports are not taxed, the carbon tax actually encourages the import of goods made with coal power in China, over goods made with hydropower in Canada!
I believe it was a CBC article last fall that mentioned it, talking about the massive rise in acres burned from previous years. But I can’t directly give you a link at this time unfortunately, am on mobile and can’t find it either.
In 2021, Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 670 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (couldn’t find 2023 quickly on mobile but it will be close)
The wildfires that Canada experienced during 2023 have generated the highest carbon emissions in record for this country by a wide margin. According to GFASv1.2 data, the wildfires that started to take place in early May emitted almost 480 megatonnes of carbon
470 / 670 = 72%
To be fair this is not 72% of total emissions including wildfire smoke, but wildfires emitted 72% as much as the Canadian economy did.
So yes, it’s not 80% of total emissions - but it’s still a massive amount. Putting out these fires would have had nearly the same effect as shutting down our entire country and letting them burn.
Or you could say letting them burn nearly doubled our emissions, and in the hand-wavey world of emissions accounting you would be pretty close.
And you get CAIP now, which, for most Canadians, especially lower income Canadians, CAIP is greater than the additional cost you pay for goods and services due to the carbon tax.
The carbon tax is quite literally a tax on the rich that gets given to the poor, while at the same time making high carbon intensity products more expensive incentivizing choices that lower carbon emissions.
Only the very rich lose.
The people who speak out against it, are either rich, or they are useful idiots, people who are ignorantly shilling to scrap the tax to their own detriment because they were told by their rich tribe leader it’s bad.
The tax will just be the cost of doing business. But surely “tHe MarKeT” will correct this by finding cheaper non carbon transport sell a cheaper product.
Personally I support tax of fossile and subsidization of alternatives. Worked like a charm to electrify Norways car park.
The cons are however that increased demand for electricity means building wind, hydro, solar power, with a huge cost to local environent both in most land and the diesel used by construction euipment
There’s still market incentive for reducing emissions. Either lets you charge the same and for higher margins, or reduce prices and be more appealing to consumers.
Hey, just because companies always choose (and get away with) “make more money by cutting costs” instead of “attract more customers with lower prices” doesn’t mean they have to …right?
What does the government do with all the extra revenue? Theoretically it should be able to reduce other taxes proportionally so that those with low carbon usage come out ahead instead of just being a negative for everyone.
Yup, the Climate Action Incentive is a Pigouvian tax, so the government estimates the revenues, divides that up to comes up with a number for each resident, and we receive it back in quarterly payments.
Any suggestions on how we can actually make corporations pay for the carbon they emit if a carbon tax isn’t it?
Doing nothing is what we have been doing and it isn’t working.
How would that law work? Unless you’re setting the price as a matter of law, how could you ever prove that a price rise was because of the tax and not “other economic factors”?
JFC how long do we have to wait for a carbon tax
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That’s. That’s the whole point. Things costing their true value.
Business exist to make money (even non profits need to make enough money from either sales or donations to cover operating costs). If something costs them more, it’s going to cost their customers more. This way negative externalities aren’t swept away to become an unmanageable problem in the future. The true cost of consumption is reflected in the price we pay.
What you’re describing as a bad thing is really the system working for good, as it was intended.
Unfortunately they are correct as the carbon tax in Canada is indeed a racket. It’s only on consumer consumption.
So the only people who carry the burden of the Canadian carbon tax are the ordinary taxpayers. But hey, the optics are good! Looks very progressive. Despite the fact that Canadian consumer consumption is the definition of a drop in the bucket that is global emissions.
If Canada wanted to make a difference they would nationalize the grid, build nuclear and renewables. Or forget it all for now and just put out the damn fires!
Edit: I forgot one more, as imports are not taxed, the carbon tax actually encourages the import of goods made with coal power in China, over goods made with hydropower in Canada!
Do you have a source of your wildfires cause 80% of our carbon emissions?
Only thing I could find was about 25% which is much different then the number you showed.
I believe it was a CBC article last fall that mentioned it, talking about the massive rise in acres burned from previous years. But I can’t directly give you a link at this time unfortunately, am on mobile and can’t find it either.
I’d be really surprised if you could because it’s a made-up number.
Not made up, but estimated. Rather than find the exact article, here are the numbers after all was said and done:
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-emissions/sources-sinks-executive-summary-2023.html
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/copernicus-canada-produced-23-global-wildfire-carbon-emissions-2023
470 / 670 = 72%
To be fair this is not 72% of total emissions including wildfire smoke, but wildfires emitted 72% as much as the Canadian economy did.
So yes, it’s not 80% of total emissions - but it’s still a massive amount. Putting out these fires would have had nearly the same effect as shutting down our entire country and letting them burn.
Or you could say letting them burn nearly doubled our emissions, and in the hand-wavey world of emissions accounting you would be pretty close.
I’m Canadian and I support the carbon tax.
I would like to see our government stop subsidizing the fossil fuel companies and establish a national oil fund too.
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I support the carbon tax means that I support the carbon tax that we have.
What form would you like to see?
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I don’t understand this part of your comment, can you explain it please?
It means for every $10 he gets charged, he’s paying $3 for stuff like gst, carbon tax, etc. $7 is for the actual gas or whatever he is consuming.
I’m just curious is that includes income tax too.
And you get CAIP now, which, for most Canadians, especially lower income Canadians, CAIP is greater than the additional cost you pay for goods and services due to the carbon tax.
The carbon tax is quite literally a tax on the rich that gets given to the poor, while at the same time making high carbon intensity products more expensive incentivizing choices that lower carbon emissions.
Only the very rich lose.
The people who speak out against it, are either rich, or they are useful idiots, people who are ignorantly shilling to scrap the tax to their own detriment because they were told by their rich tribe leader it’s bad.
Which one are you?
I love how downvoted you are and how many people can see through this BS.
That sucks. It’s not like climate change is everybody’s problem.
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The tax will just be the cost of doing business. But surely “tHe MarKeT” will correct this by finding cheaper non carbon transport sell a cheaper product.
Personally I support tax of fossile and subsidization of alternatives. Worked like a charm to electrify Norways car park.
The cons are however that increased demand for electricity means building wind, hydro, solar power, with a huge cost to local environent both in most land and the diesel used by construction euipment
There’s still market incentive for reducing emissions. Either lets you charge the same and for higher margins, or reduce prices and be more appealing to consumers.
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Hey, just because companies always choose (and get away with) “make more money by cutting costs” instead of “attract more customers with lower prices” doesn’t mean they have to …right?
When has there been a carbon tax in recent years?
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What does the government do with all the extra revenue? Theoretically it should be able to reduce other taxes proportionally so that those with low carbon usage come out ahead instead of just being a negative for everyone.
Yup, the Climate Action Incentive is a Pigouvian tax, so the government estimates the revenues, divides that up to comes up with a number for each resident, and we receive it back in quarterly payments.
Any suggestions on how we can actually make corporations pay for the carbon they emit if a carbon tax isn’t it?
Doing nothing is what we have been doing and it isn’t working.
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How would you implement that? Like, how do you propose to impose a tax on the company that they can’t just pass along to the customer?
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How would that law work? Unless you’re setting the price as a matter of law, how could you ever prove that a price rise was because of the tax and not “other economic factors”?
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