(Ottawa) Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is challenging other countries around the world to encourage them too to introduce a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Guilbeault is organizing an event at COP27 in Egypt on Tuesday to convince as many countries as possible to implement carbon pricing.
Currently, 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are subject to carbon pricing, but the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge aims to increase this rate to 60% by 2030.
Minister Guilbeault indicates that eight other countries, as well as the European Commission, are up for the challenge, but most of them already have carbon pricing — or were already planning to implement one.
Canada’s carbon pricing system brings together federal and provincial policies to cover more than 80% of the country’s total emissions, but at varying costs per tonne.
The idea behind the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge is similar to that which led to the creation of the Powering Beyond Coal alliance, launched in 2017 by Canada and the UK at COP23 to end using coal as a source of electricity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had floated the idea of convincing other countries to have a carbon tax during last year’s negotiations in Glasgow, but within a year the global percentage of emissions covered by a tax has n hasn’t changed.