I appreciate the opportunity…

I appreciate the opportunity to offer the following comment on Bill 4, an Act which repeals Ontario's Climate Change Mitigation and Low-carbon Economy Act.

Climate change poses a serious threat to the world our children will inhabit, and I hope we can agree that it is incumbent on us to take that threat seriously. For this reason, a bill which repeals our province's climate change plan, with nothing as of yet to replace it, is deeply problematic. It stalls our province's environmental progress while sending a clear signal to citizens that climate change is not a threat to be taken very seriously.

I oppose this bill on the grounds that it cancels carbon pricing in Ontario. Carbon pricing is a powerful tool to incentivize reduction of emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) causing climate change, and one which could have broad appeal across the political spectrum, if partisan theatrics were resisted. I think we can agree that in our market economy, the price signal has a powerful effect on our choices. In their ideal state, markets produce efficient outcomes; however, anyone who has studied economics can tell you about market failures caused by negative externalities, with pollution being the textbook example. In this case, because a cost is imposed on a third party (including future generations) by the consumption of GHGs, and because this cost is not captured in the price of carbon production or associated goods, the market is not creating a good outcome.

This is where carbon pricing comes in, as a means of correcting the negative externality. A carbon price could be be imposed in several ways - though cap and trade approaches, carbon taxes, or through a revenue neutral, fee and dividend approach. Well-meaning, educated people can disagree about the best approach. But what appears to be happening now is not a debate about how best to configure carbon pricing or even how best to fight climate change. Rather, the point here seems to be a repudiation of carbon pricing and an encouragement to stop worrying very much about climate change. It does not help that the communications approach around this bill seems to include disinformation about what carbon pricing even means, and a lot of hyped up, highly partisan language.

In times of great threat, individual action on its own is insufficient. I can change my personal habits, but only the government has the power to effect and maintain the coordinated change necessary to actually reduce the GHGs that are threatening our future. For this reason, I opposed Bill 4. I support effective carbon pricing and other incentives to produce less GHGs, with legally binding emission targets.