Image Credit: The Canadian Press

By Dylana Milobar / James Peters

CPC Climate Plan

TRU climate expert says Conservatives need to add more detail to climate plan

Jun 24, 2019 | 11:32 AM

KAMLOOPS — The federal Conservatives unveiled their climate action plan last week (June 19), and a local climate expert says more detail is needed to determine how effective it will actually be.

Dr. Joel Wood of Thompson Rivers University’s School of Business says the plan, which Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer dubbed, ‘A Real Plan to Protect Our Environment’, is missing some key information.

That being said, Wood says the plan does outline a commitment to the Paris target of reducing emissions 30 per cent by 2030.

A notable difference in Scheer’s plan compared to existing policies is how the plan handles carbon tax.

Wood says it diminishes the coverage of the federal carbon pricing policy.

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“It reduces the coverage by only applying it to larger emitters like very large industrial facilities, and exempting people like drivers, and home heating, and all the small emitters who are out there,” Wood explains. “But the plan really provided no details on the stringency of that pricing policy. So without more details, it’s hard to tell whether it’s going to lead to more emissions reductions than the Liberal plan. Given the rhetoric in the plan, it doesn’t seem like it would.”

For parties that are not in power, Wood says it can be harder to develop a well-researched plan as they don’t have the same resources that governing parties have to evaluate policies.

“With the current Liberal government climate policies, we have very good modelling work produced through the government, and by the parliamentary budget office showing what reductions we’re expecting from the currently implemented policies. And there is a gap there in the Liberal plan. It is not on track to achieve their Paris reduction target,” Wood says. “But the opposition parties don’t really have the same resources the incumbent government does to do policy evaluation.”

Wood says it’s hard to tell how much the Conservatives’ plan would actually reduce emissions in Canada.

“What they proposed is a policy that is reducing the coverage of carbon pricing without adding major policies on the transportation sector, and other areas that produce emissions — and providing no information about the stringency of the policy on large emitters,” Wood says. “They don’t really give us any details about how much each policy they’re proposing is going to reduce emissions. But ultimately, it looks like it is less stringent than what we currently have.”

As far as what the Conservatives pledged to do from a global emissions standpoint, Wood says he’d like to see more information provided around specific areas.

“I think many of those things are things that (are) already being done. There weren’t a lot of details on implementation,” Wood explains. “Some things would say, ‘We’ll provide regulatory support.’ Well, what does that mean in the context of different incentives?”

Wood says in order to develop cleaner technologies, entrepreneurs and the market as a whole need a sign that there is a profit in creating an environmentally-friendly way to do things. According to Wood, incentives need to be there to draw innovators towards the cleaner path.