In the news Wednesday was a new report from economists in over 30 countries, which seems to indicate that the cost of addressing Climate Change would not be all that it’s been reported to be.
What’s that you say? John Baird was wrong?
[Baird] told the committee that economists have warned against following the Kyoto targets and that if they did comply it would mean the following:
- Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre over the 2008-to-2012 period
- 275,000 Canadians working today will lose their jobs by 2009
- Job loss will cause unemployment rates to rise 25 per cent by 2009
- The decline of economic activity in the range of $51 billion
Hmmm… Imagine that…
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“Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre ” — it’s going to be $1.40 a litre this summer, and that’s without Canada really doing anything about GW. And just because economists from all over the world are saying one thing, doesn’t mean it’s true. I could probably find economists all over the world that say the opposite is true too.
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Fair enough. I believe you can find economists who will say that, just as John Baird has done. The point being that both extremes are likely not correct. Besides, focusing on the cost of doing something is just distracting attention from actually doing something, and never really addresses the cost of doing nothing, which I believe will be substantial.
As for gas prices, $1.40 per litre is still cheap compared to what Europeans have been paying for years. To the extent that it provides incentive for less driving and more fuel efficiency, this is a good thing. And with Peak Oil upon us or just around the corner these and even higher prices are inevitable. My concern is that we have lost a tremendous opportunity these past years to raise the price of fuel and transition society while we still had control. With prices rising all on their own, and quickly, we no longer have as much wiggle room to help our society transition away from fossil fuels smoothly. In fact, just wait for the clamour this summer as fuel prices spike and people begin demanding lower fuel taxes. We should all have some sympathy for the low income earners among us who legitimately may need some government intervention, but I don’t think we should feel any sympathy for people who commute in SUV’s and complain about the cost of a fill up.
– Glenn
Totally agree. I don’t think most people will change their behaviour even at $5 a liter for gas. What we have to do is make the green way profitable for corporations in order to get our reliance on oil to dwindle. It seems like alternatives like nulclear have a nimby issue, and I don’t know why but wind power has the same problem. I agree it’s not the cost we should worry about, it’s more the profitability we must sell.
Gasoline in economic terms is an inelastic product . Demand will not change radically if the price decreases or increases unless it’s a substantial change. It’s like blood for most of us – we need it to live.