AMBLER: On CO2, Canadians must ask Carney tough questions — like these

Steve Ambler is professor emeritus of economics in the École des sciences de la gestion, Université du Québec à MontréalDear Mr. Carney, I would like to ask you a few questions your party members never did, concerning your stated goal of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.(1) Using a standard UN climate model (used by many politicians to justify the idea of a climate emergency,) Bjørn Lomborg (president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center) showed that if all countries meet their emission reduction goals under the Paris climate agreement, this would “likely reduce global temperature rise about 0.17 degrees Celsius in 2100,” a difference so small as to be imperceptible. Why is the cost of achieving net zero justified?(2) If the Canadian economy reaches net zero by 2050, Canada’s contribution to reducing the rise in global temperatures would be on the order of 0.004 degrees Celsius. Do you disagree with this assessment?(3) China is the West’s principal geopolitical rival. Can we trust the Chinese to meet their promise under the Paris agreement to reduce their emissions starting in 2030, or are their promises designed merely to weaken our economies? .(4) The country with the greatest reduction in CO2 emissions over the last 25 years is the US, achieved by switching from coal to natural gas for electricity generation.The greatest contribution we could make to reducing global emissions would be to expand exports of natural gas to China and India to wean them off coal. Would you advocate for this?(5) Most estimates of the social cost of CO2 emissions omit the positive effects of CO2 on plant growth and drought resistance. Given these effects, the social cost is very likely less than the current level of the carbon tax per ton and may very well be negative.Why do you want to make “big polluters” pay a huge price for a cost which is small or even negative?(6) Nobel laureate William Nordhaus of Yale University argued that aiming for a world temperature increase of 3.5 degrees would balance costs and benefits, while doing nothing at all would be better than trying to hit a target of 1.5 degrees (the ultimate goal of net zero). What are the flaws in in his arguments?.(7) When Justin Trudeau met with the German chancellor and the Japanese prime minister, they begged him to sell liquefied natural gas to them. He replied that there was “no business case” to be made for this. You were advising the prime minister at the time. Was his judgment based on your advice?(8) The Trump administration is still threatening punitive tariffs on Canadian exports. If the Liberal government had allowed the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines to go ahead, Canada would be much better placed to defend itself by diversifying its export markets. Why did you oppose these pipelines?(9) You have spoken in the past about economic efficiency. A well-known principle is that the carbon tax should be used alone. Piling on other taxes, subsidies and regulations introduces distortions into the operation of markets and raises the costs of reducing emissions. The current policy mix has many of these distortions. Will you commit to getting rid of these inefficiencies?(10) A well-known principle of the economics of taxation is that the party who actually pays a tax (the buyer or the seller) is irrelevant to who actually bears its burden. Given your PhD in economics, you must have learned this principle.Is getting rid of the consumer carbon tax and “making big polluters pay” merely a tactic to hide the true costs of net zero policies from consumers/voters?.(11) There is a large body of evidence which suggests that the Earth’s average temperature is lower now than at almost any time in the last 600 million years. There is also considerable evidence that during the current Holocene inter-glacial period (about the last 11,700 years) temperatures were at least as warm as today during the Medieval warm period, the Roman warm period, the Minoan warm period, and during the Neolithic revolution. We know that human civilization thrived during these warm periods compared to the Little Ice Age, from which we are just emerging. Do you deny the evidence which supports the existence of these warm periods?(12) For most of the past 600 million years the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was much higher than today, often more than 10 times higher. We are currently in an ice age (the Pleistocene), and at the beginning of the present interglacial period CO2 concentrations had fallen to 180 parts per million. Below 150 parts per million all plants would die from CO2 starvation, and therefore so would all life on earth.What do you think the optimal concentration of CO2 should be, and how do you arrive at this number?(13) The federal government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018 for $4.5 billion and completed its construction at a cost which was $26.8 billion over budget. Kinder Morgan was willing to build it with private capital at no cost to taxpayers.Why do you think that government rather than the private sector should choose major investment projects and also undertake to build those projects?(14) Finally, at a recent appearance in Kelowna, you said, “And something my government is going to do is to use all of the powers of the federal government, including the emergency powers of the federal government, to accelerate the major projects that we need.” If you win the next election and form a government, and if I disagree publicly with one of your proposed projects, will you freeze my bank accounts?Steve Ambler is professor emeritus of economics in the École des sciences de la gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal.

AMBLER: On CO2, Canadians must ask Carney tough questions — like these

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