The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has come out in favour of carbon pricing as the best way to combat climate change.
The group, which bills itself as "the voice of Canadian business" and represents 200,000 companies across the country, released a report late last week, as international climate talks wrapped up in Katowice, Poland, arguing in favour of carbon pricing such as carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems.
The Chamber says that carbon pricing is the most cost-effective way to transition Canada to a low-carbon economy and proposes how it would like to see carbon pricing implemented. The business organization added that it wants governments in Canada to stop playing politics and waffling about carbon pricing and move forward with implementation.
"Business wants to play its part in the fight against climate change, but our public policy has to balance our climate objectives with the need to ensure Canada remains attractive to start or grow a business, and to invest," said Perrin Beatty, the Chamber’s President in a written statement.
The Chamber’s report cites "conclusive" evidence from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development about the high cost of climate change, including impacts like more intense floods, fires and storms, and for the need to reduce emissions.
"Our need to transition to a low carbon economy is clear, but it is equally clear that businesses must have assurances that the regulatory regime guiding this transition will be stable, predictable, and straightforward," the report states.
The report also states that when the federal government, which backs carbon pricing, and provinces each go a different way, that leads to "fragmented islands" of climate policy across Canada. Earlier this year, the Chamber of Commerce released another report criticizing the burden of complex, inconsistent and overlapping rules from different levels of government.
Currently, Saskatchewan and Ontario are challenging the federal government's right to impose a carbon tax on provinces that don't comply with its climate change plan. In its statement, the Chamber of Commerce appears to back the federal government: "Ottawa must continue working with provinces to implement carbon pricing as the main measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across Canada," it says.
