Economy
The people will reject the globalist ‘climate’ agenda
From the Fraser Institute
” representatives of governments worldwide endorsed policies that will, if implemented, do extraordinary harm to their own people. Where governments have made even small attempts to take these radical steps, the public has revolted. This calls into question whom the COP28 delegates “represent.” “
It’s tempting to dismiss the outcome of COP28, the recent United Nations climate change conference in the United Arab Emirates, as mere verbiage, such as the “historic” UAE Consensus about transitioning away from fossil fuels. After all, this is the 28th such conference and the previous ones all pretty much came to nothing. On a chart showing the steady rise in global total CO2 emissions since 1950 you cannot spot when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol entered into force (2002), with its supposedly historic language binding developed countries to cap their CO2 emissions at five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Likewise, the 2015 Paris Agreement contained historic language binding countries to further deep emission reductions, yet the COP28 declaration begins (paragraph I.2) with an admission that the parties are not complying.
Nonetheless we should not overlook the real meaning of the UAE Consensus. COP agreements used to focus on one thing—targets for reducing greenhouse gases. The UAE Consensus is very different. Across its 196 paragraphs and 10 supplementary declarations it’s a manifesto of global central planning. Some 90,000 government functionaries aspire, in their own words, to oversee and micromanage agriculture, finance, energy, manufacturing, gender relations, health care, air conditioning, building design, and countless other economic and social decisions. It’s supposedly in the name of fighting climate change, but that’s just the pretext. Take it away and they’d appeal to something else.
After all, the climate change issue doesn’t necessitate these plans. Economists have been studying climate change for many decades and have never considered it grounds to phase out fossil fuels, micromanage society, etc. Mainstream scientific findings, coupled with mainstream economic analysis, prescribes moderate emission-pricing policies that rely much more on adaptation than mitigation.
The fact that the UAE Consensus is currently non-binding is beside the point. What matters is what the COP28 delegates said they want to achieve. Two facts stand out—the final consensus document announced plans that would cause enormous economic harm if implemented, and it was unanimously approved by everyone in the room.
The first point is best illustrated by the language around eliminating fossil fuels. Climate policy is supposed to be about optimally reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As technology develops to decouple emissions from fuel use, there may eventually be no need to reduce the latter, but activist delegates insisted on the language anyway, making it an end in itself. Fossil fuels are essential for our economic standard of living, and 30 years of economic analysis has consistently shown that despite GHG emissions, phasing them out would do far more harm than good to humanity. Yet the Consensus statement ignored that, even while claiming to be guided by “the science.”
The second point refers to the fact that representatives of governments worldwide endorsed policies that will, if implemented, do extraordinary harm to their own people. Where governments have made even small attempts to take these radical steps, the public has revolted. This calls into question whom the COP28 delegates “represent.” Other than a few elected officials, we didn’t vote for any of them. And even if some heads of state go to a COP meeting intending to oppose the overall agenda, they would not be able to stop it and would be browbeaten into signing the final package.
The UAE Consensus is the latest signal that the real fault line in contemporary society is not right versus left, it’s the people versus (for lack of a better word) the globalists. A decade ago this term was only heard on the conspiracy fringe but has since migrated towards the mainstream as the most apt descriptor of an enormous and influential transnational permanent bureaucracy, which aspires to run everything, even to the public’s detriment, while insulating themselves from democratic limits.
A hallmark of globalists is the way they exempt themselves from rules they want to impose on everyone else. COP28 and Davos meetings perfectly illustrate this—thousands of delegates flying in, many on private jets, to be wined and dined while telling everyone else to learn to do without.
In the cases of both COVID-19 and climate change, the same elite has proven itself to be adept, not at using science to support good decision-making, but at invoking “the science” as a talisman to justify everything they do including censoring public debate. Complex and uncertain matters get reduced to dogmatic slogans by technocrats who ensure political leaders are force fed a narrow one-sided information stream. Experts outside the process are accorded standing based solely on their obeisance to the preferred narrative, not their knowledge or qualifications. Critics are attacked as purveyors of “misinformation” and “disinformation,” and so the existence of opposition to government plans becomes proof of the need to suppress free speech.
But eventually the people get the last word. I am struck, in this context, that despite nonstop fearmongering about an alleged climate crisis, the public tolerates climate policy only insofar as it doesn’t cost anything.
The climate movement might think that by embedding itself in the globalist elite it can accelerate policy adoption without needing to win elections. I think the opposite is happening. The globalists have coopted the climate issue to sell a grotesque central planning agenda that the public has repeatedly rejected. If the UAE Consensus is the future of climate policy, its failure is guaranteed.
Author:
It’s tempting to dismiss the outcome of COP28, the recent United Nations climate change conference in the United Arab Emirates, as mere verbiage, such as the “historic” UAE Consensus about transitioning away from fossil fuels. After all, this is the 28th such conference and the previous ones all pretty much came to nothing. On a chart showing the steady rise in global total CO2 emissions since 1950 you cannot spot when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol entered into force (2002), with its supposedly historic language binding developed countries to cap their CO2 emissions at five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Likewise, the 2015 Paris Agreement contained historic language binding countries to further deep emission reductions, yet the COP28 declaration begins (paragraph I.2) with an admission that the parties are not complying.
