Andrew’s comments from the last post dovetail nicely with my thoughts on this report in the Financial Post (here). Essentially, the article argues that emission trading is more effective than carbon taxes. Trouble is, this preference comes from constituents who are lining up to defend their stakes in the great carbon trading game:
“This [...]
Now that I am back from enjoying an over allocation of wealth that is the Holiday Season, my mind turns back to all things climate policy. I have long thought that a majour gap in the current climate policy debate in Canada is allocations — how the large final emitters will be granted emission [...]
While most of us usually ignore the footnotes, for the “Bali Roadmap”, one footnote is worth closer examination. This footnote emerged when consensus on “binding targets” was not reached and there was a need to compromise. What then emerged was an implication that industrializated nations would consider making reductions of -20% to [...]
This Globe piece got me thinking about what the Canadian private sector should be freaking out over with respect to climate policy. Is it the emission targets to 2015? No, the price cap for the Technology Fund effectively caps the financial obligation for a given target out to 2017. One simply multiplies [...]
Andrew Leach , an environmental economist out of U of A, has good article in the Edmonton Journal today on an issue that one can’t help but see in the media: a contradiction in Canada’s domestic and international climate policies. His point is simply that while Canada is calling for binding targets [...]
As word of the all night negotiating binge was broadcast far and wide, there was cause for celebration. It turns out that the developed world was not so far apart and that language in Bali could be agreed upon. So, instead of binding reductions of say 20% to 40% by 2020, they settled [...]
On instrument choice, there has been a long-standing view of alternatives as substitutes. You either tax, trade or regulate a standard, or stage instruments in time say by taxing first to get movement in advance of a technology standard. This view is not surprising given much of the early environmental economics literature focused on [...]
Chris Green, that quirky economist, has a good article in the Globe today on why the focus on targets is bad, and a focus on action is needed. His basic premise is that targets, especially long-term ones, are set in a political arena, which operates in the absence of clear information on the [...]
Like him or not, former Prime Minister Chrétien was a competent manager, and he is right on the current state of climate policy in Canada (see here):
“I signed Kyoto and I knew it was going to be tough to meet the goals of 2012. When I left, we were close to having a deal [...]
When the Trade Ministers meet to talk climate change and trade, there is promise. These are the folks that generally get things done in government. Toby Heaps has a great account of a first, and very important meeting of international finance ministers on climate change and trade in Bali. One nugget from [...]
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