He's not wrong. It also was not successful. The idea behind carbon tax (first proposed by Harper and Poilievre) is that a levy would incentivize people to burn less. Didn't work, large truck and pickup sales doubled, air travel increased. People just pay to burn.

We should have put in laws to limit vehicle size and fuel economy, not leave it up to consumer fashion. Just roll in a ban of ICE vehicles in large urban areas.

Taxing carbon doesn't work. We need to restrict activity.

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 2 points 23 hours ago

I will say that the carbon taxes made a pretty major difference to my workplace - it pushed up the replacement of our building boiler by a number of years, and switched it to natural gas instead of diesel. Not great objectively, but a marked improvement and the carbon tax was a major factor.

[–] nik282000@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We should have put in laws to limit vehicle size and fuel economy, not leave it up to consumer fashion.

Fixing emissions requirements! I drive a 2 seater compact pickup with a 4 cylinder engine, it gets 8-9L/100km depending on the season and conditions. That's as good as some modern sedans, and better than ANY pickup on the market. But no one makes a 4 cylinder compact pickup anymore because emissions limits are calculated partly by the footprint of the vehicle.

It's far too late now but this whole truckzilla problem could have been stomped over a decade ago with intelligent policy. I strongly suspect that we will not get any intelligent policy today, particularly when the intelligent solution is both expensive and counter to industry.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

this whole truckzilla problem could have been stomped over a decade ago with intelligent policy.

the problem is Canada does not have it's own policy, we use US laws. Because we make their stupid trucks here.

Outside of North America, these are real work trucks:

[–] nik282000@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

That's the truck I want, damnit. You can fill it with dirt, or knock it flat to carry sheet goods and lumber!

If you search "compact pickup" in Canada you get the godamned Jeep Gladiator, the Hyundai Santa Cruz, and the Chevrolet Colorado. All three are enormous and one of them just an SUV that's missing row of seats! And despite weighing 1300lbs more than my shitty old ranger they have the same payload capacity!

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Poilievre has never supported a carbon tax.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

cap and trade, whatever, that didn't work either for the same reason: pay to burn.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Nope. He has always been against that as well.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

The idea didn't fail because it's inherently flawed. Taxing carbon could easily work, so could restricting activity. Neither is going to meaningfully happen in a resource-based colonialist country.