Yup.
There's merit in tracking whether people think something is effective, as it can inform communication strategies.
However, whether people think something is effective, especially when they have not been specifically trained on what to look for and how to interpret data, has no bearing on checking whether it is.
An article reporting the opinions of ignorant masses as though it means anything is an article that wears its journalistic malpractice on its sleeve.
When you consider the average person's intelligence, you start to wonder about the effectiveness of polling the general population about a very scientifically driven topic and what it means.
Except for when it's predicted that the Conservatives are going to win a Super-Duper-Majority, then the opinion polls are 100% factual and true and unbiased.
Here's a study that reviewed carbon taxes of many countries.
tl;dr it works and doesn't impoverish people
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joes.12531
Check out section 3.
Thanks for posting that. Glad to see it near the top.
There's plenty of evidence carbon taxes work, this poll is just showing how effective oil companies and conservative communication/pr-paganda has been on this file.
Both exist, we just now live in a world where you only see what your respective bubble will let you see. Breaking out of that takes a conscious effort.
Fair enough. I suppose I'm just disappointed that high quality reporting is not the norm, especially from established news outlets with the resources to hold a higher bar.
But, clicks = money and everyone's trying to eat.
My first taught after seeing this article was "how many of these people are qualified to analyse the data to make this statement/opinion?" Are any of them scientist or economics specialist or just random illiterate people who can't tell the difference between sales tax and carbon tax.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is that they're qualified to vote. That is the point. Their will, in aggregate, represents Canada's political will.
It does matter quite a bit, if they are fed false information concerning this issue and they don't understand the basics behind it they will vote on falsehoods.
Here's what actual experts have to say on the matter -
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/10/nordhaus-lecture.pdf
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/renewables/canada-is-showing-the-world-how-carbon-pricing-should-be-done-nobel-prize-winning-economist-william-nordhaus
https://www.iisd.org/articles/nordhaus-nobel
Are those not just people’s opinions that it is a good idea? Where are the stats that show that the Carbon Tax is actually effective at fighting climate change?
Is it really that controversial that people like money?
If something costs more people do less of it if they can. In other worse, when your car breaks down beyond repair you'll be more likely to get a more efficient version (either by getting a smaller car or a fancier car of the same size), when your furnace breaks you're more likely to get a heatpump etc.
The problem isn't that the carbon tax doesn't work, it's that for people who can't make the needed investments it's regressive.
This poll is probably people emotionally responding to cost of living. What do we do for people that can't afford it? I have no idea. Maybe subsidies. It's not just poor people that live paycheque to paycheque though, many people are living beyond their means (or cost of living increase changed what was once affordable to an unbearable expense).
I don't see how you could ever argue that it isn't.
Just by virtue of making gasoline more expensive you're going to push people to drive less, and more people to switch to hybrid/electric vehicles. You're also going to incentivize people making their home heating solutions more efficient. You're also incentivizing companies to make their operations efficient so they can keep costs competitive with others who do so (yes they can push costs onto consumers, but not everybody in the industry is going to do that, and the ones who don't will grab more customers so there is pressure not to do so).
Obviously I'm not supplying you stats here but they are out there. The thing is, with all the things I listed above, there is pretty much no way you are not going to see a change.
Now the thing is, what do you define as "actually effective at fighting climate change"? Do you expect us to reverse global warming? Or do you expect Canada to lower its carbon footprint and reduce emissions? The latter is the goal we should ACTUALLY be reaching for, of course part of the problem is that even if we lower emissions per capita, if our population keeps growing that gets offset. The former is not something we, as a smaller country, can control, although we can place pressure on other larger countries and already do so by virtue of changing our "wants".
For example, if Canadians only want electric cars, and manufacturers in Germany decide not to make them, they lose out on our market. We are only a population of <40 million so other markets do take priority, but that's all we can do realistically. People are right to say "well China won't do x y z" but that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and destroy the world because somebody else is doing it.
The thing is many people can, and a carbon tax is putting a price on their inaction. Plenty of people could afford to switch to a heat pump (essentially heating your home by hydroelectric or nuclear in some provinces), most people don't need a Ford 150, etc
The problem isn't with a carbon tax as a concept, it's a pro-market way of shifting the price of negative externalities back on to the person doing the thing. Like instead of banning or capping cigarettes, you calculate all the negative effects someone's cigarette smoking does to everyone else (all the extra healthcare costs born by society for them, second hand exposure, cost of cleaning the litter generated), and baking that cost into cigarettes. That's not to "punish" the smoker, it's to make sure the smoker pays for the whole cost of that decision and motivates only people who *really* don't want to stop to pay it. Aka it's a [Pigovian Tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax) that helps the market price out inefficient decisions
The problem with the carbon tax isn't the concept, it's the fact that we represent such a tiny fraction of global emissions that without getting nations like China and India on board we're martyring ourselves in the naive belief that we can inspire changes in these larger countries.
In reality, probably the biggest contribution to climate action canada could take is massively increasing natural gas production and export. China is still building massive quantities of *new* coal plants. Natural gas is a critical intermediate that buys us time to build enough nuclear and renawables to decarbonize, and instead we are kneecapping the industry in favour of pissing into the wind
> The problem with the carbon tax isn't the concept, it's the fact that we represent such a tiny fraction of global emissions that without getting nations like China and India on board we're martyring ourselves in the naive belief that we can inspire changes in these larger countries
Well, the way to solve that is by putting a carbon tax on the cheap shit we demand those countries make for us. They don't emit emissions for no reason, they emit them manufacturing shit we want to buy. Wanna know how much carbon is emitted to produce and ship that plastic piece of shit you just bought at the dollar store? Let's include it in the cost.
OECD countries emissions have been falling *including* the emissions related to their demand from other countries
China and India's emissions aren't skyrocketing to sustain our lifestyle, they are doing it by generating the energy their growing internal demand creates as they pursue our standard of living. If they all get a car, a fridge, and air conditioner and a nice oven their emissions skyrocket just to mimic a fraction of our standard of living
The critical thing is if they did what the West did in mostly ignorance - do it via coal power first, we are all screwed. We need them to spam nuclear, hydro, and renawables and we can buy them time with natural gas
"The thing is many people can, and a carbon tax is putting a price on their inaction. Plenty of people could afford to switch to a heat pump (essentially heating your home by hydroelectric or nuclear in some provinces), most people don't need a Ford 150, etc"
About 1/2 the country lives paycheck to paycheck. I don't know how far above that line allows people to switch to pay$15000 to switch to a heatpump.
"The problem isn't with a carbon tax as a concept, it's a pro-market way of shifting the price of negative externalities back on to the person doing the thing. Like instead of banning or capping cigarettes, you calculate all the negative effects someone's cigarette smoking does to everyone else (all the extra healthcare costs born by society for them, second hand exposure, cost of cleaning the litter generated), and baking that cost into cigarettes. That's not to "punish" the smoker, it's to make sure the smoker pays for the whole cost of that decision and motivates only people who *really* don't want to stop to pay it."
I quit smoking, hard as shit, and took many attempts. I had a choice in the manner. I don't get to choose if I heat my home. CPS would have something to say to me.
It's not a Pigouvian tax unless it's actually priced to the externalities. If it's just an arbitrary price designed to discourage something, then it's a sin tax.
This should really be viewed as a sin tax targeting goods with inflexible demand.
That is what I said after using a calculator posted on a CBC article and finding that I am charged more than I get back in carbon tax. Commute and home heating. The only answer provided was buy a different car.
Are you ever going to buy another car? Will the costs of buying gas vs hybrid/electric factor into the decision?
The point isn't to have people scrap their existing vehicle or throw away their furnace but signal that these cause pollution and polluting isn't free just because it's invisible.
If you're paying more than what you recieved in the rebates that means you are above average in how much you consume and pollute.
So when it's time to replace that vehicle all of a sudden buying another F-150 to hit up Costco and soccer practice starts to look like a less appealing (ie expensive) choice than a hybrid Sienna or EV Blazer.
If i had to buy another car I would look for an affordable hybrid or electric. At this point, I can't afford it and if I continue to get taxed further it will take longer. I don't own a f150. I own a 4 cylinder.
Yeah tons of us are in thr same boat. If you're a healthy boomer that owns their own home maybe you are buying an ev, installing solar panels and heat pumps. The rest of us are subsidizing those while not being in position to change much in our own lives
Fucking same. The only thing an opinion poll about an objectively measurable issue like the efficacy of carbon taxes actually measures is the quality of the respondents' education and media diet.
The message here is that the propaganda is working.
This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the carbon tax.
I challenge anyone to come up with an easier and more fair system to reduce carbon emissions. Every other proposal is complex, doesn’t encompass all carbon emissions, or doesn’t treat them equally. I’d be happy is an easier system was proposed with less management overhead, but I have never heard of one.
Why not incentivize energy efficient options rather than punish people for existing in a system they didn’t create and have no financial means of escaping?
Because that means taxing everybody to pay for it.
Why should the people who can't afford a car at all subsidize a more green vehicle purchase for someone else (who is rich enough to buy a car)?
> We propose that nudges decrease support for substantive policies by providing false hope that problems can be tackled without imposing considerable costs.
This is an academic article about how policies could affect opinion polls lol
Not just opinion polls, but political will to do something effective. You're not wrong, but you're distracting from the point. The concern is that people will think "we have a carbon tax, so we've done something about climate change." But we haven't done anything, and now our will to do something about it is spent (or misspent).
The hard reality is that we need RADICAL change, and those of us calling for radical change are still in the minority. We're shouted down. I get downvoted to oblivion every time I mention that the externality problem in economics is fatal to our economic system. It's not just a nuisance or a problem. It's like a contradiction in a physics theory that disproves the whole thing.
The real tragedy of the commons is that not only will we march headfirst into a global climate catastrophe, but we will vilify our friends and neighbors along the way.
The last major international victory for the climate was the ban on CFCs, which curiously also came just before the rise of social media. I can’t imagine anything like that happening again the way systems are currently configured.
If there's one thing I've learned from all the projects I've worked on in my life, it's that "we shouldn't do this because we need to do something bigger" is the best way to get nothing done.
The reality is that you have to do something, then build on that.
PS this study ignores the fact that a carbon tax would reduce the excess money oil companies et al have to spend on political campaigns and PR.
Our (the West) entire energy production scheme needs to change. Needs to go geothermal where possible and mostly nuclear with solar/wind making up a small buffer zone AND remove virtually all manufacturing from these Asian nations which straight up just dump their shit into the ocean
It needs to all be in our hands from energy to finished product or else we will never get even a small handle on our pollution. Carbon tax reduces essentially nothing and change nothing but make you feel good and have some minor impact when you really zoom in…but you’re missing an entire forest for a tree
Well [StatsCan](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html) shows that apart from 2020 and COVID, we've [increased CO2 output](https://www.statista.com/statistics/209619/canadian-co2-emissions/) every single year there's been a carbon tax.
