Since Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wants the next election to be about scrapping Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax, here’s an update on how global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are going.
The answer is — they’re not going well.
With the United Nations set to hold its 29th annual global gabfest on climate change from Nov. 11-22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, global emissions from all sources were 57.1 billion tonnes in 2023 — up 1.3% from 2022.
That’s higher than the average annual global growth rate in emissions of 0.8% from 2010-2019 — the decade before the pandemic hit.
According to the federally funded Canadian Climate Institute, Canada’s emissions dropped by 1% to 702 million tonnes in 2023 compared to 2022. That’s 8% below 2005 levels — still far short of the Trudeau government’s target of cutting emissions to at least 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, under the UN’s 2015 Paris climate agreement.
But the UN says its current targets for all member nations under the Paris agreement are now inadequate and must be made more stringent.
This to prevent catastrophic global warming which the UN defines as a temperature increase higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times by the turn of the century.
To address climate change, the Trudeau government has introduced a carbon tax currently at $80 per tonne of emissions, rising to $170 per tonne in 2030, along with more than 100 other programs — including regulations and subsidies — costing taxpayers about $200 billion so far.
Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux has pointed out nothing Canada does on its own will have a significant effect on emissions — or severe weather — because at 1.6% of the global total, they are not large enough to materially impact climate change.
Giroux has said when one factors in the negative impact of the carbon tax on the economy, 60% of households paying it end up worse off financially despite climate action incentive payments while the Trudeau government says 80% end up better off.
Poilievre has promised to scrap Trudeau’s carbon tax, meaning the federal fuel charge that increases the cost of gasoline, natural gas and 20 other forms of fossil fuel energy to consumers, but he has not yet outlined in detail the Conservative plan.