April 23, 2019 – New federal government carbon pricing regulations for electricity generators will reduce the average carbon cost for coal plants, while decreasing incentives for cleaner wind, solar and hydro projects, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute.
As phase two of the carbon-pricing “backstop”, originally enacted in 2018 under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, the federal government has proposed an emissions benchmark for electricity generators that will vary by the type of fuel used.
In “Moving the Coal-Posts: Ottawa’s Wrong Turn on Carbon Pricing for Electricity Generation,” author Grant Bishop examines Ottawa’s proposed plan and finds that a fuel-specific approach creates an unlevel playing field between different sources of electricity. The federal government’s fuel-specific method contrasts with Alberta’s current Carbon Competitiveness Incentive Regulation, which uses a uniform benchmark for all fuels used to generated electricity.