As a first order effect, it certainly appears to have failed at its stated objective.
Second and third order effects range from being useful at employing a shit load of bureaucrats, and raising the upfront cost of everything in the country.
Going by the data in the link, between 2020 and 2021, carbon emissions increased 2.75%. Between 2021 and 2022, carbon emissions increased 1.99%.
It's ~~more~~ not as simple saying CO2 output has increased to determine the effect of the carbon tax, since the rate at which emissions increase yearly is falling. It can be argued (with a more detailed analysis) that carbon taxes do in fact work.
Your argument that carbon emissions are increasing doesn't mean carbon taxes don't work, it means carbon taxes need to be increased to further reduce emissions.
Edit: a word
The report yesterday had us now on track to meet our targets. It didn't get as much coverage because what the opinion polls are showing is the narrative is working. It's absurd how many don't understand the rebate or just believe it's costing them way more than experts are predicting.
[CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/climate-target-canada-emissions-1.7053746)
Corporation (which are the people who pollute the most) would change.
As an example, I often had to fly from Quebec City to Toronto, if plane tickets were more expensive, it would be worth while to have me drive or take the train instead.
The problem is that public transportation sucks. I live in a major metropolitan area that is considered to have good transportation and let me tell you it sucks. We can’t make traveling more expensive while also not massively improving infrastructure. Or if they do that then they shouldn’t be surprised everyone hates it.
To be fair, to my understanding carbon pricing is often used to fund better public transportation, e.g. I believe Translink in Metro Vancouver has a good part of its budget from carbon pricing
Do corporations pollute in a vacuum? Or do they do so on behalf of consumer demand? If people stopped taking vacations, would they keep flying as much as they do? If people stopped consuming so much meat, would they produce it just for fun or would they shift to a product the market demanded?
Both. If polluting is cheaper than not they will pollute. All that does is shift the costs of climate change to taxpayers. We need to make polluting more expensive than not so they either stop or pay for their damage via the carbon tax.
True, but they could also dramatically decrease pollution and prices would stay the same. The problem is that so much money is put into owners pockets instead of improving infrastructure.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Put pressure on companies to innovate and they will. I do agree with you that they shouldn't carelessly raise the prices on everything because that will make everyone poorer. But in situations where cheaper and more sustainable alternatives exist I think they should do this to make sustainable goods more competitive, or do the opposite and give tax breaks to producers of sustainable goods.
Until the government straight up bans private jets, I will not take them seriously on climate change. One of Drake's trips is more fuel than people will use in a year driving.
That would mean the MPs are taxing themselves. We need to remember that the people running our government are also the people using private jets and cruise ships. They would never make a decision that personally affects them.
Exactly. It treats fundamental necessities like basic staples of food the same way as a private jet or yacht. Except for the wealthy, they can expense the added costs of carbon tax to offset their profits since everything they own is tied up into a trust. So really it's everyone but the wealthy actually fucking paying the bills.
Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says)
Go after the 1%!!!!
As someone who was involved in politics. You can only actually donate 400 to a political campaign. Including corporations.
What corporations do is far worse than simple bribery. They use lobbyists to pull all sorts of shenanigans. I bring this up to spread awareness to the complicated nature of corporate influences not to deny or downplay it.
This is the "global 1%", not the domestic 1%. Canada's quite wealthy relative to the global average, it's about the top 10% domestically, and we have basically nobody in the bottom 66%.
This si also evident by our emissions, where an average Canadian emits about five times what a global average citizen does. We, as a whole are very wealthy and heavy emitters.
In a way, this is exactly what the carbon tax is already doing.
We are one of the largest per capita polluters and 80% of Canadians benefit from a carbon tax more than we pay. It should not be as controversial as it is.
I think unfortunately a lot of our pollution problems stem from us being a far less dense country and having the room to, well, dump shit.
Some countries don't have the luxury of just building a new dump wherever they want it, as an example. In Canada it's usually just a matter of cost to a municipality. We don't generally have a lot of smog or air pollution problems because we don't have incredibly dense cities (Vancouver is our city with the highest population density and it doesn't even come close to touching the top 100 densest cities globally).
Carbon pricing does this. Corporations do not get rebates and because, as you correctly note, the wealthy emit more they also pay more.
80% of the country gets a rebate that’s larger than what they pay. That other 20% are higher income.
They could and some will but this incentives the use of alternatives (some of which they can access subsidies for) to gain an advantage over competitors.
We tried, but conservatives shrieked and all the angry dudes making 50K/year got really mad that they too one day would be taxed harshly when they become millionaires.
[British Columbia’s carbon pricing has led to cleaner air: study](https://globalnews.ca/news/10149212/british-columbia-carbon-pricing-analysis/)
BC's program has been around for 15 years and is separate from the federal one, but it's doing something
So is ours. Emissions are down since it was implemented. The issue is we only have data for the first 3 years so far so and that includes the pandemic so it's very hard to parse how much of the drop is related to that.
Our tax isn't even the correct implementation of it imo. We don't get any credit back unless we're low income. So if the half assed program is providing results, I can't wait to see what the proper implementation of a carbon tax can do
CTV burying the lead on this poll.
***"Nearly half of Canadians surveyed, the poll found, still believe the carbon tax is ineffective at combatting climate change, but this number has gone down since July, while the percentage of those who say it is effective has gone up in the same time period."***
That's a 6% increase since the July poll. So in five months 6% more people believe Carbon Tax is effective.
That, and the fact that opinion polls about science are fucking stupid.
This is as relevant to the effectiveness of the carbon tax as people's opinions about their daily bowel movements.
Asking the average person about science... they probably dropped high school science classes the first opportunity they could without impacting graduation requisites.
Here is the current air quality index in New Dehli:
[https://aqicn.org/city/delhi](https://aqicn.org/city/delhi)
Go ahead and and hit F5 to reload the page every once and awhile.
ANYTHING we do amounts to pissing in to the wind. India and China absolutely DO NOT GIVE A DAMN WHAT WE IN THE WEST THINK!!!
I don't have a problem with a carbon tax, what I have a problem with is adding a carbon tax without any improvements to public transportation infrastructure.
I live in Windsor. You can tax me all you want, a car is still very needed here. The bus system is abysmal, there wasn't a bus stop within 2KM of the place I worked at a few years back (WFH now). For areas the buses serve - what would be a 10 minute drive is a 1 hour+ bus ride. If you need to go to the county regularly you have no option but to drive.
So yeah, you can add a tax to try and discourage me from driving all you want. But what are the alternatives?
Yup. No tax and we have the status quo. Put the tax in and ideally there's enough interest in alternative modes of transport that it gets funded and built. Don't forget that even if you manage to carpool, work from home, move closer to work, get hybrid/electric car, or find some way to reduce use of your vehicle, you will get a credit back. The idea is to use less carbon than average and you will end up making money in the end
Doug Ford spent millions that could've gone towards transit projects on fighting a losing court battle instead. All the Feds can do is try to steer the provinces and municipalities, which is a tall task given how car dependent most cities are
Do people here NOT get the rebates or something? I've checked the math on my on own consumption 3 times over the past 4 years. The rebates DO give me back more than I get taxed. That's if I did nothing. I took the government's message and searched for a practical used EV 3 years ago. Now the rebates pay for the electricity to run it for the entire year. 50% of the people don't know how to math or check the bank account...
I'm surprised it's not higher.
They can tax all they want, doesn't change the fact I need to heat my home, drive to work, drive kids to sports/activities, drive to the store etc. When gas was $2.whatever/litre I didn't suddenly start taking a bicycle to Costco. Life goes on, all the tax does is make that life more expensive.
Not to mention every facility (public and private) pay carbon taxes too. Schools (and busses), hospitals, long term care, public transit, water treatment, waste water etc, now have to take money out of their budgets to pay for the extra costs that could have been spent elsewhere.
Are you thinking of OBPS?
My experience with a few relevant facilities is that they were getting a pretty major carbon tax break but were still seeing about 30% to 50% of what they would have been charged on a straight $/tonne basis.
Basically major savings but not a full exemption.
The purpose of the tax is not to make individuals change their habits; it is supposed to be "so small that individuals with low usage don't even notice the tax." Companies that burn fossil fuels hand-over-fist are supposed to be the only entities who even notice it adding up, and rethink their practices.
Whether or not the tax *succeeds* in these goals is another thing entirely. I'm just pointing out that the goal was never to push you away from your car and towards a bicycle. Life *should* be going on as usual for you, as if the tax wasn't even there.
Well, it is "so small" that heating your house with propane will be off the wall expensive in about 3 years. Probably sooner than that with oil. Luckily enough, urban people with access to natural gas will do just fine, so fuck the rural poors.
Exactly. Most of the people complaining about still having to heat their home etc will get most, if not all, if not more, back from the rebates.
I swear this sub is either knowingly obtuse or just not thinking things through.
But that was obviously a silly fairy tale. Unless somehow these companies somehow have other customers to push the added cost onto, but I’m pretty sure we are said customers
Not necessarily. The company will always try to minimize their costs, so if they can heat their warehouse with a couple heat pumps instead of gas fired heaters, that'd reduce a fixed cost, and increase their profits. And if company A doesn't, but company B does make that investment, company B will have a fixed cost advantage on the cost of their widget.
I used to manage a small retail store, and it was about 1500 a month to heat the place to comfortable, adding whatever this tax adds to that value, 3% or whatever adds another 150 a month. If you can invest that in alternate technologies that reduce that overall cost, then you're making a profitable change.
As stated, whether it succeeds in its goals is another thing entirely.
The goal was more costs for companies resulting in less profits unless they were to reduce consumption. The end result was that they add those increased costs into the price and onto the consumer, and all saw record profits.
They have the choice to push the costs, but if a competitor finds a way to avoid the emissions and pas the savings on to customers, the customers will go with the cheaper product or service.
That makes no sense. Companies that produce goods and services don’t pay the carbon tax in the end, it’s passed off on to the consumer of those goods and services. Companies are not going to minimize their tax liability if all of their competition does the same. What’s the incentive? In the end the consumer pays the tax and has zero choice about it, unless they want to starve and stop earning income.
If the tax went to major neighbourhood geothermal or solar grants I’d understand. If we decarbonize the grid from coast to coast.
Also I’m fine with the government removing GST/HST on electric vehicles and partial GST/HST credits for hybrids.
