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As soon as the new Progressive Conservative government is sworn in at the end of the month, it’ll tell Quebec and California that Ontario is bailing out of the carbon-emissions market it joined this year to help fight climate change, Premier-designate Doug Ford said Friday.
“I made a promise to the people that we would take immediate action to scrap the cap-and-trade carbon tax and bring their gas prices down,” Ford said in a Toronto news conference, where the only purpose was to draw attention to the pledge. “Today, I want to confirm that as a first step to lowering taxes in Ontario, the carbon tax’s days are numbered.”
He’ll be calling the legislature for a summer session to get some immediate bills passed and this will be the first of them, he said. This will mean living up to a marquee Tory promise in the election Ford just won.
“The government will provide clear rules for the orderly wind down of the cap-and-trade program,” Ford promised.
This is trickier than it sounds.
Leave aside the questions of whether climate change is happening (Ford says it is) and whether humans are responsible (Ford says we are) and whether we should do anything about it (what Ford thinks isn’t clear) and whether the market for carbon emissions the Liberals set up is the thing we should do (Ford definitely thinks it isn’t). The Tories promised to quit the market and they won the election and they’re going to do it.
Let’s talk only about how to do this well versus how to do it poorly.
Major greenhouse-gas emitters, like greenhouses and fuel companies, have had to buy emissions permits since the beginning of 2017, at a price set at competitive auctions. Under the scheme, fewer and fewer permits would be released each year and companies would either have to pay more for them or cut emissions and reduce their demand. The idea is that the emissions permits end up in the hands of the companies that make the most from their emissions.
The bigger the market, the better it is at getting efficient results, so Ontario hooked up with the other two major North American jurisdictions with carbon markets. The deal with Quebec and California says we can pull out and will “endeavour to give 12 months notice of intent to withdraw” first, but doesn’t require it. Otherwise, there’s nothing in the agreement about what happens when one partner wants to go.
The Ontario government has been auctioning permits since the beginning of 2017 and has brought in about $2.8 billion. It’s budgeted to spend that money mainly on other green programs, like transit construction and subsidies for people who reinsulate their houses. The Tories said they’d stop selling permits and balance the lost revenue “by eliminating (the) corresponding slush fund,” as their list of promises put it. There’s some technical stuff under the hood but essentially current permits are sold to match current emissions. Stop taking in money, stop spending it. OK as far as that goes.
But then there are the permits companies have paid for but haven’t used. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth.
The auctions over the past year and a half, including the joint ones with Quebec and California, have sold both current permits and “advance” permits (so companies can lock in prices for permits meant to be used as far out as 2021). In the most recent auction last month, Ontario sold $56 million worth of those.
There’s nothing special about Ontario carbon permits in the joint market. They don’t have little trilliums on them or anything. Since January, ours have gone into a big pile with Quebec’s and California’s and they all get sold and we get our share of the proceeds based on how many we put in. Some ended up here and some ended up in the other two jurisdictions, all sold at prices set by buyers who counted on all three governments staying in the program.
Ford dodged a question about whether we’d buy back the permits we’ve already put out, saying companies will be happy they won’t have to buy any new ones. Maybe there’s a plan and Ford doesn’t know what it is. Or maybe we forced the companies to buy the permits, took their money and are about to make the permits worthless and that’s just tough.
At the same news conference, Ford mused about regulating gasoline prices because it’s not fair that they go up before long weekends, when demand is high. This is lifted straight from the New Democratic Party’s platform, where it was one of the dumber ideas. Governments do this in a couple of provinces, where the evidence is it leads to more predictable gas prices … that are higher than they would be without price-fixing.
This is all short-term thinking, slapping at immediate annoyances without considering consequences. None of it makes Ontario look good.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
“I made a promise to the people that we would take immediate action to scrap the cap-and-trade carbon tax and bring their gas prices down,” Ford said in a Toronto news conference, where the only purpose was to draw attention to the pledge. “Today, I want to confirm that as a first step to lowering taxes in Ontario, the carbon tax’s days are numbered.”
He’ll be calling the legislature for a summer session to get some immediate bills passed and this will be the first of them, he said. This will mean living up to a marquee Tory promise in the election Ford just won.
“The government will provide clear rules for the orderly wind down of the cap-and-trade program,” Ford promised.
This is trickier than it sounds.
Leave aside the questions of whether climate change is happening (Ford says it is) and whether humans are responsible (Ford says we are) and whether we should do anything about it (what Ford thinks isn’t clear) and whether the market for carbon emissions the Liberals set up is the thing we should do (Ford definitely thinks it isn’t). The Tories promised to quit the market and they won the election and they’re going to do it.
Let’s talk only about how to do this well versus how to do it poorly.
Major greenhouse-gas emitters, like greenhouses and fuel companies, have had to buy emissions permits since the beginning of 2017, at a price set at competitive auctions. Under the scheme, fewer and fewer permits would be released each year and companies would either have to pay more for them or cut emissions and reduce their demand. The idea is that the emissions permits end up in the hands of the companies that make the most from their emissions.
The bigger the market, the better it is at getting efficient results, so Ontario hooked up with the other two major North American jurisdictions with carbon markets. The deal with Quebec and California says we can pull out and will “endeavour to give 12 months notice of intent to withdraw” first, but doesn’t require it. Otherwise, there’s nothing in the agreement about what happens when one partner wants to go.
The Ontario government has been auctioning permits since the beginning of 2017 and has brought in about $2.8 billion. It’s budgeted to spend that money mainly on other green programs, like transit construction and subsidies for people who reinsulate their houses. The Tories said they’d stop selling permits and balance the lost revenue “by eliminating (the) corresponding slush fund,” as their list of promises put it. There’s some technical stuff under the hood but essentially current permits are sold to match current emissions. Stop taking in money, stop spending it. OK as far as that goes.
But then there are the permits companies have paid for but haven’t used. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth.
The auctions over the past year and a half, including the joint ones with Quebec and California, have sold both current permits and “advance” permits (so companies can lock in prices for permits meant to be used as far out as 2021). In the most recent auction last month, Ontario sold $56 million worth of those.
There’s nothing special about Ontario carbon permits in the joint market. They don’t have little trilliums on them or anything. Since January, ours have gone into a big pile with Quebec’s and California’s and they all get sold and we get our share of the proceeds based on how many we put in. Some ended up here and some ended up in the other two jurisdictions, all sold at prices set by buyers who counted on all three governments staying in the program.
Ford dodged a question about whether we’d buy back the permits we’ve already put out, saying companies will be happy they won’t have to buy any new ones. Maybe there’s a plan and Ford doesn’t know what it is. Or maybe we forced the companies to buy the permits, took their money and are about to make the permits worthless and that’s just tough.
At the same news conference, Ford mused about regulating gasoline prices because it’s not fair that they go up before long weekends, when demand is high. This is lifted straight from the New Democratic Party’s platform, where it was one of the dumber ideas. Governments do this in a couple of provinces, where the evidence is it leads to more predictable gas prices … that are higher than they would be without price-fixing.
This is all short-term thinking, slapping at immediate annoyances without considering consequences. None of it makes Ontario look good.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
