A new report by the C.D. Howe Institute on the cost of retrofitting Canada’s housing stock to make it carbon neutral is a timely reminder that the financial impacts of carbon pricing aren’t just felt in Canada’s oil and gas, and transportation sectors.
Those are the two largest sectors of our economy impacted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions.
The oil and gas sector emitted 179 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2020, the last year for which government data are available, while the transportation sector emitted 159 million tonnes.
But total emissions of 672 million tonnes were also the result of emissions in five other major sectors of our economy, including the third-largest sector — buildings — which includes residential dwellings, at 88 million tonnes.
That was followed by heavy industry (72 million tonnes), agriculture (69 million tonnes), electricity (56 million tonnes) and waste and “others”, meaning light manufacturing, construction, forest resources and coal production (50 million tonnes).
Every one of these economic sectors will require substantial investments — paid by Canadians as taxpayers or consumers — to meet Trudeau’s targets of reducing Canada’s emissions to 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and to net zero by 2050.
In the C.D. Howe report — “Only Hot Air? The Implications of Replacing Gas and Oil in Canadian Homes” — authors Charles DeLand and Alexander Vanderhoof estimate the cost of making residential homes carbon neutral by 2050 would be up to $18,000 for a single, detached home, with prices ranging from $12,000 to $17,000 for attached houses such as semis, town homes and condo apartments.
That’s based on replacing greenhouse gas emitting natural gas and oil used to heat air and often water as well in homes with electric heat pumps.
The study estimates the total cost for home owners across Canada would be between $143 billion and $203 billion, with homes having to be retrofitted at a pace of 1,158 per day.
Even that, the study says, would fall short of achieving Trudeau’s emission targets.
We need a reality check in Canada on the true costs of cutting emissions, because right now, it’s clear many Canadians can’t afford the price tag governments are ringing up, ostensibly doing so on their behalf.
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