Clean Prosperity works in four priority areas.
Net-Zero Planning
Our goal is to ensure that Canada’s federal and provincial governments legislate 2050 net-zero targets, back up those targets with the right governance structures and accountability mechanisms, and then develop and implement plans and policies to achieve them.
Net-zero targets should be informed by credible, independent energy-economy modelling. Modelling should be based on transparent assumptions, algorithms, and data, and should be updated regularly.
Cumulative emissions matter. In addition to net-zero targets, governments should also set and adhere to carbon budgets — cumulative emissions targets through 2050.
Carbon Markets
Our goal is to ensure that Canada uses carbon markets — to the greatest practical extent — to correct for market failures, spur innovation and adoption of emissions-reducing technologies by business and industry, and drive consumer and business preferences towards low-carbon products and services.
Some important elements of effective carbon markets:
- Carbon pricing is cost-effective, sends an economy-wide signal, and can deliver the largest emission reductions, ensuring efficient and effective climate action.
- Offsets can be used to cost-effectively reduce emissions, but only if they represent verifiable, additional, and permanent negative emissions.
- Charges on the carbon content of imports are needed to ensure that Canadian firms remain competitive against international competitors as climate policy gets stronger.
Conservative Climate Leadership
We work on climate policy that enables the private sector to take a leading role in reducing emissions and generating low-carbon economic growth.
Government has an important but limited role to play in climate action. We believe governments should focus on correcting market and policy failures, letting people and businesses discover the best path to a low-carbon economy. We need to make sure that climate policy aligns business success with positive outcomes for the climate and the larger economy.
We work across the political spectrum, though we focus especially on helping conservative political parties develop effective and ambitious climate policies.
Low-Carbon Growth
Our goal is to ensure that Canada claims its share of the global low-carbon economy.
We advocate to leaders across the political spectrum that incentivizing low-carbon growth should be a core part of Canada’s economic strategy and policy.
The transition to a global net-zero economy is the greatest economic opportunity of this generation. To seize it, Canada must capitalize on our competitive advantages, including our human and natural resources and trading relationships.
We believe that Canadian industry can and should be partners in capturing low-carbon growth, accelerating decarbonization, and helping to ensure that the benefits of the net-zero economy are shared by all Canadians.
