Sheldon Zakreski, The Climate Trust
Weekly Policy and Finance Update – June 4, 2018
| Ontario’s election could signal big changes for cap and trade, but it shouldn’t as the program benefits both the economy and the climate. |
Ontario’s provincial election is less than one week away. Though they’ve squandered a large lead, most polls predict the Progressive Conservative (PC) party will win a majority. Such a victory will surely have consequences for the province’s cap and trade program. The PC platform has been short on specifics. The party, however, promises to not only scrap cap and trade, but also to not implement any carbon price system setting up a showdown with the Federal government, which has mandated all provinces adopt a carbon price.
The PC’s claim cap and trade is a tax that kills jobs. The evidence suggests otherwise. In 2017, the first year of Ontario’s cap and trade program, the province added 150,000 new jobs and experienced its highest economic rate of growth in several years. There’s not only good news economically, but environmentally, as well. Gasoline use and industrial natural gas use declined by 15%, while sales of electric vehicles rose by 120% in 2017. Such evidence is heartening, as Ontario is Canada’s industrial heartland and its economy has much more in common with upper Midwestern states than California.
Governing requires hard choices, killing a program that benefits the economy and the environment while setting up a raft of lawsuits should be an easy decision. Let’s hope whichever party wins in Ontario recognizes that cap and trade is working and will continue to work to the benefit of this province.
| A Progress Report on Ontario’s Cap-and-Trade Program and Climate Change Action Plan: Year One Clean Economy Alliance, April 2018 |
| Carbon pricing is working in Ontario, so hands off Doris Grinspun and Tim Gray, Opinion, Toronto Star, April 26, 2018Scrapping Ontario’s cap and trade would be foolish: California governor By Paola Loriggio, Global News, April 16, 2018 Ontario Votes 2018 Poll Tracker |
Updating Carbon Market Science Adds Value to Digester Projects Sheldon Zakreski, May 29, 2018
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Ontario, Québec and Oregon Enter Cooperative Climate Agreement Julius Pasay, May 14, 2018
Image credit: Flickr/Mark Jensen
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