Leaders across the continent who have adopted aggressive climate policies are facing political backlash as the programs raise prices for electricity, home heating and even general goods.
In New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, California and even Canada, concerns about the costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions are sparking voter revolts and prompting some liberals to scale back or reframe their climate change ambitions.
Take Washington, for example, where the state’s outdated program faces a November ballot initiative that would halt efforts aimed at reducing the state’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. The ballot initiative is supported by conservative hedge fund managers.
Washington’s cap-and-trade program “does nothing except make gasoline and groceries and eat more expensive food,” Brian Heywood, a sponsor of the ballot measure, said in an interview. “I call this the ‘Hey, just buy a Tesla’ mentality.”
Washington Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, one of the nation’s leading advocates on climate change, is unrepentant. “This is a fight worth fighting,” he said in an interview. “Bring it.”
The last time Congress considered putting a price on carbon, it sparked a major backlash that cost Democrats the House and left lasting political scars. State leaders are again testing American voters’ willingness to embrace aggressive tactics to help fight climate change, while making it cost everyone more.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already discovered what a powerful issue carbon pricing can be. The Liberal leader’s re-election bid is in jeopardy in part because the April 1 national carbon tax increase has sparked protests and widespread opposition.
Now governors are facing the same backlash. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro last month gave in to opposition from Republicans, labor groups and fossil fuel interests to a carbon pricing program in the Northeast and instead proposed a carbon cap in his state, drawing immediate criticism from both parties. and doubted it could pass a divided Congress.
And New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering ending her nascent program on self-defense amid growing backlash from the state’s business community. She proposed a price cap that would be too low to spur enough reductions for New York to meet its 2030 emissions target of 40 percent below 1990 levels.
“Cost is one of the factors that could ultimately derail the effort,” said Basil Seggos, former New York Department of Environmental Conservation director who resigned earlier this month after nearly nine years in office. “Governor… “You want a program that’s reasonably priced.”
The impetus for carbon pricing, seen as the most economically efficient way to address climate change, has been a long time coming. The last time Congress seriously considered pricing carbon emissions was 15 years ago.
But since then, the concept of requiring high-emitting companies to buy carbon credits at state-run auctions or pay a set fee per ton of carbon emissions has been quietly gaining traction. Programs in California, Canada and the Northeast have raised about $25 billion for state coffers since 2005. Washington has raised $2 billion since it launched last year. New York’s economy-wide caps begin in 2025.
Inslee wants to make North America’s largest carbon market even bigger by linking his program with California and Quebec. Industrial emissions from approximately 1,000 companies are included across all programs on the continent.
“This is very important from a national perspective,” Inslee said. “We went one step further. “The country must not retreat and measures must be expanded nationwide,” he said.
Officials are now wondering if they haven’t done enough to promote the benefits.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is emphasizing a twice-yearly deduction on residents’ utility bills that redistributes a portion of the auction proceeds.
“You haven’t seen a lot of headlines, but there was a $146 rebate given to all ratepayers on the electric bill side to offset that cost,” he said last week. “I think we need to be more careful than we have been in the past about piling up costs at such a valuable and important time.”
In Canada, concerns about high interest rates and the cost of living have dominated, weakening support for Trudeau’s signature policy, carbon pricing. The backlash has put Prime Minister Trudeau, whose popularity is declining, on the defensive. His Liberals have exempted home heating oil from fuel bills and are selling policy rebate checks as an affordability measure rather than a climate program.
And Canada’s left-leaning New Democratic Party recently withdrew its support for the Trudeau government’s consumer fuel levy, suggesting there are more effective policies to combat climate change.
Meanwhile, rival Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is confident the long tail of anger over the carbon tax will help his party win the next election next October and eventually oust Trudeau from office.
“There is a lot of political pressure. I’m definitely feeling it. “Everyone who cares about affordability and climate change is going to feel that,” Trudeau told reporters earlier this month.
But the most high-profile carbon pricing battle is taking place in Washington.
Gas prices in Washington are about $1 higher than the national average and higher than in neighboring Oregon, according to AAA, and Inslee’s office claims all of the spikes are related to the cap-and-trade program. A poll of 600 registered Washington voters last month found 53% supported cap and deal, with a margin of error of 4.7 percentage points.
State lawmakers last month revised the program to provide rebates to farmers and truck drivers to ease the cost of fuel surcharges. But that’s not enough to appease the other person.
Heywood is arguing what the industry has argued in the past, but mainstream business may not agree with him. Campaign spokesman Mark Prentice declined to disclose how much money the companies have donated ahead of next month’s campaign finance filing deadline, but Amazon, Microsoft and even oil giant BP are helping to uphold the Washington law. It was announced that there is. Microsoft (MS) co-founder Bill Gates also donated $1 million.
BP, which previously opposed carbon tax proposals in the state, said it was “participating in the program because it is an economy-wide, market-based program that can help lower carbon emissions, drive innovation and create clean energy.” said. Investments and Jobs in Washington.”
Inslee pointed to the positive health impacts that come from projects funded by revenue, such as carbon caps and bus electrification. But Heywood said voters are feeling the pinch.
“Tackling carbon dioxide emissions doesn’t do anything except make some people feel better,” he said. “And it’s doing tremendous work behind the working class and poor workers.”
Anne C. Mulkern contributed to this report.
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