Feeling the pinch of buying groceries or keeping the lights on?Don’t blame the carbon tax. That’s the conclusion of a new study from the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary that suggests carbon taxes contribute less than 0.3% to such basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter.In fact, the highest impact — 0.92% — was for purchased air transportation, followed by motor vehicle goods and services (presumably including fuel) at 0.5%. Tobacco came in a 0.32% while alcohol was 0.28%..The overall impact on consumer prices for a basket of items including child care, health, financial services and insurance was about 0.6%, it said.“While some politicians and policymakers are blaming emissions pricing for high costs of living, the figure shows that the actual effect is quite modest for most items,” say study authors Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter.“Knowing that much of the present affordability crisis is due to factors other than emissions pricing, the elimination of the carbon tax is unlikely to solve the problem.”.“Knowing that much of the present affordability crisis is due to factors other than emissions pricing, the elimination of the carbon tax is unlikely to solve the problem.”UofC School of Public Policy.The study used the latest Statistics Canada data crunched from BC’s effective carbon tax rate of $65 per tonne of CO2.And although the UofC numbers seem modest, they’re more than five times higher than the 0.15% figure touted by Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem when he spoke in Calgary in September. But his numbers didn’t quantify the so-called ‘secondary’ impacts that the UofC’s supposedly do.They would also seemingly dispel the notion that exempting Atlantic Canada from home heating oil taxes would have much of an impact on their respective wallets compared to British Columbians which have had a provincial carbon tax in place since 2008.And as Canada’s political classes debate the merits — and costs — of carbon taxes, a separate study from the London School Of Economics released on Tuesday suggests its carbon policies have resulted in a 5% to 11% drop in air pollution in metropolitan areas."Sure, carbon pricing is politically difficult to put in practice," study author Lorenzo Sileci told Reuters. "But when it's there, such as the case of Canada, it brings about a whole set of benefits that are not just factored in the carbon emission reductions."
Feeling the pinch of buying groceries or keeping the lights on?Don’t blame the carbon tax. That’s the conclusion of a new study from the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary that suggests carbon taxes contribute less than 0.3% to such basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter.In fact, the highest impact — 0.92% — was for purchased air transportation, followed by motor vehicle goods and services (presumably including fuel) at 0.5%. Tobacco came in a 0.32% while alcohol was 0.28%..The overall impact on consumer prices for a basket of items including child care, health, financial services and insurance was about 0.6%, it said.“While some politicians and policymakers are blaming emissions pricing for high costs of living, the figure shows that the actual effect is quite modest for most items,” say study authors Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter.“Knowing that much of the present affordability crisis is due to factors other than emissions pricing, the elimination of the carbon tax is unlikely to solve the problem.”.“Knowing that much of the present affordability crisis is due to factors other than emissions pricing, the elimination of the carbon tax is unlikely to solve the problem.”UofC School of Public Policy.The study used the latest Statistics Canada data crunched from BC’s effective carbon tax rate of $65 per tonne of CO2.And although the UofC numbers seem modest, they’re more than five times higher than the 0.15% figure touted by Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem when he spoke in Calgary in September. But his numbers didn’t quantify the so-called ‘secondary’ impacts that the UofC’s supposedly do.They would also seemingly dispel the notion that exempting Atlantic Canada from home heating oil taxes would have much of an impact on their respective wallets compared to British Columbians which have had a provincial carbon tax in place since 2008.And as Canada’s political classes debate the merits — and costs — of carbon taxes, a separate study from the London School Of Economics released on Tuesday suggests its carbon policies have resulted in a 5% to 11% drop in air pollution in metropolitan areas."Sure, carbon pricing is politically difficult to put in practice," study author Lorenzo Sileci told Reuters. "But when it's there, such as the case of Canada, it brings about a whole set of benefits that are not just factored in the carbon emission reductions."
