Ambient Air Pollution in Canada and Environmental Pricing

Background Report: Managing Industrial Air Emissions in Canada (22 page pdf, Prepared for Sustainable Prosperity by Nashina Shariff, June 2011)

The article under review today is a rare (public) look at the state of how the management of air pollution is carried out in Canada. The study concludes that the historic top-down, national/ provincial command and control policies could be replaced with the more effective pricing of emissions where a price is put on exceeding defined thresholds.

TAXATION LEVELS WITH DIFFERENT AIR QUALITY ISSUES

       PRICE



                                                                                                                         EMISSIONS

Key Quotes:

“[quoting the CMA] in 2008, as many as 21,000 Canadians would die prematurely from the effects of air pollution. That year, there would be over 9,000 hospital visits, 30,000 emergency department visits and 620,000 doctor's office visits due to air pollution. The economic costs of air pollution would top $8 billion in 2008, rising to over $250 billion by 2031”

“The Canadian Medical Association estimates that by 2031 almost 90,000 people will have died from the acute effects of air pollution, the number of deaths due to long-term exposure to air pollution will be 710,000”

“there is a growing interest in applying economic instruments, such as emissions trading and emissions charges2 , to incent improved environmental performance and achieve air quality objectives”

“PM and ozone levels in many cities are consistently above the Canada-Wide Standard (CWS). In the period from 2003 - 2005, at least 30 per cent of Canadians lived in communities with PM2.5 levels above the CWS, for ozone, this figure is 40 per cent”

“Three key examples of federally set ambient air quality standards are the National Ambient Air Quality Objectives, the Canada Wide Standards for PM and Ozone and the recently introduced Comprehensive Air Management System”

“Since the mid-1990’s, there has been an ongoing trend away from coercive policy tools in favour of incentive-based tools (most commonly referred to as economic instruments) such as emission charges, emissions trading schemes, subsidies and voluntary initiatives to spur desirable environmental action”

“Emissions pricing systems, such as cap-and-trade systems or emissions charges, potentially offer a more economically efficient mechanism for achieving emissions reduction levels.”

Related articles

• Heat Wave And Air Pollution: A Double-Whammy Of Health Risks (huffingtonpost.com)
• Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) (nextbigfuture.com)
• Why a Heatwave Causes Such Air Pollution Problems (ecocentric.blogs.time.com)
• Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) (ees2001.wordpress.com)
• EPA Delays Ozone Standards, Postpones Public Health Protections (huffingtonpost.com)
• Why air pollution is the new issue in town (guardian.co.uk)
• Air Pollution at Airports (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
• Is air pollution a heterogeneous solution (wiki.answers.com)
• E.P.A. Limits Coal-Plant Emissions (green.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Panel Backs Bill Delaying Air-Pollution Rules (online.wsj.com)