Monthly Archives: November 2017

Carbon Pricing: The cost of a Carbon Tax for Canada and the World

Leave a reply

In May of 2017, the Minister Catherine McKenna of Environment and Climate Change announced the federal government’s plans to for a national carbon tax. Each province must meet the floor for carbon pricing starting in 2018. By 2022, the national floor for carbon pricing will increase to $50/tonne.

There is strong evidence nationally and internationally that supports the effectiveness of carbon pricing to reduce GHG emissions (Bailey and Revell 2015; Vries, Masera, and Faas 2010; World Bank 2016).

By attaching a cost to emitting greenhouse gas emissions, it creates incentives for emitters to shift their behaviors and choices to reduce their GHG emissions. A price on carbon would lead to:

  • Emissions of carbon declining because consumer reduce fuel consumptions when costs go up (e.g. drive less) or to substitute carbon-intensive goods for goods that have lower or no carbon content (e.g. substitute biking for driving)
  • Producers becoming more efficient in adopting higher efficiency technology and cutting waste
  • Revenues generated from carbon pricing policy could be used to fund environmentally beneficial projects and invest in research and development for green technology and low-carbon innovations

A well-designed carbon pricing poly is cost-effective because it allows emitters to find the most efficient methods to reduce emissions and cut cost. Consequently, this will stimulate the private sector to invest in renewable energy and green technology by creating a market for it and making it more competitive. The Way Forward also finds that carbon pricing effectively reduces GHG emissions without negatively affecting the economy.

The two main ways of putting a price on carbon that are currently used in Canada are a cap-and-trade system (such as in Quebec and Ontario), and a carbon tax system (such as in British Columbia and Alberta) (Vries, Masera, and Faas 2010). A cap-and-trade system creates a market for pollution whereas the Pigouvian tax approach internalizes the spillover effect of pollution. While there are distinct advantages and disadvantages of the two options, the cap-and-trade system and the taxing system are more similar than they are different (Goulder and Schein 2013):

  • Both put a price on carbon, which can be adjusted over time
  • Both create market incentives for emitters to identify and implement the most efficient methods to reduce emissions
  • Both can generate revenue that can be recycled back to the economy (e.g. lowering other taxes, investing in research and development for green technology)
  • Both can reduce emissions more cost-effectively than regulations

Where the two systems differ is that a cap-and-trade system guarantees a certain amount of emissions reduction, while a carbon tax guarantees a certain price for carbon (Goulder and Schein 2013). 

However, increasing the relative prices of emissions-intensive goods and services might have a disproportionate effect on lower-income households and communities in northern or remote regions (e.g. the Indigenous communities) (Government of Canada 2016). More stringent carbon pricing policy can also add pressure to business sectors and industries that are particularly emission-intensive and export-dependent.

The economic costs of delaying or not taking actions are very high. Although it is difficult to estimate precisely what the cost of inaction, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy estimates the annual cost of inaction for Canada to be from $21-$43 billion by 2050 (Government of Canada 2016); and the Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission estimates the annual global damages to be $21 trillion by 2095 (Vries, Masera, and Faas 2010). Delaying action will result in higher future costs for Canadians.

References

Bailey, Ian, and Piers Revell. 2015. Government of Saskatchewan White Paper Climate Change. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868721015.

Beale, Elizabeth et al. 2015. Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission Provincial Carbon Pricing and Competitiveness Pressures: Guidelines for Business and Policymakers. https://ecofiscal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Ecofiscal-Commission-Carbon-Pricing-Competitiveness-Report-November-2015.pdf.

Beugin, Dale et al. 2016. Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission Provincial Carbon Pricing and Household Fairness.

Canada, Environment and Climate Change. 2017. Technical Paper on the Federal Carbon Pricing Backstop. Quebec. https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/technical-paper-federal-carbon-pricing-backstop.html.

Goulder, Lawrence H., and Andrew Schein. 2013. “Carbon Taxes Vs. Cap and Trade: A Critical Review.” NBER Workshop Proceedings 1542(9): 33–36.

