Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer.It’s a safe bet the vast majority of Canadians have never heard of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). It may come as a surprise, then, that this obscure London-based arm of the United Nations would like to tax us.In 2021, Canada was one of two dozen countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, that signed the Clydebank Declaration, committing themselves to the establishment of green shipping corridors.As with most climate action plans, the road to achieving this goal was murky. But what emerged in the few years since was the favourite toolkit of progressives: impose a tax, distribute the proceeds to a hand-picked victim class, and avoid accountability.So it was last November that Steven Guilbeault, who was then serving as Justin Trudeau’s environment minister, emerged from the United Nations’ climate confab in Baku, Azerbaijan (a gathering whose carbon footprint was surely gargantuan) to announce his support for a global carbon tax on marine shipping. Marine shipping contributes just shy of 3% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Reasonable people can disagree whether that’s too much and whether a carbon tax is the best way to bring that number down.What isn’t debatable is the fact that since more than 80% of the world’s merchandise is transported by ship, such a tax would make the vast majority of consumer goods in Canada more expensive.Is the cost to Canadian households worth the benefit to the planet? Maybe, but then again, maybe not..If one takes the idea of representative democracy remotely seriously, the power to impose taxes — and if they become unpopular, to repeal them — must reside with elected governments.Delegating that power to some international body few people know exist and which is accountable to no voter on the planet smacks of the kind of smug entitlement that’s caused much of the democratic West to rail against elites and self-styled experts.The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board rightly called the IMO’s carbon levy “the ultimate in taxation without representation,” which is to say the sort of thing that once had Americans dumping tea in the ocean and taking up arms.As with the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency has been simultaneously marketed as an existential threat to all of humanity and yet another misfortune inflicted by the callous, insulated rich on the helpless and thoroughly exposed poor.It’s a nice rhetorical touch, and which version is on offer depends on the audience.A 2023 World Bank study posited that a carbon tax on shipping could generate US$40-60 billion a year, which just happened to be the amount demanded by a collection of small island nations and less developed countries that claimed they needed support to fund a “just and equitable transition.”The current plan is estimated to bring in closer to US$10-12 billion, an amount one University College London research fellow bemoaned as “insufficient.”.There’s little reason to doubt that small island nations will suffer disproportionately from rising sea levels. And indeed, Canadians may see the threat to places such as Kiribati and Vanuatu as warranting foreign aid to help them mitigate those harms. Canadians are willing to support foreign causes they deem worthy, which is why the nearly $22 billion in contributions Canada has made to Ukraine’s war effort enjoys massive public support.But how do Canadians feel about writing cheques to Cuba’s communist dictatorship, or more perplexingly, to Singapore, whose gross domestic product per capita is nearly 70% greater than Canada’s?Both countries are on the UN’s list of small island developing states, which means they are potential beneficiaries of the scheme.More troubling are the less developed countries (LDCs). To put some numbers behind just how bad this group is, the average score among the 180 nations ranked in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index is 43. The LDCs are among the most corrupt regimes on the planet, including South Sudan (8), Haiti (16), Myanmar (16), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (20). Other notables include hotbeds of international terrorism such as Somalia (9), Yemen (13), Afghanistan (17), and Sudan (15), which is currently in the middle of a vicious civil war.Does anybody believe sending cash to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Yemen’s Houthis, or Sudan’s military junta will result in better climate stewardship?.The IMO measure was set to be fast-tracked last month by way of a murky maritime law concept known as “tacit acceptance.” But then the Trump administration noted the potential impact on inflation-pinched American consumers and demanded an actual vote, after which it threatened to impose sanctions on any country that supported the measure.The IMO blinked and opted to save face by accepting a Saudi proposal to postpone a vote until next year.Mark Carney’s Liberals threw struggling Canadians a bone by temporarily reducing the unpopular consumer carbon tax to zero. But the government kept the industrial carbon levy, whose costs are less visible but of course get passed on to consumers.The IMO’s global carbon tax looks an awful lot like yet another hidden cost that will make life more expensive for Canadians. With so many countries clamouring for more revenue and a full year to lobby for it, it’s likely the current amount is just a starting point, and the only way this tax will go is up.As of now, the Carney government hasn’t changed its previously supportive position on the IMO proposal.If they insist on adding to the tax burden of Canadians, they should at least have the decency to do the job themselves and in plain sight.Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer.
