Ontario’s Dirty Lil Secret
The federal government is coming back from its recent climate conference. Where once again the Canadian government made bold promises to reduce CO2 emissions and to meet bold targets. Once again a lot of promises were made but no clear plan of attack was set out. A point many critics have made against the federal government.
Naturally, the focus is centred on the Oil Sands in Alberta as the biggest emitter of CO2, and the biggest obstruction for Canada to meet its targets. However, there is another problem that gets little to no coverage. And it’s a lot harder to fix than imposing a carbon price or limiting emissions targets. It’s Ontario. Specifically the 905 region of Ontario. It is one of the most densely populated parts of the country and is designed to essentially be a CO2 powerhouse.
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Carbon Pricing is here to stay…That’s a good thing.
The news of Canada is of course, the Supreme Court’s ruling that the federal price on carbon emissions is of course constitutional. You can read it in it’s entirety here:
As the title suggests, I’m in favour of this ruling. For starters it finally puts an end to this pointless and petty argument from Conservative premiers in the country. We can finally focus our attention on real issues of the day.
More importantly, it forces our economy to finally leap into the 21st century. As I’ve written before, innovation and competition is in short supply in this country. As well, its time we faced facts that the fossil fuel industry isn’t the panacea we’ve all be raised to believe. We’ve had two Prime Ministers now, of two different parties, all keen on building pipelines. Yet the world is moving on. We in Canada need to as well.
Economies of the world are embracing new technologies. The internal combustion engine a staple of the modern era is going the way of the dinosaur. Green electric vehicles will soon become the norm. The repercussions of that will be widely impacted through out the economy.
A carbon pricing method, is the kickstart our economy needs to foster and boost innovation and invention to meet the new demand. As pricing increases, its basic market principles that will encourage efficiency and sustainability as cornerstones for manufacturing and logistics in the economy. While companies will no doubt pass along costs to consumers, what a carbon price does is encourage ways for companies to reduce their production costs which will of course be passed along to consumers. In the long terms, consumers benefit from a cleaner environment and cheaper products. Win, win.
The good news is that carbon pricing has already fostered invention. As can be seen here:
It’s not the end all solution. And some of the questions raised in the report definitely need to be addressed, yet it’s the kind of innovation that I like to see. If we’re to build a better and more sustainable economy post COVID-19, then this is the kind of thinking that will be required.
I’m a panellist…
Just a reminder for tomorrow I’ll be a panellist on Community Climate Council’s webinar on Highway 413.
You can sign up here:
Please join us on Tuesday Feb 23rd
I teased some news yesterday on Twitter:
Well I’m pleased to share, that this:
Caught some attention. We’ve been invited on as panelists for a webinar conducted by the Community Climate Council on the province’s proposed Highway 413. If you’d like to join in, please click on the Eventbrite link below:
Joel MacLeod.ca 