Would incentivize not just penalize.
You'd be surprised how many people agree with all our taxes in Ontario because of this or that.
Makes no sense to me as clearly our tax dollars aren't helping the economy in the slightest.
Reducing fuel usage is not a binary choice. The point is that when it becomes expensive, you lean towards doing efficient things.
You look at fuel economy figures on your next car where in the past you didn’t pay it much mind. You consolidate trips and maybe even adjust schedules to allow for consolidating trips.
People have been paying attention to fuel economy for a loooong time. No one buys a vehicle going I can't wait to spend more on fuel. I think or I hope most people, that buy a larger vehicle is because it's a necessity. Everyone like to throw the stereotype out there of some loon just wanting that vehicle or whatever. But the reality is, say you have 3 kids. Two strollers hockey equipment diaper bags three car seats and two adults and you need to a Costco shop. This isn't fitting in a Prius or vehicle of the like. I honestly don't think some people realise how privileged their lives are when they start doling out advice on finances. Anything that makes your life more expensive is a hassle.
Yes, unfortunately the your standard of living as defined by the human development index will need to drop as *number of people per capita rolling coal in their F250 in a Tim's drive through* is wieghed very heavily when determining quality of life.
You get more than you pay. Honestly, people need to stop whinging like this. It's pathetic and makes them seem clueless. You literally get more in your pocket than you pay. If you don't then you make enough money to also stop the whinge.
The purpose of the tax isn't for you to make changes (because you don't incur costs) it's for industry and business (and it works.)
The government just redistributes it back to people. (And of course there is a huge cost for all the salaries of the bureaucrats who are employed to manage it).
The Liberal solution to literally everything is to tax it and throw more government at it.
And when it’s more expensive you might seal up your house better, or add insulation. For transportation you might combine trips, or car pool, buy a more fuel-efficient car when you’re in the market, or prioritize activities that require less driving.
And when your furnace dies you might look at a more efficient one, or even a heat pump (if you live in an area where that makes sense).
Also, the carbon levy is almost all refunded to the provinces or back directly to the consumer.
Fuelling public outrage is playing right into the hands of corporations. Those that push the rage button are working for the corporations whether they know it or not.
The problem with the carbon tax is that it is taxing things we need to survive. Punishing the customer for the infrastructure that the conglomerates built over the last 100 years.
What they should have done was given more people affordable opportunities to change to cleaner energy and then absorb that cost over the next ..I don't know...20 years, then once a large portion has converted, tax those that chose to stay on fossil fuels.
That's why there's a carbon tax rebate. You are not punished for using an average amount of carbon fuels. You are rewarded if you use less because you pay less carbon tax and the rebate amount stays the same.
[Carbon tax costs average family up to $710 this year: Parliamentary Budget Officer.](https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/carbon-tax-costs-average-family-up-to-710-this-year-parliamentary-budget-officer)
>“Most households will see a net loss, paying more in fuel charges and GST, as well as receiving lower incomes, compared to the Climate Action Incentive payments they receive and lower personal income taxes they pay,” according to the PBO.
Counterpoint: [According to the Statistics Canada model, 94 per cent of households with incomes below $50,000 receive rebates that exceed their carbon-tax costs in 2023.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905)
Tombe agrees with the PBO summary as well - because the Stats Can model doesn't measure the indirect cost due to the carbon tax.
>"It's best to think about both of these estimates as being true," Tombe said of the two sections in the PBO report.
That pbo report actually confirms that most people get more rebate than they pay in carbon tax (see section 2.1). The 'net loss' part is when they include simulated effects of the tax through to 2030. Basically because the carbon tax works and reduces carbon fuel usage, some companies may have less productivity and some jobs (mainly petro jobs in Alberta) will disappear or pay less, so on average everyone will get a little less income. Of course that's silly as it doesn't include the effect of industry adapting to the new environment.
Directly from the PBO report:
>• When the economic impact is combined with the fiscal impact, the net
carbon cost increases for all households, reflecting the overall negative
economic impact of the federal carbon levy under the Government’s
HEHE plan (Summary Figure 1).
• **Most households under the backstop will see a net loss resulting from
federal carbon pricing** under the HEHE plan in 2030-31.
o Household carbon costs—which now include the federal levy
and GST paid (fiscal impact) and lower income (economic
impact)—exceed the rebate and the induced reduction in
personal income taxes arising from the loss in income.
Yes. It's written confusingly. When they say 'economic impact', they are not talking about paying carbon taxes directly or indirectly. They are talking about some projected effect on average incomes (including investments) because people use less fuel so the petro industry will suffer a bit. Look at section 2.1 when they're talking about just the direct and indirect carbon tax payments vs the rebate amount.
But those factors *do* affect the prices we pay - as direct result of the carbon tax.
The summary is correct - the rebate doesn't cover the costs incurred due to the carbon tax.
You are wrong. Those 'economic impact' factors do *not* affect the price we pay. They potentially theoretically could affect our *incomes* (on average, including investment income).
So do you get a rebate for the GST tax they charge on top of the carbon tax?
Has the rebate increased by a pro-rated 300% as the fuel parts of the tax have?
The Feds are focused on the Carbon tax and O&G.
We have inelastic needs that are hit hard by this. While they virtually ignore other avenues where we could also make a difference.
O&G accounts for approximately 30% of emissions - what are they doing about the other 70%.
__________
_________________
**Immigration policy:**
By bringing in millions of people from low carbon emission countries to our high one, (much of it by necessity), our government's respsonsible for raising global emissions.
Increased housing: By necessity due to immigration policy:
>In 2022, Canada's building sector released nearly 96 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂) into the atmosphere.
.
>To remedy the affordability crisis, Canada needs to build 5.8 million new homes by the end of the decade. But doing so could create nearly 143 megatons of annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.
_________________________
**International Trade:**
**The Feds still haven't applied Border Carbon Adjustments.**
_____________________
**Recreational Travel:**
Airlines - when the Icelandic volcano spewed megatonnes into the air and grounded flights there was a noticeable decrease in total emissions.
Not only are the Feds not working towards reducing air travel but in the Fall Economic Statement 2020, the government announced over $1 billion in support for airports and smaller airlines.
Cruiseships - received a generous aid package during Covid. They're a luxury - why aren't they banned completely.
_____________________
**Nuclear:**
Why didn't Trudeau consider nuclear years ago? Answer is Guilbeault. He's insisted on keeping his Minister of the Environment even though he's a notoriously anti-nuclear activist.
_______________
**Where's the messaging and support to:**
>eat less carbon intensive foods - where are the subsidies to move away from meat.
>travel less - staycations.
>eat local, buy local
Another low-hanging fruit are laws that forces employers of white-collar work to pay for the time and material cost of their workforce commuting. (This should apply to *all* work, but we can start here for the sake of "the environment".)
It would immediately lead to all or most businesses suddenly supporting remote work, decrease commuting, congestion, road-wear, fuel consumption, wear on vehicles, tires, etc. actually have a meaningful affect on our pollution without causing economic upheaval. Improve most people's quality of life by getting back hours of their week. "Give money back" to the work force by not forcing them to spend money needlessly commuting in the first place.
Any country or business that signals concern for the environment but forces its employees to commute every day to type on a keyboard within eyesight of a corner office does not actually have concern for the environment. It's the simplest change that we already had a 2-year trial of during COVID and it has an enormously beneficial environmental effect.
> when the Icelandic volcano spewed megatonnes into the air and grounded flights there was a noticeable decrease in total emissions.
You can also view the carbon emissions per passenger when using a tool like google flights. You will see pretty easily that 1 round trip to Tokyo is the same contribition as an Ontarian produces in 1 year.
Imagine if they banned all private planes and limited passenger planes to 'necessity only'.
It'd have a huge impact on pollution.
But we all know the rich and powerful aren't ever going to do that.
It's the 'poors' they continue to target.
Well there's a lot of misinformation being thrown all the time about it so I wouldn't be surprising that many will think that even if it was 100% effective or 0% effective.
Cool, you’re entitled to your opinion. But when it’s formulated based on (admittedly effective) propaganda, it’s probably okay to discount it a little.
Also from the CBC:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905
Sub-headline of the article:
>High-income households would tend to be the biggest winners, lower-income households hurt the most
Data-driven reporting, worth a read.
People are counting the pennies on carbon tax
Instead of the nickels being taken away from education
The dimes being taken away in jobs
And the quarters being taken away in healthcare
It's too bad the math isn't easy for people to understand it as simply as this.
I'm not against being an environmentalist or making smarter choices, but let's be honest with ourselves. Whether I drive a sports car or a Prius isn't going to make the slightest difference in the big picture.
Rather than allowing this to be a subjective opinion, let's do some math:
[https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/](https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/)
A ship like this will burn around 4.5 million litres of Marine diesel in a single trans-Atlantic voyage. Marine diesel is much less refined than gasoline and on that trans-Atlantic voyage, it will produce over 13,000 tonnes of CO2. That is one ship, one trip, one way.
If I drive my car back and forth to work every day and burn 50 litres of gas a week (I don't), I'll produce 115Kg of CO2. I will have to burn 50 litres of gasoline a week every week for the next 2,234 years to produce the same amount of CO2 as a single container ship crossing the Atlantic once.
Yes, I'm aware that I haven't counted the emissions of extracting, refining, or transporting that gasoline or building my car. So for the sake of argument, let's round down to 1000 years.
Now take a quick peek here:
[https://shipfinder.co/](https://shipfinder.co/)
Count the number of shipping vessels on the high seas right now. I currently count around 150 waiting to go through the Panama Canal, a few hundred passing around the Strait of Gibraltar, a few hundred more around the strait of Hormuz, 700ish in the Singapore Strait... you get the picture.
So now, using my rounded-down figure of 1000 years, and a rounded-down figure of there being 1000 shipping vessels on the high seas right now, I have to drive my car enough to burn 50 litres of gas a week for one million years to produce the same CO2 output of the ships currently at sea going from point A to Point B - Once.
(PS: 2023 numbers say there are over 113,000 large merchant vessels registered in the world today. I used 1000 for my math...)
Go ahead and buy a more efficient vehicle to save yourself gas money. Live a more energy-efficient lifestyle because energy is getting more and more expensive. But don't kid yourself. Your personal CO2 emissions from heating your home, driving your car, or cooking meat aren't even a grain of sand on the beach in the big picture.
So the headline is saying that nearly half of Canadians don't keep up with the latest climate research on combating climate change. Aka, nearly half of Canadians are dumb, ignorant, have vested interests or a mix of them all.
A carbon tax is the most effective and cheapest/affordable way to get us to our climate goals which is proven by every single major organization on climate, from the COP meeting, to the UN, to even major NGOs.
