Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says that the cost of Canada’s carbon emissions could be nearly five times higher than previously thought, and that the federal government will use a “new tool” to fight climate change called the “social cost of carbon.”
“The updates to the social cost of carbon simply show that every tonne of greenhouse gas is costing the economy more,” Guilbeault told attendees at the Net-Zero Leadership Summit in Ottawa on April 19.
Guilbeault said the federal government used updated scientific and economic models to evaluate how much climate change costs Canadians.
The social cost of carbon—also referred to as the social cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, estimates the social cost of carbon as well as methane and nitrous oxide. It’s a measure of the financial impact every tonne of GHG emissions has on things like food production, human health, energy systems, disaster repair bills, and even property values….