Clarion Calls for Carbon Pricing from the IPCC and Nobel Committee

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 9, 2018
Media Contacts: Cathy Orlando, cathy@citizensclimatelobby.org (705) 929-4043

Sudbury ON: On Monday October 8, a clarion call was rung from the scientific community. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report on 1.5ºC warming. The science is clear we have just 12 years to keep global warming under 1.5 ºC.  Civilization is at stake.  Severe impacts including massive wildfires, mass-die off of coral reefs and worsening food shortages being felt by 2040 if we keep on as a business as usual.

“There is no documented historic precedent” for the sweeping change to energy, transportation and other systems required to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, the IPCC  wrote in a report requested as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The blockbuster IPCC report notes a  price on carbon is central to prompt mitigation.

A second clarion call also rung out on the same day: the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to William Norhaus, the father of climate economics. His research shows that the most efficient remedy for problems caused by greenhouse gas emissions is a global scheme of carbon taxes uniformly imposed on all countries. The diagram shows CO2 emissions for four climate policies according to his simulations.

The science and economics are clear and have handed us a way forward.

What is holding humanity back? Why do we still lack political will for science-based climate action?

In Canada, some unscrupulous players in the fossil fuel industry have undermined our democracy. The details are clearly elucidated Dr. Kevin Taft’s book: Oil’s Deep State: How the petroleum industry undermines democracy and stops action on global warming. Dr. Taft, is the former leader of the Alberta Liberal Party.

“In Canada, our political system has been short-circuited to serve the interests of  some unscrupulous players in the fossil industry and not the public and consequently our government is behaving like captured state.  States do not need democracy and states are accountable to big power and not the people. The solution to the climate crisis is democracy,” says Cathy Orlando, Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada’s national director.

Since 2010, Citizens’ Climate Lobby has been creating the political will for carbon fee and dividend: a revenue-neutral carbon tax where 100% of the money is returned to Canadians equitably in a cheque.

In September 2018, a study commissioned by Canadians for Clean Prosperity showed that the vast majority of households, regardless of income level, would receive more money in the form of carbon dividend cheques than they would pay in carbon taxes, should the federal government introduce carbon dividends in those provinces in which it brings in its carbon tax “backstop” starting in 2019. Studies in the USA regarding carbon fee and dividend yield similar data for impact on households and that carbon fee and dividend would be more effective reducing carbon emissions than the Obama-era regulatory approach.

“All of us, all politicians and all people, need to do more to help the world avert disaster. We have been here before. When Hitler threatened the world in the late 1930s, we united, but it took time and there were obstructionists and truly unfortunate incidents,” says Orlando. “Long-term climate stability will require policy persistence through multiple election cycles. Thus, climate change must be treated as a bridge issue and Citizens Climate Lobby volunteers are building those bridges.”

Carbon fee and dividend is a policy where all sides win. It will appeal to a broad spectrum of Canadians, whether they support small government, free markets, strong environmental policy, or expanded government benefits. Thus, carbon fee and dividend has built-in policy persistence.

On October 15 and 16, 55 Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers will pan out across Parliament Hill after attending their 5th annual conference and lobbying days, again asking their Member of Parliament to create the policies necessary for a liveable world.

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