The Trudeau government’s plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 will lead to the loss of over a quarter of a million jobs and cost workers an estimated $8,000 in lower wages annually over that period, according to a new study.
Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute Ross R. McKitrick published a study
Providing a broad scope of what sacrifices would be required to meet net zero by 2050.
McKitrick used data available from Ottawa’s current goal of reducing m of having 40% less emission in 2030 compared to 2005 as the bases for his projections.
Net zero emissions requires the net removal of all greenhouse gas emissions either by natural effects such as forest growth or industrial carbon capture as well as by storage or agriculture-based sequestration methods.
“Ottawa’s emission-reduction plan will significantly hurt Canada’s economy and cost workers money and jobs, but it won’t achieve the target they’ve set because it is infeasible,” said McKitrick, author of Canada’s Path to Net Zero by 2050: Darkness at the End of the Tunnel.
The federal government’s Net Zero by 2050 emission-reductions plan includes a wide array of measures such as the carbon tax and clean fuel standards.
“Despite political rhetoric, Ottawa’s emission-reduction policies will impose enormous costs without even meeting the government’s target,” said McKitrick, who is also a University of Guelp professor.
“Especially as the US moves aggressively to unleash its energy sector, Canadian policymakers need to rethink the damage these policies will inflict on Canadians and change course.”
The study’s findings also revealed that “even a carbon tax of $1,200 per tonne (about $2.70 per litre of gas) would not get emissions to zero.”
The government’s net zero plan also includes various other regulations for GHG, such as electric vehicle mandates, energy efficiency requirements for buildings and fertilizer restrictions for farmers.
However, McKitrick claims that these policies will lead to Canada’s economy shrinking by 6.2% by 2050, reduce workers wages by $8,000 annually and kill 254,00 jobs during that period.
Furthermore, the study found that these economically harmful policies won’t be able to meet the target of net-zero emissions by a substantial margin, only reducing GHG emissions by an estimated 70% of the government’s actual goal.
According to the study’s conclusion, “the answer to the question of whether Canada can undergo an energy transition to net zero is that, given our current economy and technology, not at a price Canadians are likely to be willing to pay, and probably not at any price.”
