While a Canadian carbon price could only reduce carbon emissions within the country’s borders, an innovation-based national climate policy holds the potential to curb emissions around the world, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said Tuesday. “We need to focus on technological solutions,” Wall said during an event hosted by the province’s Chamber of Commerce. “Even if the carbon tax successfully helps Canada meet its target, what will it have impacted the global climate change fight?”
Wall has been open about his opposition to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recently announced plan to enforce a national minimum carbon price in the next two years. Under the new pan-Canadian plan, the national government in 2018 will institute a minimum carbon price of $10 per metric ton of emissions. The price will increase $10 a year until it reaches $50 per metric ton in 2022, at which time it will be evaluated.
The plan should help Canada reach its commitment under the Paris Agreement, which the nation is in the process of ratifying, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels.
Wall does not dispute the fact that a carbon price would reduce Canada’s emissions. However, he noted, Canada accounts for less than 2 percent of global carbon output, and meeting the 30 percent goal would only reduce global emissions by about 224 million tons each year.
In comparison, the emissions from the 2,400 coal plants currently being planned or built around the world equate to about 6.5 billion tons each year, according to Wall. If the nation supports a climate change based on innovation, it could contribute not only to reducing its own emissions but also the emissions from those new coal plants, Wall said.
Saskatchewan is home to the world’s first commercial-scale post-combustion carbon capture and storage project, located on Unit 3 of SaskPower’s Boundary Dam power plant. “Don’t let anybody tell you that Saskatchewan doesn’t take the issue seriously. More than take the issue seriously, more than talk about it, or propose perhaps taxes or moving CO2 around through cap and trade, we have made this investment,” he said.
At its current level of maturity, CCS is expensive and unlikely to be used on fossil fuel power plants under construction in the developing world. However, Canada can, and should, take the initiative to further advance the technology, eventually making it an option for nations with developing economies, Wall said. “We’re not done with carbon capture and sequestration. BD3 is working, but we know we need to take the next step, and we’re seeking a partnership with the federal government. We’re saying to the federal government, let’s find the next technology. I think we can do it here in Canada. We can lead in that way,” he said.
The premier went so far as to suggest that the nation redirects its $2.65 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund back into domestic innovation efforts. “We’re saying the best thing we can do for those countries is bring that $2.65 billion back into that clean energy fund, and let’s find better renewables, and let’s find small modular nuclear reactors that will work, and let’s focus on the next generation of CCS,” he said.
Recently, Wall suggested Canada would be better served by a climate policy similar to that proposed by U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s climate plan focuses on technological feats, such as the installation of 500 million solar panels throughout the United States.
Clinton’s campaign has not supported a carbon tax, as was made clear in the recently published hacked emails of campaign chairman John Podesta. “We have done extensive polling on carbon tax. It all sucks,” Podesta wrote in January 2015 to Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan.
