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  • Rob Snow

Scheer or Trudeau on carbon tax - authentic VS make believe


The Prime Minister likes to dress up as Superman. Andrew Scheer doesn't play dress up at all.

Whatever the wardrobe, on carbon taxes they're the same. Vote for Scheer and it's a big round zero. Vote for Trudeau and it's a crisp new $20 bill.

Either way - we're all gonna fry!

According to the latest, downright gloomy UN IPCC report "limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society."

Don't eat meat. Don't eat cheese, or butter. Do what your mother always told you to do and eat those veggies!

Stop driving that gas powered car. Go electric. Stop flying. Take the bus. Ride the rails. Ride your bicycle. Opt for piggy backs whenever you can! It's a dozen years till doomsday!

Andrew Scheer's carbon tax - $0.00 per tonne - is not the sort of "far-reaching" remedy the IPCC has in mind. Justin Trudeau pilfering the middle class out of another 20 bucks barely registers on the "unprecedented" scale.

Emissions "need to decline rapidly," according the IPCC. "Net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching 'net zero' around 2050."

Net. Zero.

Notta

Zilch.

We have 12 years to save world! Go big or go home! My advice, since our choices are zero dollars or 20 dollars, go home. Hide under the covers. Tremble with fear, in the fetal position.

"Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C...every extra bit of warming matters."

What can save the world? As it turns out the Nobel winning solution has been there all along, taxes so punishing you'll have no choice but to trade in your minivan for a skateboard.

Buried deep inside the IPCC's latest global warming opus is a revealing section: Economic and financial implications of 1.5°C Pathways - Price of carbon emissions.

Credit to the New York Times for the scoop.

What's the perfect carbon tax? It's not Andrew Scheer's. He's proud not to have one. It's not Justin Trudeau's either. His carbon tax is way too low.

According to the IPCC, there are many carbon prices because there are many variables. There is an "optimal carbon price." There is a "social cost of carbon." The price of carbon "varies substantially across models and scenarios."

But let's assume the Trudeau government continues on its recent course of action. It subsidizes its favorite airplane company or automotive company. It offers job-saving lifelines to steel companies, aluminum companies, lime companies, fertilizer companies and cement companies. It nationalizes oil pipelines and celebrates $40-billion natural gas projects. Oh! And it compensates farmers for milk we're not supposed to drink. Well, under that scenario carbon taxes (or are they pollution prices?) need to be many multiples higher than currently promoted.

To limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C requires carbon taxes that look something like this.

  • $135 to $5500 (USD) by 2030

  • $245 to $13,000 (USD) by 2050

  • $420 to $17,500 (USD by 2070

  • $690 to $27,000 (USD) by 2100

For Canadians, a $135 (USD) carbon tax would add roughly 40¢ to the price of gasoline. A $690 carbon tax adds about $1.65. At $5,500 the price of gas rockets higher by more than than $17.00/L and your F-150 costs more than $1800 to fill up. What's most likely to get you out of your truck?

Scheer is a sharp dressed man, authentic enough to say no to a carbon tax. Trudeau claims he's saving us all from a warming world, but it's all just make believe.


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