Many terms are thrown when it comes to carbon pricing – carbon taxes, internal carbon pricing, discounts – but where they all fail is in actually being accepted by the industries. So COP24 was adamant on asking the reasons for this.
Canada and China started the discussion in the Brussels room of the EU pavilion discussing the carbon pricing approaches. The political will and the structure of government clearly show the difference in the pricing approaches. China with its changing agendas have moved from development/reform authority for carbon pricing to ecology/environment authority and thus shows much more primitive approach than Canada – but still more orientation towards action with focuses on focused industries i.e. cement, power, and Aluminum industry.
Canada has developed a very good framework for making carbon pricing implementable at a larger and more sustained pace. As seen here, the approach is not just setting carbon caps and benchmark, but a method of “backstop” which ensures accountability on emissions for coming years and towards the province. The discussions with non-state organizations like Ecofys, i4ce, World Bank, climate focus – focused on the acceptability of these carbon pricing measures – largely focusing on good communication of the data.
The discussions on internal carbon pricing show that emerging countries are still hesitant, and it still needs a lot of communication and coordination/ administration complexity with the different contractors/ specialists (in a supply chain). But at the same time, there are great advantages for a company to adopt this with the integration of carbon pricing in investment decisions. Cost-benefit analysis and different approaches from EBRD economics, Rijkswaterstaat, The generation foundations – show the scale and adaptation of these strategies worldwide. Almost all the communication projects highlight one thing – “use of revenue” – focus on the growth and innovations (as an investment) over the heavy-pockets.
Notes
Check out the details for Canada frameworks here: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2016/10/canadian-approach-pricing-carbon-pollution.html
What is Backstop? http://www.chamber.ca/advocacy/briefing/18_Briefing_federal_backstop.pdf
Some of the communication (again) projects are well done visually by the climate outreach program – https://climateoutreach.org/resources/public-engagement-1-5c-ipcc-sr15/
Some details here on the data on carbon taxing and pricing: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29687/9781464812927.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y.