A call for Harmonized Carbon Pricing across North America.
In a submission to the CUSMA* Initial Environmental Assessment, the Citizen’s Climate Lobby recommends that harmonization of carbon pricing and climate resilience between Canada, the USA and Mexico be considered.
Citing the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, negotiated and implemented in parallel to NAFTA, the submission lays out a persuasive argument to reduce carbon emissions.
It calls for a plan, similar to Canada’s carbon pricing plan to be extended across North America.
Below are excerpts from the submission. See the complete document here.
To: Environmental Assessment Secretariat, Trade Agreements and NAFTA Secretariat (TCT) at Global Affairs Canada
From: Citizen’s Climate Lobby
… The North American Free Trade zone — as defined by NAFTA and the CUSMA, encompassing Canada, the United States, and Mexico — provides an opportunity to bring half a billion people into a sustainable economy of inclusive prosperity. This depends on forces that shape overall economic potential.
Climate disruption is the most serious, all-pervading, and costly market failure in history. Prices in the status quo economy do not tell the truth about long-term costs of burning fuels whose emissions accumulate in the atmosphere and trap heat. Climate change impacts, and related areas of risk, are becoming unaffordable for public institutions, private investors, and insurers.
The most straightforward, efficient, high-value way to set clear market signals is to put an explicit price on carbon-emitting fuels, upstream — at the source — and to return the revenues to households…
…Canada’s federal backstop carbon pricing policy reflects this model. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 763, would give the U.S. this model. Mexico’s carbon pricing plan, which was designed to operate at the molecular level — to ensure a fee is paid for each molecule of GHG in circulation — could apply elements of this strategy as well…
*Note : CUSMA is the Canada US Mexico Agreement, replacing NAFTA
Follow PCM on Social Media