Nonetheless we should not overlook the real meaning of the UAE Consensus. COP agreements used to focus on one thing—targets for reducing greenhouse gases. The UAE Consensus is very different. Across its 196 paragraphs and 10 supplementary declarations it’s a manifesto of global central planning. Some 90,000 government functionaries aspire, in their own words, to oversee and micromanage agriculture, finance, energy, manufacturing, gender relations, health care, air conditioning, building design, and countless other economic and social decisions. It’s supposedly in the name of fighting climate change, but that’s just the pretext. Take it away and they’d appeal to something else.
After all, the climate change issue doesn’t necessitate these plans. Economists have been studying climate change for many decades and have never considered it grounds to phase out fossil fuels, micromanage society, etc. Mainstream scientific findings, coupled with mainstream economic analysis, prescribes moderate emission-pricing policies that rely much more on adaptation than mitigation.
The fact that the UAE Consensus is currently non-binding is beside the point. What matters is what the COP28 delegates said they want to achieve. Two facts stand out—the final consensus document announced plans that would cause enormous economic harm if implemented, and it was unanimously approved by everyone in the room.
The first point is best illustrated by the language around eliminating fossil fuels. Climate policy is supposed to be about optimally reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As technology develops to decouple emissions from fuel use, there may eventually be no need to reduce the latter, but activist delegates insisted on the language anyway, making it an end in itself. Fossil fuels are essential for our economic standard of living, and 30 years of economic analysis has consistently shown that despite GHG emissions, phasing them out would do far more harm than good to humanity. Yet the Consensus statement ignored that, even while claiming to be guided by “the science.”
The second point refers to the fact that representatives of governments worldwide endorsed policies that will, if implemented, do extraordinary harm to their own people. Where governments have made even small attempts to take these radical steps, the public has revolted. This calls into question whom the COP28 delegates “represent.” Other than a few elected officials, we didn’t vote for any of them. And even if some heads of state go to a COP meeting intending to oppose the overall agenda, they would not be able to stop it and would be browbeaten into signing the final package.
The UAE Consensus is the latest signal that the real fault line in contemporary society is not right versus left, it’s the people versus (for lack of a better word) the globalists. A decade ago this term was only heard on the conspiracy fringe but has since migrated towards the mainstream as the most apt descriptor of an enormous and influential transnational permanent bureaucracy, which aspires to run everything, even to the public’s detriment, while insulating themselves from democratic limits.
A hallmark of globalists is the way they exempt themselves from rules they want to impose on everyone else. COP28 and Davos meetings perfectly illustrate this—thousands of delegates flying in, many on private jets, to be wined and dined while telling everyone else to learn to do without.
In the cases of both COVID-19 and climate change, the same elite has proven itself to be adept, not at using science to support good decision-making, but at invoking “the science” as a talisman to justify everything they do including censoring public debate. Complex and uncertain matters get reduced to dogmatic slogans by technocrats who ensure political leaders are force fed a narrow one-sided information stream. Experts outside the process are accorded standing based solely on their obeisance to the preferred narrative, not their knowledge or qualifications. Critics are attacked as purveyors of “misinformation” and “disinformation,” and so the existence of opposition to government plans becomes proof of the need to suppress free speech.
But eventually the people get the last word. I am struck, in this context, that despite nonstop fearmongering about an alleged climate crisis, the public tolerates climate policy only insofar as it doesn’t cost anything.
The climate movement might think that by embedding itself in the globalist elite it can accelerate policy adoption without needing to win elections. I think the opposite is happening. The globalists have coopted the climate issue to sell a grotesque central planning agenda that the public has repeatedly rejected. If the UAE Consensus is the future of climate policy, its failure is guaranteed.
Author:
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Jay Goldberg
Thirty-nine hundred dollars – that’s how much the typical two-car Ontario family is spending on gas taxes at the pump this year.
You read that right. That’s not the overall fuel bill. That’s just taxes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeps increasing your gas bill, while Premier Doug Ford is lowering it.
Ford’s latest gas tax cut extension is music to taxpayers’ ears. Ford’s 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut, temporarily introduced in July 2022, is here to stay until at least next June.
Because of the cut, a two-car family has saved more than $1,000 so far. And that’s welcome news for Ontario taxpayers, because Trudeau is planning yet another carbon tax hike next April.
Trudeau has raised the overall tax burden at the pumps every April for the past five years. Next spring, he plans to raise gas taxes by another three cents per litre, bringing the overall gas tax burden for Ontarians to almost 60 cents per litre.
While Trudeau keeps hiking costs for taxpayers at the pumps, premiers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate to blunt the impact of his punitive carbon tax.
Obviously, Ford has stepped up to the plate and has lowered gas taxes. But he’s not alone.
In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew fully suspended the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax for a year. And in Newfoundland, Liberal Premier Andrew Furey cut the gas tax by 8.05 cents per litre for nearly two-and-a-half years.