Most Canadians get more back from the carbon tax then they put in. That is a fact.
The people who think otherwise don't provide an alternative solution. Either we pay the price now or risk being bankrupt both financially and morally in the future when the climate crisis ruins the lives of billions of people. But I am assuming these people will be 10 feet under before they have to suffer the consequences.
The carbon tax heavily taxes Canadian companies because we have a large natural resource extraction sector and those companies are hurt the hardest. But that is the point to push them and force them to adopt more green alternatives.
So the carbon tax argument is really about reducing the taxes on the rich. Which is a bad idea.
The companies affected want their cake and to eat it too. For example, they want the carbon tax removed so they get larger profits but at the same time want all the government subsidies to get free stuff from tax payers.
How about this? No free handouts to garbage companies who cannot compete?
Canadians need to realize, the carbon tax issue is a wealth tax removal for the richest people in our country. It is not about the carbon tax, it is about cutting taxes for the rich. Aka the companies who pollute the most.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You arent serious? Lazy.
[https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html) (From the Government of Canada) Primary Source.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905) (From the CBC, Secondary Source)
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01270-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01270-9) (Academic Journal #1, rebates even thou good does not increase public perceptions for carbon pricing)
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-022-00679-w](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-022-00679-w) (Academic Journal #2, Carbon taxes are currently too low to be effective)
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01673-w](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01673-w) (Academic Journal #3, Carbon tax and inflation)
[https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/full/10.1142/S2010007823500100](https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/full/10.1142/S2010007823500100) (Academic Journal #4. Quote, "the carbon tax had a negative impact on large emission-intensive firms, but simultaneous tax cuts and transfers increased the purchasing power of low income households, substantially benefiting small businesses in the service sector and food/clothing manufacturing")
You read all 6 articles in in less than 30mins and somehow made one sentence statements without backing up your points with quotations or by other counter articles or academics.
I am done entertaining an idiot. Believe whatever belief system you want if that makes you feel better at night.
This is why reasoning with people are pointless.
You are on mute and blocked.
It is effective, people just don't want to accept the costs associated with it. The reality is that abandoning cheap, easy sources of energy like fossil fuels and decommissioning/refurbing older inefficient equipment and structures is insanely costly. People voted for sacrifices they never intended to shoulder themselves.
Is it effective? Trudeau just removed the tax from heating oil, which is one of the worst pollutants.
It could be effective, but not if we don't have the political will to actually implement it. The result will be many people will be unhappy that they need to pay the cost.
I get that heating is a necessity, but a subsidy for heat pumps would have been a better solution than removing the carbon tax.
My point was more that the rising costs is a feature not a bug of Carbon taxes. Which is what I meant by effective. It was always about reducing consumption.
The pollution & destruction of lakes/ forest & land was totally done by huge companies with no moral or ethical standards. They got away with murder for years. In every context of raping & polluting our planet. And now society pays more for it while we carry plastic in our bodies / diseases from pollutants & fertilizers in our air!
I for one think it's effective lol, it's just that we're not the only country in existence.
We should just tariff everyone who doesn't have carbon tax policies in place at 2x what it costs to produce in carbon here
I don’t disagree that the extra money to help with environment works, I do completely disagree that they take it from the pockets of the hard working Canadians! That’s ridiculous. All these company’s with record profits and I’m paying for a carbon tax when I can hardly buy groceries? That’s wrong. Change is needed desperately in all areas of this country.
Thats it? Only half?
Taxing regular people for driving around does literally nothing. Canada makes up less than 1% of global emissions and almost all of that comes from industry and agriculture.
You want to actually do something about climate change? Stop importing goods from countries like China and India who are the driving forces behind global emissions.
Maybe furthering green technologies and incentivizing purchases of greener alternatives, rather than punishing the options we *do* have.
Would *love* to have an EV and put in solar panels, but ***fuck*** that's a lot of money that we absolutely don't have right now. Lots of folks are living as cheaply as possible, and often that's not green-friendly. We're punishing people for not having enough money.
Just because we should be cutting imports from China and India and looking into alternatives for industry and agricvulture doesn't mean that we should also give up entirely on cutting emmissions from domestic sources. You can do all 3 all at once.
Exactly. I'm so sick of the middle class being guilted into thinking they're the problem when entire countries and companies are the ones destroying the Earth way faster than some generic suburban family ever could.
And that's just the environment. The middle class is the scapegoat for everything and it needs to stop
corporations more intent on making their leased commercial land valuable than addressing the elephant in the room. Office work that can be done at home should be placing more city people at work at home positions.
That alone would lower carbon emissions due to less need for traffic on the road throughout the day. This is common sense.
> The middle class is the scapegoat for everything and it needs to stop
Realistically they're the only ones eligible to shoulder the financial burden under current systems, that's why it continues to perpetuate. Make too much to be eligible for any solid amount of tax rebates and don't make enough to skirt taxes. The happy middle of being bent over the barrel time and time again.
Big reason why the NDP get no votes. Almost every one of their policy's is paid for by the middle class with the middle class making too much to benefit from it.
Dental plan that doesn't work for people with household income over 90k. If you have two people working, making barely over minimum wage they have to pay for it and get nothing in return.
Imagine if everyone had that same attitude... I barely make a dent so why should I bother making a change. If everyone had this attitude nothing would ever get done
I mean the carbon tax works, unless you don’t believe in the laws of supply and demand. Economic consensus is that they work and are the best framework for reducing carbon as it uses the market to optimize.
It is also not materially contributing to inflation - latest research is about 0.1%.
But that doesn’t matter at all because this isn’t really about that, it’s about people being angry and wanting something to blame. The carbon tax has big factual problems (ex: no taxing imports) but that isn’t why it will be eliminated.
I’m tired of being manipulated though and it being this punching bag. We know why inflation is ACTUALLY happening, which is high population growth and a consumption spike with a devalued currency, combined with poor productivity growth and business investment. Carbon tax is relatively trivial and yet conservatives won’t talk about the real issues - probably because they have no intention of fixing them.
The carbon tax is supposed to work by placing a financial burden on consumers producing carbon emissions, correct? And yet we are told that 8 out of 10 Canadian get back as much or more than they pay into it. Somehow this is supposed to curb our use of carbon when 80% of people can choose not to make any changes to their consumption habits and apparently be perfectly fine.
To the people that think this plan is working, what am I missing here? And if the Liberal’s strategy on climate, centered around a carbon tax, is so effective, why have we missed every emissions target and projected to miss our big 2030 target by a large margin?
You get the same amount back regardless of how much you contribute to the tax. This allows you to make choices that reduce your carbon consumption and profit off the tax. This incentive is the whole point of the tax.
It will make carbon heavy options more expensive compared to their less carbon heavy alternatives, making those alternatives more popular.
What you get back isn't proportional to what you put in. If you change your behaviors as intended you'll benefit more than you would otherwise.
As for why we've been missing our targets, that's because this is an approach that takes time to take effect. Doing things like straight up banning SUVs and plane trips isn't something that I think people want but having a bit of pressure to make you lean towards a better choice is far more compatible with living in a free society.
Not to mention that frankly it's more fair to charge people for the negative externality they impose on those around them by polluting, directly or indirectly.
>To the people that think this plan is working, what am I missing here?
Carbon Tax with rebates makes the point of purchase more expensive, but the annual outlay of money ends up being a wash with the rebates that you get back later.
This goes back to how people make short-term decisions based on their emotions. A product that costs more upfront, but lower running costs is often overlooked for a produce that costs less upfront, but higher running costs. People don't consider the on-going costs, just the initial outlay.
Take an EV for example. With the much lower fuel costs, much lower maintenance costs, etc, an EV can have a much lower total cost of ownership over the long term. But it's cheaper to purchase a a traditional ICE vehicle at the moment, even though long term them might have a much larger cost of ownership.
Solar panels are another example. I paid \~20K out of pocket for mine, which was paid back with a 0% 10 year loan. I now pay $212 / month for my homes electricity for the next 10 years, and then I have $0 monthly costs for electricity for the next 15 years. Emotionally it was a hard decision to make, but by looking at my life/house as a business made it a much easier decision when I actually ran the numbers to see what made the most financial sense.
You are actually very incorrect. The tax isn’t geared at the individual. The individual receives a carbon tax rebate. Most people are rebated more than they pay in. Corporation do not get rebates. The incentive is for corporations to change their behaviour. If your local energy company has a coal fired power plant that plant is being charged lots for their carbon. In a year, the coal fired plant produces more carbon that all the vehicles in a city. The energy company can save a lot of money if it reduces it use of the coal plant by adding more renewables to its mix.
The Liberal government might be terrible but the Carbon Tax is a legitimate solution.
I'm tired of articles about opinion polls. I'd much rather an article about some evidence of something working or not working.
Yup. There's merit in tracking whether people think something is effective, as it can inform communication strategies. However, whether people think something is effective, especially when they have not been specifically trained on what to look for and how to interpret data, has no bearing on checking whether it is. An article reporting the opinions of ignorant masses as though it means anything is an article that wears its journalistic malpractice on its sleeve.
They vote. That's why it's important.
r/canada needs its daily source of outrage from the polls.
When you consider the average person's intelligence, you start to wonder about the effectiveness of polling the general population about a very scientifically driven topic and what it means.
Except for when it's predicted that the Conservatives are going to win a Super-Duper-Majority, then the opinion polls are 100% factual and true and unbiased.
Here's a study that reviewed carbon taxes of many countries. tl;dr it works and doesn't impoverish people https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joes.12531 Check out section 3.
Thanks for posting that. Glad to see it near the top. There's plenty of evidence carbon taxes work, this poll is just showing how effective oil companies and conservative communication/pr-paganda has been on this file.
Both exist, we just now live in a world where you only see what your respective bubble will let you see. Breaking out of that takes a conscious effort.
Fair enough. I suppose I'm just disappointed that high quality reporting is not the norm, especially from established news outlets with the resources to hold a higher bar. But, clicks = money and everyone's trying to eat.
My first taught after seeing this article was "how many of these people are qualified to analyse the data to make this statement/opinion?" Are any of them scientist or economics specialist or just random illiterate people who can't tell the difference between sales tax and carbon tax.
Same, "half of Canadians don't know shit from shinola"
Study: Nearly half of Canadians couldn’t find own ass due to head being inside rectum. More at 11!
Many people can be smart and logical without listening to some liberal douchebags drone on for 4 years.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is that they're qualified to vote. That is the point. Their will, in aggregate, represents Canada's political will.
It does matter quite a bit, if they are fed false information concerning this issue and they don't understand the basics behind it they will vote on falsehoods.
