FLETCHER: Carney will continue to ‘fight climate change,’ but to no avail

Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984We’re still paying carbon tax on fuels; we just don’t see it any more. And the new Mark Carney government is committed to increase what it calls the industrial carbon tax.The end of the retail portion of the tax led to an immediate drop of about 17 cents per litre of gasoline at the pumps. Here in southwestern B.C. the price is currently as low as $1.50 a litre. We’re now conditioned to think that’s pretty cheap, but you can expect it to go up again.Pump price still includes federal excise tax at a flat rate of 10 cents per litre, B.C. transit tax that goes as high as 18.5 cents in Metro Vancouver and of course goods and services tax charged on top of all that. GST alone is a bigger burden than many people realize..Natural Resources Canada confirms that GST is charged on crude oil, refining and marketing costs and margins, and again at the retail level, including on road taxes set by Victoria and the federal excise tax. That’s layers of tax on tax on fuel.So what is an industrial carbon tax? It’s a patchwork system across Canada, with the earliest version imposed by Alberta back in 2007. The Justin Trudeau government imposed a federal “output-based pricing system” on large industrial emitters of greenhouse gases in 2019, creating a base rate that all provinces have to meet, similar to the “backstop” retail carbon tax that Carney dialled back to zero as soon as he took office. Essentially it’s a cap and trade system where big operations that emit less than their annual limit earn credits, and those over their emissions limit pay a tax or buy carbon offsets. The allowable limits are designed to decrease over time, and Carney has indicated he wants to push industry further. Penalties paid would have to translate to increased fuel prices, but in a fashion that defies simple description..During the election campaign, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promised to do away with the industrial carbon tax, replacing it with simpler tax credits for companies that reduce emissions. Scrapping the industrial tax was one of the measures proposed in an open letter from 14 oil and gas industry executives in March.The Pathways Alliance, an oil sands industry group behind a proposed $16 billion carbon capture and storage project, followed up days later. Its proposals for continuing to grow the oil sands industry include scrapping the tanker ban on the northern B.C. coast, creating designated pipeline corridors, cleaning up federal intrusion into local regulations and providing a more predictable process for Indigenous consultations.It also calls on Ottawa to “repeal the federal government’s current, uncompetitive industrial carbon pricing system and allow provincial governments to set up more suitable carbon regulations.”.None of this is likely to happen under Carney’s Liberal government. This means the Pathways Alliance project, one of the biggest carbon capture and storage projects in the world, is also not likely to happen.With the northern B.C. tanker ban in place, a planned northern leg of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which has capacity already built on the Alberta side, can’t proceed. Oil from Africa, the Middle East and Venezuela, home of the only oil sands deposit larger than Alberta’s, will continue to meet demand.As a pioneer of emissions reduction taxes and regulations, B.C. offers a measure of how well all this “fighting climate change” has performed. This week the B.C. issued its mandatory “2024 Climate Change Accountability Report,” which reveals the dubious nature of this whole exercise..First off, the report uses 2022 emissions figures, which are the latest available. B.C.’s bold target is to reduce emissions 40% from 2007, the start of our carbon crusade, by 2030. Based on the 2022 numbers released this week, B.C. is on track to reach only half of that.And even that is optimistic. It assumes that B.C. will meet another arbitrary 2030 target, the most aggressive in the western world, to require 90% of all new light vehicle sales be zero-emission. As of 2023, fewer than one in four new vehicles was zero emission.The B.C. report touts big increases in heat pump installations, up 67% from 2022 to 2023. That was of course driven by high fuel costs, thanks to carbon tax on natural gas, and subsidies for heat pump installation. Now the retail carbon tax is gone, and that’s what funded the rebates, along with a host of other emission-reduction programs dubbed CleanBC.B.C. has announced a “review” of its CleanBC program, which has lost its only funding source in a government facing a likely $12 billion deficit for this year. It boasts that emissions per B.C. resident are down 21%, but does not mention that we had this pandemic thing for a couple of years. Highway travel was restricted, businesses closed, vacations even to different regions of the province were banned. Yes, there was a reduction of emissions there.“Fighting climate change” in Canada is a house of cards that has collapsed. Carney will be working hard to keep you from noticing.Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984. tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX:@tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Carney will continue to ‘fight climate change,’ but to no avail

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