Ignore the facts

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Mar 24

RE: Ignore the optics, the carbon tax works. Op-ed by Taylor C. Noakes, an independent journalist and “public historian.” The Hamilton Spectator 26 Mar 24.

If an article of that title were written by economist Ross McKittrick of the University of Guelph, it would indeed be worth reading.  McKittrick has been writing about carbon taxes since the mid-1990s. But the huffings and puffings of a climate zealot, to the effect of “ignore the facts, listen to what I’m telling you,” is unconvincing.  The absence of hard data doesn’t help the case.

The facts are that Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions peaked in 2007, remained more or less constant from then until the beginning of COVID, when they fell, and are now recovering to former levels.  McKittrick made two pertinent observations about carbon taxes worth noting.  The first is that to properly judge its effect, you have to eliminate all other incentives to reducing carbon emission in order to isolate that one effect. Now, that isn’t going to happen, and hence the author’s claim that the carbon tax works is without analytical foundation.

The other pertinent point is that the carbon tax is on an inelastic demand: people still have to drive to work and heat their homes in winter, and rising costs of fossil fuels required for these activities will be met by reducing expenditures in other areas, such as fewer meals out, buying cheaper food, buying fewer or cheaper clothes.

The carbon tax doesn’t reduce carbon emissions, and zealotry can’t make it so.

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