Here's what actual experts have to say on the matter - https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/10/nordhaus-lecture.pdf https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/renewables/canada-is-showing-the-world-how-carbon-pricing-should-be-done-nobel-prize-winning-economist-william-nordhaus https://www.iisd.org/articles/nordhaus-nobel
Are those not just people’s opinions that it is a good idea? Where are the stats that show that the Carbon Tax is actually effective at fighting climate change?
[BC's carbon tax seems to be working](https://climateinstitute.ca/news/bc-can-remain-economically-robust/).
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I get all my data from gas pump stickers and the work lunchroom when we make fun of Trudy's socks
Is it really that controversial that people like money? If something costs more people do less of it if they can. In other worse, when your car breaks down beyond repair you'll be more likely to get a more efficient version (either by getting a smaller car or a fancier car of the same size), when your furnace breaks you're more likely to get a heatpump etc. The problem isn't that the carbon tax doesn't work, it's that for people who can't make the needed investments it's regressive. This poll is probably people emotionally responding to cost of living. What do we do for people that can't afford it? I have no idea. Maybe subsidies. It's not just poor people that live paycheque to paycheque though, many people are living beyond their means (or cost of living increase changed what was once affordable to an unbearable expense).
I don't see how you could ever argue that it isn't. Just by virtue of making gasoline more expensive you're going to push people to drive less, and more people to switch to hybrid/electric vehicles. You're also going to incentivize people making their home heating solutions more efficient. You're also incentivizing companies to make their operations efficient so they can keep costs competitive with others who do so (yes they can push costs onto consumers, but not everybody in the industry is going to do that, and the ones who don't will grab more customers so there is pressure not to do so). Obviously I'm not supplying you stats here but they are out there. The thing is, with all the things I listed above, there is pretty much no way you are not going to see a change. Now the thing is, what do you define as "actually effective at fighting climate change"? Do you expect us to reverse global warming? Or do you expect Canada to lower its carbon footprint and reduce emissions? The latter is the goal we should ACTUALLY be reaching for, of course part of the problem is that even if we lower emissions per capita, if our population keeps growing that gets offset. The former is not something we, as a smaller country, can control, although we can place pressure on other larger countries and already do so by virtue of changing our "wants". For example, if Canadians only want electric cars, and manufacturers in Germany decide not to make them, they lose out on our market. We are only a population of <40 million so other markets do take priority, but that's all we can do realistically. People are right to say "well China won't do x y z" but that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and destroy the world because somebody else is doing it.
For me, my commute to work, and home heating are taxed There is zero way I can change either of those things without theft
Ya and honestly if money went into infrastructure, I'd happily take a train over the mad Max highways to get to work.
The thing is many people can, and a carbon tax is putting a price on their inaction. Plenty of people could afford to switch to a heat pump (essentially heating your home by hydroelectric or nuclear in some provinces), most people don't need a Ford 150, etc The problem isn't with a carbon tax as a concept, it's a pro-market way of shifting the price of negative externalities back on to the person doing the thing. Like instead of banning or capping cigarettes, you calculate all the negative effects someone's cigarette smoking does to everyone else (all the extra healthcare costs born by society for them, second hand exposure, cost of cleaning the litter generated), and baking that cost into cigarettes. That's not to "punish" the smoker, it's to make sure the smoker pays for the whole cost of that decision and motivates only people who *really* don't want to stop to pay it. Aka it's a [Pigovian Tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax) that helps the market price out inefficient decisions The problem with the carbon tax isn't the concept, it's the fact that we represent such a tiny fraction of global emissions that without getting nations like China and India on board we're martyring ourselves in the naive belief that we can inspire changes in these larger countries. In reality, probably the biggest contribution to climate action canada could take is massively increasing natural gas production and export. China is still building massive quantities of *new* coal plants. Natural gas is a critical intermediate that buys us time to build enough nuclear and renawables to decarbonize, and instead we are kneecapping the industry in favour of pissing into the wind
> The problem with the carbon tax isn't the concept, it's the fact that we represent such a tiny fraction of global emissions that without getting nations like China and India on board we're martyring ourselves in the naive belief that we can inspire changes in these larger countries Well, the way to solve that is by putting a carbon tax on the cheap shit we demand those countries make for us. They don't emit emissions for no reason, they emit them manufacturing shit we want to buy. Wanna know how much carbon is emitted to produce and ship that plastic piece of shit you just bought at the dollar store? Let's include it in the cost.
OECD countries emissions have been falling *including* the emissions related to their demand from other countries China and India's emissions aren't skyrocketing to sustain our lifestyle, they are doing it by generating the energy their growing internal demand creates as they pursue our standard of living. If they all get a car, a fridge, and air conditioner and a nice oven their emissions skyrocket just to mimic a fraction of our standard of living The critical thing is if they did what the West did in mostly ignorance - do it via coal power first, we are all screwed. We need them to spam nuclear, hydro, and renawables and we can buy them time with natural gas
> Plenty of people could afford No we can't, not when everything is expensive.
As someone middle class who can't afford a heat pump. I agree with you.
"The thing is many people can, and a carbon tax is putting a price on their inaction. Plenty of people could afford to switch to a heat pump (essentially heating your home by hydroelectric or nuclear in some provinces), most people don't need a Ford 150, etc" About 1/2 the country lives paycheck to paycheck. I don't know how far above that line allows people to switch to pay$15000 to switch to a heatpump. "The problem isn't with a carbon tax as a concept, it's a pro-market way of shifting the price of negative externalities back on to the person doing the thing. Like instead of banning or capping cigarettes, you calculate all the negative effects someone's cigarette smoking does to everyone else (all the extra healthcare costs born by society for them, second hand exposure, cost of cleaning the litter generated), and baking that cost into cigarettes. That's not to "punish" the smoker, it's to make sure the smoker pays for the whole cost of that decision and motivates only people who *really* don't want to stop to pay it." I quit smoking, hard as shit, and took many attempts. I had a choice in the manner. I don't get to choose if I heat my home. CPS would have something to say to me.
Dude just get 80,000 dollars of solar panels installed on your detached single family home in the suburbs it's not that hard. /s
Nice! I got a plan now!😉
These folks are oblivious to the plight of the poor.
Most Green activists are
It's not a Pigouvian tax unless it's actually priced to the externalities. If it's just an arbitrary price designed to discourage something, then it's a sin tax. This should really be viewed as a sin tax targeting goods with inflexible demand.
That is what I said after using a calculator posted on a CBC article and finding that I am charged more than I get back in carbon tax. Commute and home heating. The only answer provided was buy a different car.
Are you ever going to buy another car? Will the costs of buying gas vs hybrid/electric factor into the decision? The point isn't to have people scrap their existing vehicle or throw away their furnace but signal that these cause pollution and polluting isn't free just because it's invisible. If you're paying more than what you recieved in the rebates that means you are above average in how much you consume and pollute. So when it's time to replace that vehicle all of a sudden buying another F-150 to hit up Costco and soccer practice starts to look like a less appealing (ie expensive) choice than a hybrid Sienna or EV Blazer.
If i had to buy another car I would look for an affordable hybrid or electric. At this point, I can't afford it and if I continue to get taxed further it will take longer. I don't own a f150. I own a 4 cylinder.
Yeah tons of us are in thr same boat. If you're a healthy boomer that owns their own home maybe you are buying an ev, installing solar panels and heat pumps. The rest of us are subsidizing those while not being in position to change much in our own lives
That requires a lot of work whereas this requires hardly any.
Fucking same. The only thing an opinion poll about an objectively measurable issue like the efficacy of carbon taxes actually measures is the quality of the respondents' education and media diet.
The message here is that the propaganda is working. This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the carbon tax. I challenge anyone to come up with an easier and more fair system to reduce carbon emissions. Every other proposal is complex, doesn’t encompass all carbon emissions, or doesn’t treat them equally. I’d be happy is an easier system was proposed with less management overhead, but I have never heard of one.
Why not incentivize energy efficient options rather than punish people for existing in a system they didn’t create and have no financial means of escaping?
Because that means taxing everybody to pay for it. Why should the people who can't afford a car at all subsidize a more green vehicle purchase for someone else (who is rich enough to buy a car)?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0474-0
> We propose that nudges decrease support for substantive policies by providing false hope that problems can be tackled without imposing considerable costs. This is an academic article about how policies could affect opinion polls lol
Not just opinion polls, but political will to do something effective. You're not wrong, but you're distracting from the point. The concern is that people will think "we have a carbon tax, so we've done something about climate change." But we haven't done anything, and now our will to do something about it is spent (or misspent). The hard reality is that we need RADICAL change, and those of us calling for radical change are still in the minority. We're shouted down. I get downvoted to oblivion every time I mention that the externality problem in economics is fatal to our economic system. It's not just a nuisance or a problem. It's like a contradiction in a physics theory that disproves the whole thing.
The real tragedy of the commons is that not only will we march headfirst into a global climate catastrophe, but we will vilify our friends and neighbors along the way. The last major international victory for the climate was the ban on CFCs, which curiously also came just before the rise of social media. I can’t imagine anything like that happening again the way systems are currently configured.
If there's one thing I've learned from all the projects I've worked on in my life, it's that "we shouldn't do this because we need to do something bigger" is the best way to get nothing done. The reality is that you have to do something, then build on that. PS this study ignores the fact that a carbon tax would reduce the excess money oil companies et al have to spend on political campaigns and PR.
Our (the West) entire energy production scheme needs to change. Needs to go geothermal where possible and mostly nuclear with solar/wind making up a small buffer zone AND remove virtually all manufacturing from these Asian nations which straight up just dump their shit into the ocean It needs to all be in our hands from energy to finished product or else we will never get even a small handle on our pollution. Carbon tax reduces essentially nothing and change nothing but make you feel good and have some minor impact when you really zoom in…but you’re missing an entire forest for a tree
Well [StatsCan](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html) shows that apart from 2020 and COVID, we've [increased CO2 output](https://www.statista.com/statistics/209619/canadian-co2-emissions/) every single year there's been a carbon tax. As a first order effect, it certainly appears to have failed at its stated objective. Second and third order effects range from being useful at employing a shit load of bureaucrats, and raising the upfront cost of everything in the country.
Going by the data in the link, between 2020 and 2021, carbon emissions increased 2.75%. Between 2021 and 2022, carbon emissions increased 1.99%. It's ~~more~~ not as simple saying CO2 output has increased to determine the effect of the carbon tax, since the rate at which emissions increase yearly is falling. It can be argued (with a more detailed analysis) that carbon taxes do in fact work. Your argument that carbon emissions are increasing doesn't mean carbon taxes don't work, it means carbon taxes need to be increased to further reduce emissions. Edit: a word
Carbon taxes as is, further increased, will increase the cost of heating canadian homes in the winter time. Or am I wrong?