Government of Canada. 2016. Pan‑Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/themes/environment/documents/weather1/20170113-1-en.pdf.

Ragan, Christopher et al. 2016. Choose Wisely – Options and Trade-Offs in Recycling Carbon Pricing Revenues. http://ecofiscal.ca/reports/choose-wisely-options-trade-offs-recycling-carbon-pricing-revenues/.

Vries, Laurens J De, Marcelo Masera, and Henryk Faas. 2010. Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission The Way Forward.

World Bank. 2016. 88284 Washington, DC: World Bank. State and Trends of Carbon Pricing.

Some reflections after attending the 2017 UN Peace Conference

Leave a reply

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the 2017 UN Peace Conference in Vancouver. This experience has left me with a lot to think about around youth, gender parity and peace.

As a youth delegate at the UN Peace Conference, I was invited to participate in a “Youth as Peacemaker Forum”, where I had the opportunity to work amongst Canadian youth to present a list of priorities to the Prime Minister, Minister Sajjan of National Defense, and Minister Bibeau of International Development.

During the Forum, the infamous Resolution 2250 echoes in the speeches of Ministers and Generals. Recognizing that today’s generation of youth is the largest in the world has ever known, UNSCR 2250 addresses the demographic imperative of including youth on issues of peace and security and change the narrative from victims to heroes of their own stories. It is the first resolution that addresses specifically the role of young people in issues of peace and security, particularly in conflict and post-conflict settings. For the first time, resolution 2250 gives voices to groups traditionally excluded from the security dialogue: women and youth.

In the conversation about Resolution 2250, a quote from Major Rachel Grimes’s speech, a UN Military Officer,and Adviser, has stood out to me:

“All male force and all male patrol will not have the same impact as a mixed patrol. To better support the UN peacebuiling goals, a better understanding about gender dynamic is important to build a foundation for peace.” -LCol Rachel Grimes

Again, the gender perspective is prevalent in the conversation about peacekeeping – a traditionally male-dominated area. In particular, the Prime Minister has committed to extending the nation’s feminist approach to bolster peacekeeping and security. This, too, was an important priority recognized by the youth delegates and highlighted throughout our list of 16 policy recommendations to the government.

In addition to being actively involved as a youth and continuing to think about the intersection of feminism and policy issues, the conference has also sparked a series of reflections of what “peace” means in Canada. Peace is a big word that gets a fair share of usages. And in its iterations and reiterations, the word has perhaps not so much lost its meaning as it has gained too much meaning. Canada, for example, is a peaceful country in that it is not in an active war. Yet, a different set of peace and security issues manifests such as around indigenous rights, environmental policies, and the housing unaffordability.

What, what does peace mean to me then?

This is a working response, but for me, peace is about ensuring the basic human rights to live. It is about removing the barriers that would prevent the attainment of these rights. It is about the opportunity to be the person you want to be. This is #Mypeace.

The Paradox of Engaging Youth in Policymaking

Leave a reply

Youth can have an impact on policy. However, despite the growing consensus around the need to include youth in policymaking, how effectively have these efforts been?

Primer: The lack of youth representation in policymaking

In recognizing the need for youth representation in political institutions and processes, the United Nation’s World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY), introduced in 1995 and complemented in 2007, urges national governments “to formulate and adopt an integrated national youth policy as a means of addressing youth-related concerns”.

In Canada,  Justin Trudeau has appointed himself Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth in 2015, created the Prime Minister’s Youth Council, and, for the first time in Canadian history, included youth as a part of a prime minister’s portfolio of work.

However, to what extent can youth have a voice and contribute meaningfully to these processes?

Youth Impact on Policy – A Canadian Case Study: Autumn Peltier

Autumn Peltier, 13, from Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve in Ontario, is a youth advocate for clean and sacred waters. She has advocated for clean drinking water – no only in First Nations Communities – but across the entire country since she was 8 years old. Autumn has represented Canadian Indigenous youth in creating a communique of children’s demands at the 2015 Children’s Climate Conference in Sweden and delivered the communique at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. She has been honored as a water protector by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in Canada and created a fund to assist First Nations people across Canada dealing with water crises. And in November 2016, Autumn issued a national call to action to shut down all of the highways in Canada for one hour to bring awareness to water protection. She stood on the highway in Espanola, Ontario with her mother and community members in an act of solidarity to create awareness for Canadian waters, as well as in support of those protesting at Standing Rock.

