By: David V Wright
PDF Version: Dissonance in Federal Carbon Pricing Regime(s)
Legislation Commented On: Legislative Proposals Relating to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act
Last week, the Trudeau government released draft legislation for a national price on carbon pollution, the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. While this significant step should be lauded as follow-through on important election and international commitments, it is another step toward embedding a disconcerting dissonance that still exists within the federal approach to assigning a monetary value to carbon emissions. Specifically, there remains a glaring and unexplained discrepancy between the soon-to-be-legislated carbon price and the dollar value associated with the social cost of carbon (SCC) used in federal regulatory analyses. In this post, I briefly recount the path to the release of last week’s legislative proposal, then explain the social cost of carbon concept and how it is used, and then conclude with a short account of the apparent dissonance between the carbon pricing in the draft legislation and the government’s SCC estimates.