https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/06/28/news/canada-unveils-new-measures-nudge-polluters-toward-clean-tech
[Note that the announcement was made well into the zombie news period -
late on a Friday going into a long weekend when Parliament is recessed.
It seems ludicrous to me that we (taxpayers) are creating yet another
system of financial incentives to move away from greenhouse gas
emissions which will create yet another administrative bureaucracy,
which is essentially parallel to the existing federal feebate system
charging fees on carbon-based fuels and returning funds to consumers and
specific 'clean' projects.
links in online article]
Canada unveils new measures to nudge polluters toward clean tech
By Carl Meyer in News, Business |
June 28th 2019
Canada is proposing new market-based incentives to support clean-tech
companies as part of a suite of new policies announced on Friday that
include a crackdown on pollution from large industrial facilities.
The policies add some new meat on the bones of the Trudeau government's
strategy to tackle the global climate crisis. Canada's new proposal also
opens the door to allowing companies to get credit for reducing
emissions by spending money on projects overseas.
Ottawa’s carbon pricing system is composed of two main parts: a federal
charge on fossil fuels, which has received the lion’s share of
attention, and a related system for large industrial polluters called
the Output-Based Pricing System.
That system establishes a trading market to crack down on carbon
emissions. It requires big facilities like factories that emit more than
50,000 tonnes of carbon pollution per year to record their emissions
against a "performance standard" for the sector to which the facility
belongs.
If they pollute less than the standard, they receive credits; if they
pollute more, they have the option of either paying the federal
government directly using its carbon tax rate, submitting “surplus
credits” bought from others or saved up, or submitting “offset credits”
earned from projects that reduce emissions.
The idea is that each offset credit represents one tonne of carbon
dioxide that won't go into the atmosphere, heating the planet and
worsening climate change, compared to what would have happened under
business as usual.
Ottawa says this will create market opportunities for clean-tech
businesses in agriculture, waste and forestry. On Friday, it proposed a
series of guidelines for how this system might work.
Projects must be based in Canada, and the emissions they are eliminating
must be covered in Canada's national inventory report that is submitted
to the United Nations.
They must also be "specific and identifiable" and result in a net
reduction of carbon pollution "that can be demonstrated to have been
implemented."
The project type must be federally approved, the reductions must be
"quantified in a transparent and repeatable manner" and reductions must
go beyond what would normally occur from that business.
Credits can't be double-counted and the project must be monitored and
documented to allow a verification body full access.
Ottawa is soliciting public feedback on this offset system proposal
through Aug. 30.
The Liberal government has said the revenues from carbon pricing will be
reinvested in the province or territory that the money came from. For
provinces and territories with their own carbon pricing plans, the
federal government will give them direct proceeds.
In the regions without their own pricing plans, it gets more
complicated. With the fossil fuel tax, the government is rebating
households directly through income tax returns. For the large-polluter
program, however, it still needs to figure out how this will work.
Estimating revenue from that program is much harder, federal officials
said Friday, given that polluters could use credits to meet their
obligations instead of paying the carbon tax directly.
As a result, Ottawa also wants to hear from the public on how it should
return the direct proceeds it collects, and will also accept feedback on
that through the end of August.
The varied approach is in part because Canada has a patchwork of carbon
pollution pricing systems. The federal system is designed to fill in the
gaps where minimum national requirements aren't met.
The fossil fuel charge, for example, took effect in April and applies in
Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, while the
large-polluter system, which took effect in January, applies to Ontario,
New Brunswick, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and partially in Saskatchewan.
Although the Kenney government in Alberta has vowed to replace that
province's industrial pollution regulations with another system, the
province is not yet included in the federal regime because Ottawa says
it has not formally submitted any replacement plans.
Isabelle Turcotte, federal policy director at the Pembina Institute,
said in a statement that the government had designed the large-polluter
system so it would "more accurately reflect the true cost of different
sources of energy, helping to create a level playing field for renewable
energy."
For example, the design says that by 2030, all emissions from new
natural-gas plants will be priced, she said. That would help increase
Canada's electricity generation to 90 per cent non-emitting by that year.
"Today’s announcement provides regulated sectors with the certainty they
need to plan investments to adopt low-carbon technologies and develop
innovative processes to meet or outperform the standard and ensure they
maintain their ability to compete in a low-carbon economy," Turcotte said.
On Friday, the government also published a document outlining Canada's
regulatory approach for the Clean Fuel Standard, which is supposed to
lower the carbon intensity of fuels through 2030.
Government officials said the new proposed regulations gave more details
about how liquid fuels like gasoline will be treated. The standard is
expected to come into force in 2022.
The discussion paper on the offset credits was not published online
until well after a press release announcing their presence had gone out
to reporters.
This is the second time in two weeks that the Trudeau government has
withheld key documents from reporters until after a briefing on an
important policy announcement.
Federal officials withheld a major report on the government’s efforts to
consult with and accommodate First Nations affected by the Trans
Mountain expansion project until after a June 18 briefing to explain
that the government was approving the pipeline.
The public can submit comments on the new proposals via email to
ec.tarificationducarbonecarbonpricing.ec@xxxxxxxxx.
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