Matto Mildenberger Profile picture
Jul 9, 2019 8 tweets 2 min read Read on X
My essay on carbon pricing in New Brunswick published today in @IRPP, part of a week-long series on Canadian carbon pricing policies. NB is a really interesting case - because it's about as difficult a case as possible 1/
New Brunswick is small, its carbon emissions are dominated by a single company (Irving Oil), median income is the lowest in Canada, and total emissions are lower than many individual US point sources 2/
So a recipe for carbon pricing success in a context such as New Brunswick could provide valuable insights for climate policy-making in other difficult contexts. 3/
But this cooperation was shallow: The NB carbon “tax” was not clearly a carbon price. It didn’t increase the cost of releasing pollution into the atmosphere. It simply labelled a fraction of existing gasoline taxes as a carbon price 4/
Ultimately, the Trudeau government rejected the proposal as inadequate. Instead, NB consumers were included in the federal carbon tax and rebate “backstop.” 5/
The case of New Brunswick thus reminds us how difficult carbon pricing politics can be. Climate change policy requires governments to restructure their economy. Policies generate new economic winners and new economic losers. 6/
In New Brunswick, governments have not been willing to impose costs on the energy and forestry industries critical to the provincial economy, or on consumers. 7/
Instead, places like NB are more likely to develop carbon prices when swept up in broader national efforts. Federal systems allow political coalitions to impose costs on polluters in subnational units that wouldn't act alone. 8/8 policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july…

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More from @mmildenberger

Jul 19, 2022
Been reading more and more takes that climate bill failed because of shifting public opinion: e.g. the NYT "reported" this week (without empirical evidence!) that the public has soured on climate as the economy weakened. Nonsense. A short 🧵 1/

nytimes.com/2022/07/17/us/…
This zombie idea gets rehearsed every couple months. The central thesis: the public has a finite pool of worry, so when the economy goes downhill, they privilege immediate "economic" security over long-term climate concerns. But is climate opinion really structured this way? 2/
Not really. Evidence mostly suggests the public rewards walking and chewing gum at the same time on climate. And, to state the obvious, Manchin didn't kill the climate bill in response to public opinion, in WV or anywhere. 3/
Read 11 tweets
Jan 24, 2022
New research in @NatureClimate w/ @erickUdeM, @ProfKHarrison and I. Stadelmann-Steffen. Two countries have set up carbon tax + rebates: Canada + Switzerland. Have these rebates increased public carbon pricing support, as advocates hope? Not really. 1/🧵 nature.com/articles/s4155…
2/ The politics of carbon pricing are challenging, as @leahstokes and I have written about in the @BostonReview and as I've discussed in my book Carbon Captured. Key problem: carbon taxes make salient policy costs while keeping benefits hidden.

bostonreview.net/articles/leah-…
3/ Rebates promise to change this political economy. Redistribute carbon tax revenue through lump-sum dividends and you create a visible benefit. This builds a political support coalition (people like getting money!) And it makes carbon tax progressive. A win-win?
Read 22 tweets
Oct 29, 2020
Exciting news! @MichaelAklin and my new provocation is out in @GepJournal. We make a simple but far-reaching claim. **Empirically, climate politics is NOT primarily about collective action or free-riding**. A quick 🧵on why we've all been prisoners of the wrong dilemma 1/
For decades now, we've all assumed that free-riding is the binding constraint on global climate politics. Google "climate change" and "free-riding", and it generates 18000+ unique hits. Economists mince few words about this. Here's a Nordhaus quote for flavor: 2/
The logic of free-riding seems powerful. No country can solve climate change alone. But acting is costly. So every country wants to free-ride off of other country's action. But then no-one has an incentive to act. 3/
Read 15 tweets
Jul 16, 2020
Will climate change change political behavior? In new @apsrjournal article, @chadhazlett and I find that experiencing a wildfire drives pro-environmental voting - but only in Democratic areas. Short 🧵 1/
cup.org/309PWte Image
The politics of climate change politics is tough. Leaders need to impose short-term policy costs to deliver long-term climate benefits. Today, the impacts of climate change are impacting Americans. Will this break the climate policymaking stalemate? 2/
Research is pretty mixed on this topic, as I recently reviewed with @peterdhowe, @mudfire and Brittany Shield in ERL. Also, most work focusses on public opinion, not on the ground political behavior 3/
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108… Image
Read 9 tweets
Feb 19, 2020
My new book Carbon Captured is out! In it, I explain differences across countries in the timing and substance of their climate reforms. A quick 🧵here on one of the book's key arguments - something I call the logic of "double representation" 1/

mitpress.mit.edu/books/carbon-c…
Often, we talk about climate change as a left-right thing. But this doesn't line up with empirical reality of climate policy debates in most countries. We can't understand climate politics without recognizing this. 2/
The basic idea: climate change became an object of political conflict beginning in the late 1980s as climate science developed. But across advanced economies, political parties and economic interest groups were already well established 3/
Read 14 tweets
Jan 6, 2020
I can't pull my mind away from the horrifying loss of life and land in 🇦🇺. Climate politics in Oz have been insane for decades. (The insanity gets a full chapter in my book). Will these fires change anything? Can they undermine the climate skeptics in power? A short 🧵1/ Image
On the surface of it, it's hard to be hopeful. Current PM Morrison refuses to acknowledge that climate change is happening and wants to expand coal production. Here he is, no joke, bringing a lump of it into the Australian parliament. 2/ Image
Kind of like that time when Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe threw a snowball inside the US Senate to disprove climate change. It was snowing outside, you see. 3/ Image
Read 18 tweets

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