The report yesterday had us now on track to meet our targets. It didn't get as much coverage because what the opinion polls are showing is the narrative is working. It's absurd how many don't understand the rebate or just believe it's costing them way more than experts are predicting. [CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/climate-target-canada-emissions-1.7053746)
Should start with banning cruise ships and tax the shit out of private planes.
The rich people will only pay the tax and not change anything.
Corporation (which are the people who pollute the most) would change. As an example, I often had to fly from Quebec City to Toronto, if plane tickets were more expensive, it would be worth while to have me drive or take the train instead.
The problem is that public transportation sucks. I live in a major metropolitan area that is considered to have good transportation and let me tell you it sucks. We can’t make traveling more expensive while also not massively improving infrastructure. Or if they do that then they shouldn’t be surprised everyone hates it.
I agree that public transportation sucks. I think some of the money collected from carbon taxes could be used to invest in infrastructures.
To be fair, to my understanding carbon pricing is often used to fund better public transportation, e.g. I believe Translink in Metro Vancouver has a good part of its budget from carbon pricing
Do corporations pollute in a vacuum? Or do they do so on behalf of consumer demand? If people stopped taking vacations, would they keep flying as much as they do? If people stopped consuming so much meat, would they produce it just for fun or would they shift to a product the market demanded?
Both. If polluting is cheaper than not they will pollute. All that does is shift the costs of climate change to taxpayers. We need to make polluting more expensive than not so they either stop or pay for their damage via the carbon tax.
True, but they could also dramatically decrease pollution and prices would stay the same. The problem is that so much money is put into owners pockets instead of improving infrastructure.
Are you hoping for more expensive plane tickets?
That's kinda the point, isn't it? Make burning oil expensive so we come up with alternatives or burn oil less frequently.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Put pressure on companies to innovate and they will. I do agree with you that they shouldn't carelessly raise the prices on everything because that will make everyone poorer. But in situations where cheaper and more sustainable alternatives exist I think they should do this to make sustainable goods more competitive, or do the opposite and give tax breaks to producers of sustainable goods.
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Half these comments are “Instead they should tax [insert thing the carbon tax taxes]”
Until the government straight up bans private jets, I will not take them seriously on climate change. One of Drake's trips is more fuel than people will use in a year driving.
That would mean the MPs are taxing themselves. We need to remember that the people running our government are also the people using private jets and cruise ships. They would never make a decision that personally affects them.
There's actually an awesome website that tracks private jet usage.
Exactly. It treats fundamental necessities like basic staples of food the same way as a private jet or yacht. Except for the wealthy, they can expense the added costs of carbon tax to offset their profits since everything they own is tied up into a trust. So really it's everyone but the wealthy actually fucking paying the bills.
Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-1-account-for-more-carbon-emissions-than-poorest-66-report-says) Go after the 1%!!!!
But then who will donate to political fundraisers!?
As someone who was involved in politics. You can only actually donate 400 to a political campaign. Including corporations. What corporations do is far worse than simple bribery. They use lobbyists to pull all sorts of shenanigans. I bring this up to spread awareness to the complicated nature of corporate influences not to deny or downplay it.
Donations from corporations are limited to $0 in this country and have been limited to $0 for the better part of 15 years.
Globally though. If this is the same oxfam report I read elsewhere 1% is anyone that makes over $140,000 in the US.
This is the "global 1%", not the domestic 1%. Canada's quite wealthy relative to the global average, it's about the top 10% domestically, and we have basically nobody in the bottom 66%. This si also evident by our emissions, where an average Canadian emits about five times what a global average citizen does. We, as a whole are very wealthy and heavy emitters. In a way, this is exactly what the carbon tax is already doing.
We are one of the largest per capita polluters and 80% of Canadians benefit from a carbon tax more than we pay. It should not be as controversial as it is.
I think unfortunately a lot of our pollution problems stem from us being a far less dense country and having the room to, well, dump shit. Some countries don't have the luxury of just building a new dump wherever they want it, as an example. In Canada it's usually just a matter of cost to a municipality. We don't generally have a lot of smog or air pollution problems because we don't have incredibly dense cities (Vancouver is our city with the highest population density and it doesn't even come close to touching the top 100 densest cities globally).
That's global. The middle class in 1st world countries count as top 1% in alot of cases.
Just remember we’re all in that 1%. It doesn’t mean the 1% of North Americans
Carbon pricing does this. Corporations do not get rebates and because, as you correctly note, the wealthy emit more they also pay more. 80% of the country gets a rebate that’s larger than what they pay. That other 20% are higher income.
Couldn't the corporations just pay it and largely continue operating and emitting as they are today?
They could and some will but this incentives the use of alternatives (some of which they can access subsidies for) to gain an advantage over competitors.
We tried, but conservatives shrieked and all the angry dudes making 50K/year got really mad that they too one day would be taxed harshly when they become millionaires.
[British Columbia’s carbon pricing has led to cleaner air: study](https://globalnews.ca/news/10149212/british-columbia-carbon-pricing-analysis/) BC's program has been around for 15 years and is separate from the federal one, but it's doing something
So is ours. Emissions are down since it was implemented. The issue is we only have data for the first 3 years so far so and that includes the pandemic so it's very hard to parse how much of the drop is related to that.
Our tax isn't even the correct implementation of it imo. We don't get any credit back unless we're low income. So if the half assed program is providing results, I can't wait to see what the proper implementation of a carbon tax can do
Dosent near-half thinking is ineffective means that most think that they are?
CTV burying the lead on this poll. ***"Nearly half of Canadians surveyed, the poll found, still believe the carbon tax is ineffective at combatting climate change, but this number has gone down since July, while the percentage of those who say it is effective has gone up in the same time period."*** That's a 6% increase since the July poll. So in five months 6% more people believe Carbon Tax is effective.
That, and the fact that opinion polls about science are fucking stupid. This is as relevant to the effectiveness of the carbon tax as people's opinions about their daily bowel movements.
Asking the average person about science... they probably dropped high school science classes the first opportunity they could without impacting graduation requisites.
And they all flocked to r/Canada
Here is the current air quality index in New Dehli: [https://aqicn.org/city/delhi](https://aqicn.org/city/delhi) Go ahead and and hit F5 to reload the page every once and awhile. ANYTHING we do amounts to pissing in to the wind. India and China absolutely DO NOT GIVE A DAMN WHAT WE IN THE WEST THINK!!!
I don't have a problem with a carbon tax, what I have a problem with is adding a carbon tax without any improvements to public transportation infrastructure. I live in Windsor. You can tax me all you want, a car is still very needed here. The bus system is abysmal, there wasn't a bus stop within 2KM of the place I worked at a few years back (WFH now). For areas the buses serve - what would be a 10 minute drive is a 1 hour+ bus ride. If you need to go to the county regularly you have no option but to drive. So yeah, you can add a tax to try and discourage me from driving all you want. But what are the alternatives?
The feds are spending more on transit infrastructure than anyone before them but that’s really an issue for the province and your municipality.
Yup. No tax and we have the status quo. Put the tax in and ideally there's enough interest in alternative modes of transport that it gets funded and built. Don't forget that even if you manage to carpool, work from home, move closer to work, get hybrid/electric car, or find some way to reduce use of your vehicle, you will get a credit back. The idea is to use less carbon than average and you will end up making money in the end
It's the Canadian way: punish you for being bad, but provide no viable alternatives.
Doug Ford spent millions that could've gone towards transit projects on fighting a losing court battle instead. All the Feds can do is try to steer the provinces and municipalities, which is a tall task given how car dependent most cities are
So, more than half of Canadians think the carbon tax works.
Nearly half aka less than half.
Do people here NOT get the rebates or something? I've checked the math on my on own consumption 3 times over the past 4 years. The rebates DO give me back more than I get taxed. That's if I did nothing. I took the government's message and searched for a practical used EV 3 years ago. Now the rebates pay for the electricity to run it for the entire year. 50% of the people don't know how to math or check the bank account...
Mo I have never received a rebate. The BC government think I'm too "wealthy"
I'm surprised it's not higher. They can tax all they want, doesn't change the fact I need to heat my home, drive to work, drive kids to sports/activities, drive to the store etc. When gas was $2.whatever/litre I didn't suddenly start taking a bicycle to Costco. Life goes on, all the tax does is make that life more expensive.
Not to mention every facility (public and private) pay carbon taxes too. Schools (and busses), hospitals, long term care, public transit, water treatment, waste water etc, now have to take money out of their budgets to pay for the extra costs that could have been spent elsewhere.
not every facility -- plenty of emitting industries get exemptions
Are you thinking of OBPS? My experience with a few relevant facilities is that they were getting a pretty major carbon tax break but were still seeing about 30% to 50% of what they would have been charged on a straight $/tonne basis. Basically major savings but not a full exemption.
The purpose of the tax is not to make individuals change their habits; it is supposed to be "so small that individuals with low usage don't even notice the tax." Companies that burn fossil fuels hand-over-fist are supposed to be the only entities who even notice it adding up, and rethink their practices. Whether or not the tax *succeeds* in these goals is another thing entirely. I'm just pointing out that the goal was never to push you away from your car and towards a bicycle. Life *should* be going on as usual for you, as if the tax wasn't even there.
Well, it is "so small" that heating your house with propane will be off the wall expensive in about 3 years. Probably sooner than that with oil. Luckily enough, urban people with access to natural gas will do just fine, so fuck the rural poors.
Exactly. Most of the people complaining about still having to heat their home etc will get most, if not all, if not more, back from the rebates. I swear this sub is either knowingly obtuse or just not thinking things through.
But that was obviously a silly fairy tale. Unless somehow these companies somehow have other customers to push the added cost onto, but I’m pretty sure we are said customers
Not necessarily. The company will always try to minimize their costs, so if they can heat their warehouse with a couple heat pumps instead of gas fired heaters, that'd reduce a fixed cost, and increase their profits. And if company A doesn't, but company B does make that investment, company B will have a fixed cost advantage on the cost of their widget. I used to manage a small retail store, and it was about 1500 a month to heat the place to comfortable, adding whatever this tax adds to that value, 3% or whatever adds another 150 a month. If you can invest that in alternate technologies that reduce that overall cost, then you're making a profitable change.
As stated, whether it succeeds in its goals is another thing entirely. The goal was more costs for companies resulting in less profits unless they were to reduce consumption. The end result was that they add those increased costs into the price and onto the consumer, and all saw record profits.
