The head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, argues that diverting the trillions of dollars of world subsidies to fossil fuel production each year and putting an implicit price on carbon emissions would generate the vast amounts of cash needed to tackle the climate crisis.
Economists have long argued that pricing carbon is the most effective way to lead economies to shift away from fossil fuels. The Economist has also been arguing for years to eliminate subsidies worldwide. As Georgieva explains, “When you put a price on carbon, decarbonisation accelerates. The Europeans introduced the emission trading scheme [in 2005] and they have been growing and yet emissions went down by 37%. You see the same thing in Canada with their carbon tax.”
Canada is facing a lot of disinformation and misinformation around its carbon tax and has yet to eliminate its subsidies to the oil and gas sector.
One has to ask the question why in spite of the overwhelming evidence on subsidies that Canada has failed to act?