It’s a tale of two approaches: the Trudeau government keeps making life more expensive at the pumps, while premiers of all stripes are fighting to get costs down.
Families still have to get to work, get the kids to school and make it to hockey practice. And they can’t afford increasingly high gas taxes. Common sense premiers seem to get it, while Ottawa has its head in the clouds.
When Ford announced his gas tax cut extension, he took aim at the Liberal carbon tax mandated by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.
Ford noted the carbon tax is set to rise to 20.9 cents per litre next April, “bumping up the cost of everything once again and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“Our government will always fight against it,” Ford said.
But there’s some good news for taxpayers: reprieve may be on the horizon.
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to axe the carbon tax as soon as he takes office.
With a federal election scheduled for next fall, the federal carbon tax’s days may very well be numbered.
Scrapping the carbon tax would make a huge difference in the lives of everyday Canadians.
Right now, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre. For a family filling up two cars once a week, that’s nearly $24 a week in carbon taxes at the pump.
Scrapping the carbon tax could save families more than $1,200 a year at the pumps. Plus, there would be savings on the cost of home heating, food, and virtually everything else.
While the Trudeau government likes to argue that the carbon tax rebates make up for all these additional costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it’s not so.
The PBO has shown that the typical Ontario family will lose nearly $400 this year due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.
That’s why premiers like Ford, Kinew and Furey have stepped up to the plate.
Canadians pay far too much at the pumps in taxes. While Trudeau hikes the carbon tax year after year, provincial leaders like Ford are keeping costs down and delivering meaningful relief for struggling families.
From LifeSiteNews
A significant number’ of Canadians are suspicious of government overreach and would resist any measures by the government or central bank to create digital forms of official money.
A Bank of Canada study has found that Canadians are very wary of a government-backed digital currency, concluding that “significant number” of citizens would resist the implementation of such a system.
The study, conducted by the Bank of Canada, found that a “significant number” of Canadians are suspicious of government overreach, and would resist any measures by the government or central bank to create digital forms of official money.
According to results from the BOC’s report titled The Consumer Value Proposition For A Hypothetical Digital Canadian Dollar, “cash remains an important method of payment” for Canadians and “[c]ertain groups may strongly resist a digital dollar if they conflate its launch with the end of cash issuance.”
The BOC noted that not only would a “significant number” of Canadians “reject” digital money, but that for some “mindset segments, their lack of interest in a hypothetical digital Canadian dollar was heavily influenced by perceptions of government overreach.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews in September, the BOC has already said that plans to create a digital “dollar,” also known as a central bank digital currency (CBDC), have been shelved.
The shelving came after the BOC had already forged ahead and filed a trademark for a digital currency, as LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Officials from Canada’s central bank said that a digital currency, or electronic “loonie,” will no longer be considered after years of investigating bringing one to market.
However, that does not mean the BOC is still not researching or exploring other options when it comes to digital money. As noted by researchers, despite there being some “interest” in a “hypothetical digital Canadian dollar,” that “interest does not necessarily translate to adoption.”
“Most participants felt well served by current means of payment,” noted the study, adding, “Individuals who support the issuance of a hypothetical digital Canadian dollar did not imagine themselves using it regularly.”
Those most enthusiastic about a government-backed version of Bitcoin were teenagers and young adults. Those older remained especially skeptical.
“They were skeptical of the need for this new form of money and of its reliability,” read the report, which also noted, “They did not trust that concepts were secure or that their personal information would be kept private.”
Given the results from the report, the bank concluded that “[b]road early adoption” of a digital dollar “is unlikely given that available payment methods meet the needs of most users.”
“Financially vulnerable segments often have the most to gain from this payment method but are most resistant to adoption. Important considerations for appeal and adoption potential include universal merchant acceptance, low costs, easy access, simplified online payments, shared payment features, budgeting tools and customizable security and privacy settings,” it noted.
Digital currencies have been touted as the future by some government officials, but, as LifeSiteNews has reported before, many experts warn that such technology would restrict freedom and could be used as a “control tool” against citizens, similar to China’s pervasive social credit system.
Most Canadians do not want a digital dollar, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews. A public survey launched by the BOC to gauge Canadians’ taste for a digital dollar revealed that an overwhelming majority of citizens want to “leave cash alone” and not proceed with a digital iteration of the national currency.
The BOC last August admitted that the creation of a CBDC is not even necessary, as many people rely on cash to pay for things. The bank concluded that the introduction of a digital currency would only be feasible if consumers demanded its release.
In August, LifeSiteNews also reported that the Conservative Party is looking to gather support for a bill that would outright ban the federal government from ever creating a digital currency and make it so that cash is kept as the preferred means of settling debts.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promised that if he is elected prime minister, he would stop any implementation of a “digital currency” or a compulsory “digital ID” system.
Prominent opponents of CBDCs have been strongly advocating that citizens use cash whenever possible and boycott businesses that do not accept cash payments as a means of slowing down the imposition of CBDCs.
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