And her advocacy work was noticed! During her protest, Autumn received a call from the Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day, who invited Autumn to Ottawa to deliver a traditional water bundle to Justin Trudeau as a gift. Although she had a speech prepared, she did not have the opportunity to deliver it. She did tell Trudeau, “I’m not happy with the decisions you’ve made for my people.”

Budget 2017 has included $5.0 billion over five years for investment in water under Canada’s New Infrastructure Plan and proposed to provide up to $70.5 million over five years, starting in 2017–18, to Environment and Climate Change Canada to protect Canada’s freshwater resources, including in the Great Lakes and Lake Winnipeg Basins.

Picture: CBC

Rhetoric versus Reality – The “need” for youth voice in Vancouver’s Chinatown

To date, City of Vancouver Chinatown planning processes have had limited youth input. While the Chinatown Vision Directions (2002) and the Chinatown Neighborhood Plan and Economic Revitalization Strategy (2012) do contain a handful of youth-oriented recommendations, little progress has been made on implementing them. Much of the efforts have focused around involving youth figures in volunteerism and little has been done to address the priorities of engaging youth in succession and community planning.

Although there seems to be an identified need to include youth voice in the Chinatown planning processes, the reality remains that youth were typically engaged as nominal figures than real stakeholders.

In response to this challenge, a small group of young individuals established the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown (YCC), a for youth, by youth grassroots efforts to formalize the loose network of youth who are engaged in Chinatown-related issues. Unlike previous attempts to include youth as stakeholders with no meaningful power, the bottom-up approach enabled youth to connect and collaborate more easily across silos. The use of digital media and having both an online and in-real-life presence gained the attention of local and national media outlets. Consequently, the YCC’s informal grassroots community presence

the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown (YCC) was established – by-youth, for-youth. By formalizing the loose network of engaged youth on Chinatown-related issues, this youth-led initiative has helped bring youth voices and visions to planning processes about Chinatown, and build political and social capacity for the young generations of Chinese Canadians to be involved in planning processes instead of just nominal figures. 

Synthesis: The Paradoxical nature of youth and policy

It seems that much of the impact youth have made on policy derives from extrinsic youth mobilization under a less hierarchal and institutional, and more horizontal and collaborative efforts initiated and led by youth themselves. While there is an ongoing conversation about the benefits of youth engagement and the lack of youth representation in planning and policy-making processes, ironically efforts that have integrated youth into the political structures have little effect.

In the case of Vancouver’s Chinatown, when youth were recruited to stakeholder meetings, they were often viewed as nominal figureheads who represent the younger generation, but whose voices were not taken seriously. Youth could not meaningfully contribute and share their opinions and visions until they’ve created a space for themselves – for example, the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown – and earned their place in high-stakes civic planning meetings. The YCC’s visibility on digital media platforms as well as on newspaper outlets also raised awareness and lend the youth-led organizations to hold themselves and key players accountable with regards to the planning and development of Chinatown.

In the case of Autumn Peltier, it was also her independent work outside the political structured that enabled her to find her voice and start a movement. She was not restricted by politics, the rigidity of institutional structures or bureaucracy in terms of leading her movement and carrying forth her plans and agenda.

More work and effort is needed to better integrate youth into political structures and processes in a way that goes beyond youth presence and participation. To only capitalize on youth representation would only yield attractive marketing content and fail to realize the potentials of youth voices as worthwhile resources and perspectives.

What can youth really do to make influence change with policymakers and government players? As the movement towards to include young people in policy-making processes gains momentum, it will be interesting to see to what extent can institutions effectively include youth in policymaking and enable youth to make a “real” impact in policy.