Move beyond ‘axe the tax’

CCONSERVATIVES NEED TO RETHINK CLIMATE POLICY.

onservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, dressed like a T-shirted pop star on a raised stage at the centre of the Toronto Congress Centre, told a few thousand boisterous fans that he intended to end the Trudeau government’s carbon tax set to increase April 1. No surprise to the crowd, since just about everybody held up a sign that carried the message printed on Poilievre’s T-shirt: “Axe the tax.”

All very populist, as they say, but the Conservative approach to climate change policy needs something more than a rhyming slogan. If they can muster some courage, the Conservatives should take on the much bigger debate over climate change itself. How real a threat is it to Canada? And how plausible and attainable are the extreme net-zero carbon policies now being pursued by the Liberals?

The Trudeau government is fully behind global climate alarmism. An example is this claim from Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s 2022 budget: “The climate crisis is more urgent than ever. Canada is already experiencing an increase in heat waves, wildfires and heavy storms.”

That statement and similar claims that climate disasters have already struck Canada have been challenged. In a request to Finance Canada, Toronto researcher Pav Penna asked the department to respond to the fact that Freeland’s budget statement contradicts research issued by Environment Canada in its 2019 climate report: Regarding rainfall, the report said, “There do not appear to be detectable trends in short-duration extreme precipitation in Canada for the country as a whole based on available station data.”

In a note to Ottawa’s information commissioner, Penna cited other evidence that contradicts claims that heavy storms and wildfires have increased. Ontario engineer Robert Muir filed a similar complaint about the budget claim and received the same response sent to Penna. Finance Canada defended its statement that Canada is “already experiencing” climate impacts by claiming “cabinet confidentiality.” Does Ottawa have new research on climate change impacts that is being held in a locked drawer in the Cabinet meeting room — or under Freeland’s desk?

The existing Conservative environmental policy document also refers to extreme weather events “Canada is already demonstrably feeling.” Again, support for the claim is lacking, as noted by Penna in another commentary he sent to all Tory MPS last week. Poilievre’s Conservatives have a “golden opportunity,” said Penna, “to educate the public on the realities of climate change and to propose fact-based policies.”

Notably, the latest Tory agenda document from September 2023 contains no hyped climate impact claims and few carbon control policies, implying there could be more to come from the Conservative climate plan to challenge Liberal climate policies that need to be reviewed and rethought.

U.S. climate analyst Roger Pielke Jr. posted a commentary this week that called for such a “Climate Policy Rethink.” Three new research papers “tell us we need to immediately reconsider climate targets, equity and scenarios,” said Pielke. Each of the papers is summarized below, by subject:

❚ Net-zero carbon targets: Vaclav Smil, professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, writes in a paper circulated by J.P. Morgan that the effort to hit global net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 amounts to “wishful thinking.” The world will “remain a fossil-fuelled civilization,” said Smil, adding that his review demonstrates the “low probability, if not impossibility, of energizing the world’s economy without any fossil carbon by 2050.”

The net-zero target date is only 25 years away, after two decades of non-progress, writes Smil. Over the past 25 years, there has been no decarbonization of global energy. “Just the opposite. In that quarter century, the world has substantially increased its dependence on fossil carbon.”

❚ Global inequity growth by 2050: Researchers in India reviewed international scenarios on the impact of carbon control policies and found that there would be little change in global income inequality. “We show that across all scenarios, the current global inequalities in incomes, energy use, and emissions, are projected to continue even in 2050. Scenarios also project higher per capita fossil fuel use and lower carbon dioxide removal in developed countries in 2050 compared to developing countries.”

❚ Coal phaseout: A global research effort claims that the first priority for reducing carbon emissions should be reducing the use of coal. For one thing, assumptions that carbon emissions from coal can be reduced via carbon capture and storage (CCS) are based on “very optimistic assumptions about the cost and scalability of CCS technologies.” The implication is that it would be better to phase out coal and move to nuclear or other sources first.

These three reports — on net-zero, equity, and coal — just scratch the surface of the massive uncertainty behind the global and Canadian full-bore crusade to hit net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. They should help prompt Conservative policymakers as they shape the party’s climate policies. A rethink does not involve bombastic Trumpian hoax rhetoric. There are solid social and economic reasons to be cautious.

Another reason for Conservatives to begin rethinking climate policy is public opinion. While many media have claimed Canada is heading for a climate change election, the polls suggest not. A Nanos survey in December placed “the environment” way down the list of priority issues at 10.9 per cent, behind inflation (35.4), health care (13.8) and housing (13.1). The Liberals can’t hide behind cabinet confidentiality forever.