The Ontario government…

The Ontario government should not cancel the Cap and Trade program until such time as it has a more effective program ready to implement. While not perfect, the Cap and Trade program was in place, had largely received multi-sectoral buy-in, complemented programs in other jurisdictions, and did what economists say is one of the most painless and most efficient ways of regularing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cap and Trade is currently in place. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that we face at every level of our civilization, so doing something reasonable to slow it is important. If Cap and Trade is not the best method of dealing with climate change, it is at least doing something and so should not be cancelled without a well articulated and ready-to-implement plan already in place.

Cap and Trade had mostly received buy-in from key constituencies. While some business groups did oppose it, most did not and welcomed the stability and opportunities that having a economist-backed, market oriented approach would provide. This is evident given that more than a billion dollars was raised through the Cap and Trade auctions.

Since climate change is a global challenge, it is appropriate for there to be a co-ordinated global approach to the solution. A Cap and Trade system permitted this type of approach. Already in North America, Ontario was joining the California-Quebec market, which could in time have easily grown to include other jurisdictions and countries. An expanding market would have expanded the options available for Ontarian businesses to reduce their footprint, and the opportunities for investment.

The Cap and Trade system was economist approved. The non-partizan but right leaning Eco-Fiscal Commission endorsed the Cap and Trade system. Many new and old Conservatives also support pricing carbon as it puts the responsibility for using a public resource on the backs of the people using that resource. While regulating upstream sources of GHG emissions could be practical and achievable, incrementally regulating downstream consumers of fossil fuels will not bring about the changes that we need to see, as quickly and we will need them to take place.

In conclusion, climate change is too large a challenge to our viability as a prosperous society for us to stop working on it in between developing better programs. If the government wants to change the current program because they honestly believe it will be ineffective and that their plans will cause greater GHG reductions faster, then they should prepare those plans first before killing a system that is going to have some positive climate impacts.