Glen Hodgson – The Lessons from the Jasper Wildfire
From: Glen Hodgson To: Canadian wildfire watchers Date: August 9, 2024 Re: The Lessons from the Jasper Wildfire Climate-related disasters including massive wildfires, severe flooding, and other extreme weather are hitting multiple regions of Canada. A few weeks ago, extreme rainfall and severe flooding disrupted life in Toronto and confirmed it isn’t ready for the extreme weather associated with […] Charles DeLand – Let Consumers Lead the Way on Green Vehicles and Heat Pumps
To: Canadians Concerned about Climate Change From: Charles DeLand Date: August 6, 2024 Re: Let Consumers Lead the Way on Green Vehicles and Heat Pumps The federal government and many provinces are working toward reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with Ottawa committing to achieving a net-zero economy by 2050. However, governments need to proceed more cautiously with two of their […] Charles DeLand – Want the best climate policy? Let the market decide
Published in The Globe and Mail.
The federal government and many provinces are working toward reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with Ottawa committing to achieving a “net-zero” GHG economy by 2050. However, governments need to proceed more cautiously with two of their key policy levers – zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) and heat pumps – and let consumers lead the way.
Reducing emissions comes at an economic cost. The trick is to ensure Canadians still have the products and services they need while minimizing the cost of each GHG tonne not emitted. This is not an easy task in a complex, energy-intensive economy in which Canadians feel their budgets are stretched. Including upfront and continuing costs, ZEVs and heat…
Ed Waitzer – Market failure has caused fighting climate change to worsen economic inequality
Published in the Globe and Mail.
In evaluating courses of action, corporate decision makers tend to prioritize present and private benefits while discounting long-term costs – especially external ones imposed onto others. Economists term this “market failure,” which are to be publicly regulated by way of taxation, fines, mandates, subsidies or other “nudges.”
Such myopia is not unique to private actors, though. Politicians and public bureaucrats are typically more short-sighted, focusing on maintaining and expanding their power.
Regulatory agencies in the United States, for example, are increasingly subject to political interference and, because they are specialized, are often incapable of addressing the cascading…
DeLand, Gilmour – Federal government ‘fixes’ to overreach come up short
Published in the Financial Post
One reason Canada’s per capita GDP has stalled and may continue to stagnate, putting Canadians’ living standards at risk, is that we struggle to build large projects cheaply and quickly.
The federal government has finally acknowledged there is too much uncertainty in getting major projects approved and has promised certain “fixes,” including recently enacted amendments to its controversial Impact Assessment Act (IAA), which its opponents tagged the “No more pipelines act.” Are those amendments on the right track and will they help get projects built? In our view, no. Instead, we need serious fixes to avoid further litigation and investment uncertainty.
The IAA amendments are a…
Exner-Pirot, DeLand – Seeing energy policy only through the lens of climate change? That time is over
Published in the Globe and Mail
This country needs to have a serious conversation. One that recognizes the challenges posed by a warming world – not least an increase in wildfires, drought and heat waves that have affected almost every Canadian – and grapples with the challenge inherent in matching our climate policy ambitions with taxpayers’ appetite to pay for them, government capacity to implement them, and society’s ability to transform its energy use.
Other countries can only dream of Canada’s enormous reserves of natural resources, and our standard of living depends greatly on exports of minerals, coal, hydroelectricity and especially, oil and gas. As with most human actions, extracting and using these resources…
Smoothing the Path: How Canada Can Make Faster Major-Project Decisions
Canadians have been debating whether Canada’s regulatory and permitting processes strike the right balance between attracting investments in major resource projects and mitigating potential harm from those investments. These regulatory processes typically apply to complex and expensive projects, such as mines, large hydrocarbon production projects (oil sands, liquefied natural gas [LNG], offshore oil), electricity […] Shaky Assumptions: The Hazards of Relying on Energy Scenarios in Federal Policy
Governments around the world rely on the predictions of global energy agencies to inform their own domestic energy policies and regulations. The most notable agencies include the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). This paper explores the role of forecasts and scenarios […] Mind the Gap: The Impact of Budget Constraints on Ontario’s Net Zero Plans
Climate change’s urgency demands that rigorous cost-benefit analysis be performed on each energy transition expenditure. This publication calculates if there is a potential funding shortfall for Ontario’s net zero targets relative to its current cost projections and the available sources to pay for it. Under an aggressive adoption scenario, annual available funding in Ontario […] Energy Policy Council
The C.D. Howe Institute’s Energy Policy Program looks at the economics of energy use and development in Canada: its contribution to national prosperity and the regulatory and fiscal changes that could enhance that contribution. The Program applies the latest thinking in public finance and resource policy to assess how governments can improve the global competitiveness of the […] Esam Hussein – Nuclear is Coming Back. What About Canada’s Fuel Supply Chain?
To: Canadian Nuclear Observers From: Esam Hussein Date: April 5, 2024 Re: Nuclear is Coming Back. What About Canada’s Fuel Supply Chain? Canada appears on the verge of a nuclear-power renaissance instigated by the need for reliable carbon-free energy, with the provinces and the federal government putting their weight behind a wide range of initiatives. How did we get here […] Don Drummond on Power & Politics – More Than 200 Economists Signed a Letter Defending Carbon Tax
Stephen Gordon, an economics professor at Laval University, and Don Drummond, a Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute and adjunct professor at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, join CBC’s Power & Politics to discuss the debate on the carbon tax.