Thread by @riversNic

Finally had a chance to read the Conservative “Real Plan” for climate change, which has been a long time in coming. It was substantially weaker than I expected, and much closer to Doug Ford’s Ontario “plan” than anything else.

The main planks:
1. Scrap the carbon tax.
2. Keep the carbon price on large emitters. But direct any revenues emitters pay towards development of emission reducing technologies.
3. Leverage private sector funds to develop technologies.
4. Tax credits for home retrofits.

The large emitter pricing system is very poorly defined. Not at all clear how it would work, which provinces would be implicated, what the standards might be, or how much it would reduce emissions.

While the plan talks lots about developing technologies, it doesn’t address the issue that it is very difficult to attribute the development of technologies to a particular policy, so it’s impossible to know whether your policy is reducing emissions.

Tax credits for home retrofits are popular, and they probably have some merit. But they are expensive, and won’t reduce emissions much at all. Like with technological innovation, it’s hard to tell whether people are renovating because of your policy, or for other reasons.

In addition to the main planks, the plan promises to ask the international community to give Canada credit for exporting natural gas to China (but presumably to ignore the coal we export or the gas we import). This isn’t going anywhere.

There is no ability to link any “measures” that are half-described in the plan to emission reductions. While Scheer says he supports reaching Paris targets, this “plan” doesn’t show how to get there, and looks like it wouldn’t come anywhere close. Disappointing.