The WEF has announced that $104 billion was syphoned out of the pockets of taxpayers globally via carbon taxes last year to pay for environmental schemes.
In an article, the WEF brags that this is a new record and that carbon taxes and emissions trading systems now account for 24% of the world’s emissions, up from 7% in 2013.
“Carbon pricing can be one of the most powerful tools to help countries reduce emissions. That’s why it is good to see these instruments expand to new sectors, become more adaptable and complement other measures,” said World Bank managing director Axel van Trotsenburg.
However, according to the report, it’s not enough. Less than 1% of global emissions are being subject to a direct carbon price at the target rates, meaning there’s still plenty of room for more taxes.
No evidence that carbon taxes work
Of course, there’s no evidence carbon taxes change the weather or affect emissions. If there was, Canada, a world-renowned champion of it, would be able to provide evidence of this.
As Newfoundland’s Premier, Andrew Furey, pointed out, the carbon-taxed fisherman still needs to fill up his tank and drive his truck to go do his job. Now, he’s just paying more.
And after years of increasingly severe carbon taxes, protests against them, and heightened pressure to prove that a tax on driving has changed the weather, Liberal politicians in Canada haven’t been able to give any figures that show that emissions have fallen as a result of the carbon tax.
In fact, there’s probably evidence to the contrary, i.e., that not only has the carbon tax not changed the weather, it’s made life significantly worse for Canadians for no good reason—as is likely the case everywhere else there’s a carbon tax.
Indeed, PM Trudeau recently put a gag order on data from the PBO on the impact of carbon pricing.
During a finance committee earlier this week, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux told MPs, “The government has economic analysis on the impact of the carbon tax itself and the [output-based pricing system] (OBPS). We’ve seen that, staff in my office, but we’ve been told explicitly not to disclose and reference it.”
When asked if the Trudeau government has “put a gag on you saying you can’t talk about it,” Giroux responded, “That is my understanding.”