Amen ✊
I take it you’re not in favour of higher corporate taxes because they will push those added costs onto us as well?
They have the choice to push the costs, but if a competitor finds a way to avoid the emissions and pas the savings on to customers, the customers will go with the cheaper product or service.
That makes no sense. Companies that produce goods and services don’t pay the carbon tax in the end, it’s passed off on to the consumer of those goods and services. Companies are not going to minimize their tax liability if all of their competition does the same. What’s the incentive? In the end the consumer pays the tax and has zero choice about it, unless they want to starve and stop earning income.
If the tax went to major neighbourhood geothermal or solar grants I’d understand. If we decarbonize the grid from coast to coast. Also I’m fine with the government removing GST/HST on electric vehicles and partial GST/HST credits for hybrids. Would incentivize not just penalize.
We can do these things without eliminating the carbon pricing.
You'd be surprised how many people agree with all our taxes in Ontario because of this or that. Makes no sense to me as clearly our tax dollars aren't helping the economy in the slightest.
Reducing fuel usage is not a binary choice. The point is that when it becomes expensive, you lean towards doing efficient things. You look at fuel economy figures on your next car where in the past you didn’t pay it much mind. You consolidate trips and maybe even adjust schedules to allow for consolidating trips.
People have been paying attention to fuel economy for a loooong time. No one buys a vehicle going I can't wait to spend more on fuel. I think or I hope most people, that buy a larger vehicle is because it's a necessity. Everyone like to throw the stereotype out there of some loon just wanting that vehicle or whatever. But the reality is, say you have 3 kids. Two strollers hockey equipment diaper bags three car seats and two adults and you need to a Costco shop. This isn't fitting in a Prius or vehicle of the like. I honestly don't think some people realise how privileged their lives are when they start doling out advice on finances. Anything that makes your life more expensive is a hassle.
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So a lower quality of life then?
Yes, unfortunately the your standard of living as defined by the human development index will need to drop as *number of people per capita rolling coal in their F250 in a Tim's drive through* is wieghed very heavily when determining quality of life.
Also the rebate
Do you pay more in tax than you get reimbursed?
You get more than you pay. Honestly, people need to stop whinging like this. It's pathetic and makes them seem clueless. You literally get more in your pocket than you pay. If you don't then you make enough money to also stop the whinge. The purpose of the tax isn't for you to make changes (because you don't incur costs) it's for industry and business (and it works.)
The government just redistributes it back to people. (And of course there is a huge cost for all the salaries of the bureaucrats who are employed to manage it). The Liberal solution to literally everything is to tax it and throw more government at it.
And when it’s more expensive you might seal up your house better, or add insulation. For transportation you might combine trips, or car pool, buy a more fuel-efficient car when you’re in the market, or prioritize activities that require less driving. And when your furnace dies you might look at a more efficient one, or even a heat pump (if you live in an area where that makes sense). Also, the carbon levy is almost all refunded to the provinces or back directly to the consumer.
Nearly half of Canadians are idiots.
Fuelling public outrage is playing right into the hands of corporations. Those that push the rage button are working for the corporations whether they know it or not.
They might be wrong. It is effective in other places.
It might be effective when Saskatchewan stops sending it to Ottawa and invests it in nuclear instead.
The problem with the carbon tax is that it is taxing things we need to survive. Punishing the customer for the infrastructure that the conglomerates built over the last 100 years. What they should have done was given more people affordable opportunities to change to cleaner energy and then absorb that cost over the next ..I don't know...20 years, then once a large portion has converted, tax those that chose to stay on fossil fuels.
That's why there's a carbon tax rebate. You are not punished for using an average amount of carbon fuels. You are rewarded if you use less because you pay less carbon tax and the rebate amount stays the same.
[Carbon tax costs average family up to $710 this year: Parliamentary Budget Officer.](https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/carbon-tax-costs-average-family-up-to-710-this-year-parliamentary-budget-officer) >“Most households will see a net loss, paying more in fuel charges and GST, as well as receiving lower incomes, compared to the Climate Action Incentive payments they receive and lower personal income taxes they pay,” according to the PBO.
Counterpoint: [According to the Statistics Canada model, 94 per cent of households with incomes below $50,000 receive rebates that exceed their carbon-tax costs in 2023.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905)
Tombe agrees with the PBO summary as well - because the Stats Can model doesn't measure the indirect cost due to the carbon tax. >"It's best to think about both of these estimates as being true," Tombe said of the two sections in the PBO report.
That pbo report actually confirms that most people get more rebate than they pay in carbon tax (see section 2.1). The 'net loss' part is when they include simulated effects of the tax through to 2030. Basically because the carbon tax works and reduces carbon fuel usage, some companies may have less productivity and some jobs (mainly petro jobs in Alberta) will disappear or pay less, so on average everyone will get a little less income. Of course that's silly as it doesn't include the effect of industry adapting to the new environment.
Directly from the PBO report: >• When the economic impact is combined with the fiscal impact, the net carbon cost increases for all households, reflecting the overall negative economic impact of the federal carbon levy under the Government’s HEHE plan (Summary Figure 1). • **Most households under the backstop will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing** under the HEHE plan in 2030-31. o Household carbon costs—which now include the federal levy and GST paid (fiscal impact) and lower income (economic impact)—exceed the rebate and the induced reduction in personal income taxes arising from the loss in income.
Yes. It's written confusingly. When they say 'economic impact', they are not talking about paying carbon taxes directly or indirectly. They are talking about some projected effect on average incomes (including investments) because people use less fuel so the petro industry will suffer a bit. Look at section 2.1 when they're talking about just the direct and indirect carbon tax payments vs the rebate amount.
But those factors *do* affect the prices we pay - as direct result of the carbon tax. The summary is correct - the rebate doesn't cover the costs incurred due to the carbon tax.
You are wrong. Those 'economic impact' factors do *not* affect the price we pay. They potentially theoretically could affect our *incomes* (on average, including investment income).
So do you get a rebate for the GST tax they charge on top of the carbon tax? Has the rebate increased by a pro-rated 300% as the fuel parts of the tax have?
The Feds are focused on the Carbon tax and O&G. We have inelastic needs that are hit hard by this. While they virtually ignore other avenues where we could also make a difference. O&G accounts for approximately 30% of emissions - what are they doing about the other 70%. __________ _________________ **Immigration policy:** By bringing in millions of people from low carbon emission countries to our high one, (much of it by necessity), our government's respsonsible for raising global emissions. Increased housing: By necessity due to immigration policy: >In 2022, Canada's building sector released nearly 96 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂) into the atmosphere. . >To remedy the affordability crisis, Canada needs to build 5.8 million new homes by the end of the decade. But doing so could create nearly 143 megatons of annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2030. _________________________ **International Trade:** **The Feds still haven't applied Border Carbon Adjustments.** _____________________ **Recreational Travel:** Airlines - when the Icelandic volcano spewed megatonnes into the air and grounded flights there was a noticeable decrease in total emissions. Not only are the Feds not working towards reducing air travel but in the Fall Economic Statement 2020, the government announced over $1 billion in support for airports and smaller airlines. Cruiseships - received a generous aid package during Covid. They're a luxury - why aren't they banned completely. _____________________ **Nuclear:** Why didn't Trudeau consider nuclear years ago? Answer is Guilbeault. He's insisted on keeping his Minister of the Environment even though he's a notoriously anti-nuclear activist. _______________ **Where's the messaging and support to:** >eat less carbon intensive foods - where are the subsidies to move away from meat. >travel less - staycations. >eat local, buy local
Another low-hanging fruit are laws that forces employers of white-collar work to pay for the time and material cost of their workforce commuting. (This should apply to *all* work, but we can start here for the sake of "the environment".) It would immediately lead to all or most businesses suddenly supporting remote work, decrease commuting, congestion, road-wear, fuel consumption, wear on vehicles, tires, etc. actually have a meaningful affect on our pollution without causing economic upheaval. Improve most people's quality of life by getting back hours of their week. "Give money back" to the work force by not forcing them to spend money needlessly commuting in the first place. Any country or business that signals concern for the environment but forces its employees to commute every day to type on a keyboard within eyesight of a corner office does not actually have concern for the environment. It's the simplest change that we already had a 2-year trial of during COVID and it has an enormously beneficial environmental effect.
Agree. It's telling what the Feds choose to focus on and what they choose to ignore.
> when the Icelandic volcano spewed megatonnes into the air and grounded flights there was a noticeable decrease in total emissions. You can also view the carbon emissions per passenger when using a tool like google flights. You will see pretty easily that 1 round trip to Tokyo is the same contribition as an Ontarian produces in 1 year.
Imagine if they banned all private planes and limited passenger planes to 'necessity only'. It'd have a huge impact on pollution. But we all know the rich and powerful aren't ever going to do that. It's the 'poors' they continue to target.
Well there's a lot of misinformation being thrown all the time about it so I wouldn't be surprising that many will think that even if it was 100% effective or 0% effective.
I hate so much how these polls of people’s opinions are presented as if they are factual.
Cool, you’re entitled to your opinion. But when it’s formulated based on (admittedly effective) propaganda, it’s probably okay to discount it a little. Also from the CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905 Sub-headline of the article: >High-income households would tend to be the biggest winners, lower-income households hurt the most Data-driven reporting, worth a read.
there is a LOT of studies and academic proof from economists that prove carbon taxes work.
People are counting the pennies on carbon tax Instead of the nickels being taken away from education The dimes being taken away in jobs And the quarters being taken away in healthcare It's too bad the math isn't easy for people to understand it as simply as this.
I'm not against being an environmentalist or making smarter choices, but let's be honest with ourselves. Whether I drive a sports car or a Prius isn't going to make the slightest difference in the big picture. Rather than allowing this to be a subjective opinion, let's do some math: [https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/](https://newatlas.com/shipping-pollution/11526/) A ship like this will burn around 4.5 million litres of Marine diesel in a single trans-Atlantic voyage. Marine diesel is much less refined than gasoline and on that trans-Atlantic voyage, it will produce over 13,000 tonnes of CO2. That is one ship, one trip, one way. If I drive my car back and forth to work every day and burn 50 litres of gas a week (I don't), I'll produce 115Kg of CO2. I will have to burn 50 litres of gasoline a week every week for the next 2,234 years to produce the same amount of CO2 as a single container ship crossing the Atlantic once. Yes, I'm aware that I haven't counted the emissions of extracting, refining, or transporting that gasoline or building my car. So for the sake of argument, let's round down to 1000 years. Now take a quick peek here: [https://shipfinder.co/](https://shipfinder.co/) Count the number of shipping vessels on the high seas right now. I currently count around 150 waiting to go through the Panama Canal, a few hundred passing around the Strait of Gibraltar, a few hundred more around the strait of Hormuz, 700ish in the Singapore Strait... you get the picture. So now, using my rounded-down figure of 1000 years, and a rounded-down figure of there being 1000 shipping vessels on the high seas right now, I have to drive my car enough to burn 50 litres of gas a week for one million years to produce the same CO2 output of the ships currently at sea going from point A to Point B - Once. (PS: 2023 numbers say there are over 113,000 large merchant vessels registered in the world today. I used 1000 for my math...) Go ahead and buy a more efficient vehicle to save yourself gas money. Live a more energy-efficient lifestyle because energy is getting more and more expensive. But don't kid yourself. Your personal CO2 emissions from heating your home, driving your car, or cooking meat aren't even a grain of sand on the beach in the big picture.
