Ontario’s environment minister says a price on carbon will be inevitable in the next few years.
Glen Murray was in Halifax on Friday for a meeting with Nova Scotia environment minister Margaret Miller. In an interview with Global News after the meeting, Murray said ultimately a price on carbon will have to be part of climate change strategies in Canada.
“It’s inevitable within a few years,” Murray said.
Ontario will soon operate under a cap and trade system.
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With 80 per cent of Canadians falling under a price on carbon and 60 per cent of the world economy about to fall under a carbon price, Murray said it’s a matter of time before other governments are forced to join.
That message runs counter to Nova Scotia’s perspective on climate change policies. Premier Stephen McNeil has continuously rebuffed Ottawa’s calls for an economy-wide carbon price, arguing that the province’s track record for meeting greenhouse gas targets shows one isn’t needed.
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However, Murray says in order to go as far as Canada can in cutting emissions, a carbon price must be part of the toolkit used by governments. Increasingly, he said jurisdictions with either a carbon tax or a cap and trade system are signalling that companies operating in jurisdictions without a similar levy for polluting could be slapped with one at the border.
“You want to import into Germany, you want to import or export into China, you’re going to have to pay the price there at the border if you haven’t internalised it,” Murray said.
If it comes to that, he says people without a carbon price will end up paying more money to other governments, rather than their home jurisdictions reaping the benefits.
High electricity prices in lieu of carbon price: McNeil
McNeil has long argued that high electricity prices in Nova Scotia serve as the province’s version of a price on carbon.
“We have in our cost of electricity in Nova Scotia a price for carbon already embedded,” McNeil told reporters after last winter’s climate change meeting in Vancouver.
It’s not clear whether Ottawa agrees with Nova Scotia’s interpretation of a carbon pricing mechanism.
Miller refused an interview request about whether Nova Scotia will ultimately have to accept a price on carbon, but in a statement she said she looks forward to upcoming meetings this fall about Canada’s climate change strategy.
Provincial ministers will meet this fall, followed by a first ministers meeting to hammer out a “pan-Canadian framework for clean growth and climate change.” All of that is expected to happen before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to Morocco in November for an international meeting updating countries on the 2015 Paris climate change agreement.
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