22 October 2016, The Economist, Let the haggling begin – With the announcement of a national carbon price, Justin Trudeau opens a new phase of his government. “THIS is betrayal,” thundered Saskatchewan’s long-serving premier, Brad Wall. His grievance: the decision this month by Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to set a minimum price for carbon emissions that all provinces would have to adhere to. Since taking office nearly a year ago, Mr Trudeau and his ministers have spent much of their time consulting the provinces (and ordinary Canadians) on such issues as judicial reform and defence. His carbon-price announcement marks a transition from talking to acting, and a new contentious phase in relations between the federal government and the ten provinces. Canada’s grand political bazaar, in which the prime minister and the premiers strike the bargains that determine how the country will be governed, is again open for business. Despite Mr Wall’s profession of shock, the carbon-price policy is no surprise. Mr Trudeau has made it plain that, unlike his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, he takes the threat of climate change seriously. One of his first acts in office was to agree last December to sign the Paris climate accord, under which Canada is to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 30% below the levels of 2005 (see chart). The deadline is 2030. Although Canada emits just 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases, it is one of the world’s biggest emitters per person. Without carbon pricing, it will not keep its climate promises. Read More here
Tag Archives: consumption
6 September 2016, Renew Economy, G20 baulks at ending fossil fuel subsidies, “dumbest” policy of all. The G20 meeting in China may have been notable for the decision by both China and the US – the two biggest carbon emitters on the planet – to ratify the Paris climate treaty, an initiative that will almost certainly see the deal come into force by 2017, three years earlier than anticipated. But the grouping of the world’s most powerful nations is still taking little action on ending fossil fuel subsidies, despite agreeing to the move in 2009 to end what has been described as the “dumbest policy” in the world. The International Energy Agency estimates that countries spent $US493 billion on consumption subsidies for fossil fuels in 2014, while the UK’s Overseas Development Institute suggests G20 countries alone devoted an additional $US450 billion to producer supports that year. Throw in the unpaid environmental and climate impacts, and the International Monetary Fund puts total annual subsidies for fossil fuels at more than $5 trillion. Last week, the Bloomberg Editorial Board said fossil fuel subsidies were the dumbest policy they could find in the world, saying that the “ridiculous” outlays would be economically wasteful even if they didn’t also harm the environment. “They fuel corruption, discourage efficient use of energy and promote needlessly capital-intensive industries,” the Bloomberg team wrote. “They sustain unviable fossil-fuel producers, hold back innovation, and encourage countries to build uneconomic pipelines and coal-fired power plants. “Last and most important, if governments are to have any hope of meeting their ambitious climate targets, they need to stop paying people to use and produce fossil fuels.” The Bloomberg team said the G20’s pledge in 2009 is “no use” and “too vague”, and called on the governments to first agree on a standard measure to report various subsidies (Australia, for instance, rejects the claims by NGOs and others that it has $7 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies) and to set strict timelines for eliminating them. They didn’t; despite the call being echoed by 200 civil society groups, and multi-national insurers with $1.2 trillion in assets, led by Aviva, who called on the G20 leaders to “kick away the carbon crutches” and end fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. Read More here
5 September 2016, Climate Home, G20 reaffirms climate commitments – but dodges deadlines. Leaders back rapid implementation of the Paris agreement and ramping up of green finance, but fail to set timeline for phase out of fossil fuel subsidies. Leaders of the world’s biggest economies reaffirmed their commitment to tackling climate change as the G20 summit came to a close in Hangzhou on Monday night. What they did not agree on were hoped-for deadlines to ratify the Paris climate agreement and phase out fossil fuel subsidies. The G20 communique, released in French before it was released in English, committed the nations to ratifying the Paris climate agreement. Leaders “expect a rapid implementation of the agreement in all its dimensions,” it said. However, it stopped short of calling on the entire G20 to join the agreement by the end of 2016. Arvind Panagariya, India’s chief negotiator at the G20 summit,told The Indian Express that he had argued against the inclusion of such a timeline. “I felt we were not quite ready yet in terms of the domestic actions that are required for us to ratify or at least commit to ratify within 2016. So we plan to do it as soon as possible,” said Panagariya. Read more here
29 August 2016, Reuters, Insurers call on G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. Insurers with $1.2 trillion under management called on Tuesday for the Group of 20 to set a timetable to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels by 2020 when they meet at a summit in China this weekend. Aviva, Aegon NV and MS Amlin said fossil fuel subsidies were at odds with commitments by G20 nations to combat global warming agreed by almost 200 countries last year at a Paris summit. “Climate change in particular represents the mother of all risks,” Aviva CEO Mark Wilson said in a statement. The companies called on the G20 leaders, who meet in the Chinese city of Hangzhou on Sept. 4-5, to set “a clear timeline for the full and equitable phase-out by all G20 members of all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020”. A phase-out should start with the elimination of all subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and coal production, they said. Their statement was also signed by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and UK-based energy firm Open Energi. G20 leaders have repeatedly promised to phase out fossil fuels, the main man-made source of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, since a meeting in 2009 in Pittsburgh. The British-based Overseas Development Institute think-tank estimated that average annual subsidies for fossil fuel production were $444 billion in 2013 and 2014, roughly four times the subsidies for renewable energy in 2013. Last week, investors managing more than $13 trillion of assets urged the G20 to ratify the Paris climate deal by the end of 2016 to help avert droughts, floods, mudslides and rising sea levels. No G20 nations have yet completed the ratification process, according to a U.N. tracker. China and the United States, the top two emitters, are widely expected to join up around the time of the G20 summit. Read more here