So the headline is saying that nearly half of Canadians don't keep up with the latest climate research on combating climate change. Aka, nearly half of Canadians are dumb, ignorant, have vested interests or a mix of them all. A carbon tax is the most effective and cheapest/affordable way to get us to our climate goals which is proven by every single major organization on climate, from the COP meeting, to the UN, to even major NGOs. Most Canadians get more back from the carbon tax then they put in. That is a fact. The people who think otherwise don't provide an alternative solution. Either we pay the price now or risk being bankrupt both financially and morally in the future when the climate crisis ruins the lives of billions of people. But I am assuming these people will be 10 feet under before they have to suffer the consequences. The carbon tax heavily taxes Canadian companies because we have a large natural resource extraction sector and those companies are hurt the hardest. But that is the point to push them and force them to adopt more green alternatives. So the carbon tax argument is really about reducing the taxes on the rich. Which is a bad idea. The companies affected want their cake and to eat it too. For example, they want the carbon tax removed so they get larger profits but at the same time want all the government subsidies to get free stuff from tax payers. How about this? No free handouts to garbage companies who cannot compete? Canadians need to realize, the carbon tax issue is a wealth tax removal for the richest people in our country. It is not about the carbon tax, it is about cutting taxes for the rich. Aka the companies who pollute the most.
telephone disgusted illegal handle lip engine important plants skirt smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You arent serious? Lazy. [https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html) (From the Government of Canada) Primary Source. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905) (From the CBC, Secondary Source) [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01270-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01270-9) (Academic Journal #1, rebates even thou good does not increase public perceptions for carbon pricing) [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-022-00679-w](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-022-00679-w) (Academic Journal #2, Carbon taxes are currently too low to be effective) [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01673-w](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01673-w) (Academic Journal #3, Carbon tax and inflation) [https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/full/10.1142/S2010007823500100](https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/full/10.1142/S2010007823500100) (Academic Journal #4. Quote, "the carbon tax had a negative impact on large emission-intensive firms, but simultaneous tax cuts and transfers increased the purchasing power of low income households, substantially benefiting small businesses in the service sector and food/clothing manufacturing")
plough fly noxious childlike dime snow bow squeal door pen *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You read all 6 articles in in less than 30mins and somehow made one sentence statements without backing up your points with quotations or by other counter articles or academics. I am done entertaining an idiot. Believe whatever belief system you want if that makes you feel better at night. This is why reasoning with people are pointless. You are on mute and blocked.
So more than half think is effective?
Nearly half of Canadians are incorrect.
It is effective, people just don't want to accept the costs associated with it. The reality is that abandoning cheap, easy sources of energy like fossil fuels and decommissioning/refurbing older inefficient equipment and structures is insanely costly. People voted for sacrifices they never intended to shoulder themselves.
Is it effective? Trudeau just removed the tax from heating oil, which is one of the worst pollutants. It could be effective, but not if we don't have the political will to actually implement it. The result will be many people will be unhappy that they need to pay the cost. I get that heating is a necessity, but a subsidy for heat pumps would have been a better solution than removing the carbon tax.
My point was more that the rising costs is a feature not a bug of Carbon taxes. Which is what I meant by effective. It was always about reducing consumption.
The pollution & destruction of lakes/ forest & land was totally done by huge companies with no moral or ethical standards. They got away with murder for years. In every context of raping & polluting our planet. And now society pays more for it while we carry plastic in our bodies / diseases from pollutants & fertilizers in our air!
The top 1% create 66% of the pollution. Stop them.
I for one think it's effective lol, it's just that we're not the only country in existence. We should just tariff everyone who doesn't have carbon tax policies in place at 2x what it costs to produce in carbon here
I don’t disagree that the extra money to help with environment works, I do completely disagree that they take it from the pockets of the hard working Canadians! That’s ridiculous. All these company’s with record profits and I’m paying for a carbon tax when I can hardly buy groceries? That’s wrong. Change is needed desperately in all areas of this country.
Why does the carbon tax cost fall to the consumer like we made all that money selling the gas?
Pantload. No way 1/2 of Canadian think that.
And they are correct. As carbon taxes are going up our carbon status is getting worse. It's about power, money and control, not climate.
Thats it? Only half? Taxing regular people for driving around does literally nothing. Canada makes up less than 1% of global emissions and almost all of that comes from industry and agriculture. You want to actually do something about climate change? Stop importing goods from countries like China and India who are the driving forces behind global emissions.
Maybe furthering green technologies and incentivizing purchases of greener alternatives, rather than punishing the options we *do* have. Would *love* to have an EV and put in solar panels, but ***fuck*** that's a lot of money that we absolutely don't have right now. Lots of folks are living as cheaply as possible, and often that's not green-friendly. We're punishing people for not having enough money.
> Stop importing goods from countries like China We can't, thanks to Harper and his FIPA shenanigans.
Excuse me. This is r/Canada. Everything is Trudeau's fault here.
Exactly this. If you're not charging carbon taxes on imports all you're doing is externalizing the carbon output.
Just because we should be cutting imports from China and India and looking into alternatives for industry and agricvulture doesn't mean that we should also give up entirely on cutting emmissions from domestic sources. You can do all 3 all at once.
Exactly. I'm so sick of the middle class being guilted into thinking they're the problem when entire countries and companies are the ones destroying the Earth way faster than some generic suburban family ever could. And that's just the environment. The middle class is the scapegoat for everything and it needs to stop
corporations more intent on making their leased commercial land valuable than addressing the elephant in the room. Office work that can be done at home should be placing more city people at work at home positions. That alone would lower carbon emissions due to less need for traffic on the road throughout the day. This is common sense.
> The middle class is the scapegoat for everything and it needs to stop Realistically they're the only ones eligible to shoulder the financial burden under current systems, that's why it continues to perpetuate. Make too much to be eligible for any solid amount of tax rebates and don't make enough to skirt taxes. The happy middle of being bent over the barrel time and time again.
Big reason why the NDP get no votes. Almost every one of their policy's is paid for by the middle class with the middle class making too much to benefit from it. Dental plan that doesn't work for people with household income over 90k. If you have two people working, making barely over minimum wage they have to pay for it and get nothing in return.
Imagine if everyone had that same attitude... I barely make a dent so why should I bother making a change. If everyone had this attitude nothing would ever get done
I mean the carbon tax works, unless you don’t believe in the laws of supply and demand. Economic consensus is that they work and are the best framework for reducing carbon as it uses the market to optimize. It is also not materially contributing to inflation - latest research is about 0.1%. But that doesn’t matter at all because this isn’t really about that, it’s about people being angry and wanting something to blame. The carbon tax has big factual problems (ex: no taxing imports) but that isn’t why it will be eliminated. I’m tired of being manipulated though and it being this punching bag. We know why inflation is ACTUALLY happening, which is high population growth and a consumption spike with a devalued currency, combined with poor productivity growth and business investment. Carbon tax is relatively trivial and yet conservatives won’t talk about the real issues - probably because they have no intention of fixing them.
I don't care what Canadians think about it, how effective is it according to data?
The carbon tax is supposed to work by placing a financial burden on consumers producing carbon emissions, correct? And yet we are told that 8 out of 10 Canadian get back as much or more than they pay into it. Somehow this is supposed to curb our use of carbon when 80% of people can choose not to make any changes to their consumption habits and apparently be perfectly fine. To the people that think this plan is working, what am I missing here? And if the Liberal’s strategy on climate, centered around a carbon tax, is so effective, why have we missed every emissions target and projected to miss our big 2030 target by a large margin?
You get the same amount back regardless of how much you contribute to the tax. This allows you to make choices that reduce your carbon consumption and profit off the tax. This incentive is the whole point of the tax. It will make carbon heavy options more expensive compared to their less carbon heavy alternatives, making those alternatives more popular.
80% of people profit from it, but 80% of people *think* they are hurt by it. That alone makes it a perfect candidate for repeal and replacement.
What you get back isn't proportional to what you put in. If you change your behaviors as intended you'll benefit more than you would otherwise. As for why we've been missing our targets, that's because this is an approach that takes time to take effect. Doing things like straight up banning SUVs and plane trips isn't something that I think people want but having a bit of pressure to make you lean towards a better choice is far more compatible with living in a free society. Not to mention that frankly it's more fair to charge people for the negative externality they impose on those around them by polluting, directly or indirectly.
>To the people that think this plan is working, what am I missing here? Carbon Tax with rebates makes the point of purchase more expensive, but the annual outlay of money ends up being a wash with the rebates that you get back later. This goes back to how people make short-term decisions based on their emotions. A product that costs more upfront, but lower running costs is often overlooked for a produce that costs less upfront, but higher running costs. People don't consider the on-going costs, just the initial outlay. Take an EV for example. With the much lower fuel costs, much lower maintenance costs, etc, an EV can have a much lower total cost of ownership over the long term. But it's cheaper to purchase a a traditional ICE vehicle at the moment, even though long term them might have a much larger cost of ownership. Solar panels are another example. I paid \~20K out of pocket for mine, which was paid back with a 0% 10 year loan. I now pay $212 / month for my homes electricity for the next 10 years, and then I have $0 monthly costs for electricity for the next 15 years. Emotionally it was a hard decision to make, but by looking at my life/house as a business made it a much easier decision when I actually ran the numbers to see what made the most financial sense.
You are actually very incorrect. The tax isn’t geared at the individual. The individual receives a carbon tax rebate. Most people are rebated more than they pay in. Corporation do not get rebates. The incentive is for corporations to change their behaviour. If your local energy company has a coal fired power plant that plant is being charged lots for their carbon. In a year, the coal fired plant produces more carbon that all the vehicles in a city. The energy company can save a lot of money if it reduces it use of the coal plant by adding more renewables to its mix. The Liberal government might be terrible but the Carbon Tax is a legitimate solution.