Clean Prosperity made the following statement in response to the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada’s announcement today about Canada’s industrial carbon pricing system.
“Canada’s industrial carbon pricing system is a strategic asset for growing and strengthening Canadian industry,” said Clean Prosperity President and CEO Michael Bernstein.
“Dismantling industrial carbon pricing would be a mistake that robs Canada of a critical tool to attract billions in investment and create jobs across the country,” Bernstein said.
Industrial carbon pricing is widely supported by a broad range of industries across Canada. It’s the most cost-effective way of driving investment in new technologies that will ensure the long-term strength of Canada’s existing industries, while also helping Canadian companies compete in the emerging global low-carbon economy.
“Dismantling industrial carbon pricing would be a mistake that robs Canada of a critical tool to attract billions in investment and create jobs across the country”
Clean Prosperity President and CEO Michael Bernstein
Industrial carbon pricing is critical to the investment case for carbon capture and storage and other low-carbon technologies. Without carbon pricing, it’s difficult to imagine the deployment of these technologies in Canada without massive public subsidies.
While repealing the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act will not necessarily eliminate industrial carbon pricing across Canada, it undermines the policy certainty that businesses need to make large investments. Without a clear federal consensus on industrial emissions policy, Canada seems destined to whipsaw back and forth between different policies with each election cycle. This is bad for investment and growth.
U.S. tariffs threaten Canadian industry, but they do not change the long-term imperative for Canadian industry to decarbonize. Industrial carbon pricing systems are designed to keep costs low and can be designed to support the international competitiveness of Canadian industry. Removing industrial carbon pricing could also hurt Canada’s efforts to diversify trade — our second largest trading partner, the European Union, has adopted a carbon border adjustment mechanism that will make it harder to trade with them without industrial carbon pricing.
Industrial carbon pricing is one of the strongest tools in Canada’s policy toolbox and governments should use it to seize opportunities to drive Canada’s low-carbon growth.
For more information, contact: media@cleanprosperity.ca
Image credit: Zoran Orcik from Getty Images
