Conservatives unveil climate plan, claiming it offers 'best chance' to meet Paris targets but providing few details

quinta-feira, junho 20, 2019

GATINEAU, Que. — The Conservative Party of Canada released its long-awaited climate plan on Wednesday, one the party says is Canada’s “best chance” to meet its targets under the Paris Agreement. However, the plan provides no estimate of how much its proposed measures would cut greenhouse gas emissions.

As expected, the Conservatives’ plan does not include a carbon price, accusing the Liberal government’s federal carbon tax of being “a revenue plan, not an environment plan.” Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has promised to scrap the federal carbon tax if he is elected in October. The Tories are promising instead to impose emissions caps on heavy emitters, to provide incentives for home retrofits and to focus on reducing global emissions.

“This plan is the most comprehensive environmental platform ever put forward by a political party in Canada – far surpassing anything Justin Trudeau put out before the 2015 election,” Scheer said in a speech near Quebec’s Gatineau Park on Wednesday evening.

The 60-page plan, titled A Real Plan to Protect Our Environment, confirms that the Conservatives are not abandoning Canada’s Paris Agreement target, noting that Canada’s current goal — to reduce emissions to 30-per-cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — was adopted by the former Conservative government. Nor are they fully committed to meeting that target, however. “This plan gives Canada the best possible chance of achieving those targets,” Scheer said.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna continues to insist that the Liberal government is committed to the Paris target, but has not explained exactly how Canada will get there. According to government estimates, existing policies leave Canada on track to fall 79 megatonnes shy of its goal to cut emissions to 513 megatonnes by 2030. Ottawa is counting on improvements to public transit and clean technology to make up the gap.

In their plan, the Conservatives point out that consecutive government estimates have shown Canada slipping further away from meeting its Paris target, but include no estimates of how much their own policies might reduce emissions.

A central piece of the Conservative climate plan is to set emissions caps for major emitters, and to require companies that exceed the threshold to make investments in clean technology, research and development in green technology, or green bonds. This would eventually replace the government’s existing output-based pricing system for heavy emitters. The Conservative plan would apply to more companies than the Liberals’ pricing system — companies that emit at least 40 kilotonnes per year would be included, as opposed to 50 kilotonnes under the Liberal plan — but does not say what their emissions caps would be.

The plan also proposes a new tax credit to incentivize home retrofits. Under this program, similar to one in place under the previous Conservative government, Canadians who make green renovations to their homes costing between $1,000 and $20,000 would be eligible for a 20 per cent refundable income tax credit, leading to savings of up to $2,850. The Conservatives estimate the measure would cost $900 million per year.

The Tories are proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 15 per cent to five per cent for businesses developing and patenting green technology in Canada. They are also promising a $250 million fund, managed by the private sector, intended to spur venture capital for green technology companies. The private sector would be required to invest $4 for each government dollar, with the goal of leveraging $1 billion in private investment.

The plan pledges to provide clean power to more regions of the country, in part by supporting the interconnection of electricity grids. However, it makes no mention of phasing out coal-fired electricity, which the Liberals have promised to do by 2030.

During a technical briefing on Wednesday, officials also said the Conservatives would step back from the government’s proposed clean fuel standard, another key element of the Liberals’ pan-Canadian climate change framework. The Conservatives plan to work toward increasing the renewable content of transportation fuel, officials said, but are not committing to any hard targets.

In the final chapter of their plan, the Conservatives highlight the possibility that Canadian exports could be used to reduce emissions in other countries. The plan suggests that Canadian LNG, for example, could help to reduce coal consumption in China, and points to a provision of the Paris agreement, Article 6, that could allow countries to get credit for emissions reductions in other countries. To date, there has been no international consensus about the rules that would govern such agreements.

Scheer wouldn’t say whether a Conservative plan would rely on emissions cuts in other countries to meet Canada’s Paris targets. “Whether or not we get credit for it is less important than if we get those real results and actually lower those emissions,” he said. Scheer emphasized that Canada is responsible for only about 1.6 per cent of global emissions.

The Liberal government has also expressed interest in counting global emissions reductions toward Canada’s Paris target using Article 6. However, Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission has argued that Canada will not be able to take credit for emissions reductions abroad, in part because other countries are unlikely to agree to such an arrangement for business transactions like LNG exports.

Environmental groups were quick to pan the Conservative plan on Wednesday. “It’s not really a plan at all,” said Dan Woynillowicz, policy director at Clean Energy Canada, in a statement. “We’re left to wonder how much pollution it would cut, how close it would take us toward our pollution reduction target, and how much it would cost.”

In a statement, McKenna pointed out that Scheer has been promising a climate-change plan for over a year, and claimed the Tories waited until Parliament was set to rise for the summer because Scheer “wanted nobody around to debate ideas that will cost Canadians more while doing less to protect our environment and the future for our kids.”

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