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How Canada figured out a carbon tax and gave the money back

Published Jul 13, 2023, 4:00 AM

Canada is a leading producer of oil and gas. It’s also one of the few G7 members with a carbon tax. As Minister of Environment and Climate Change in 2015, Catherine McKenna was charged with getting Canadians on board with that policy. One of the most important tactics was calling it “a price on pollution.” Carbon taxes are having a moment after the Paris Climate Finance Summit and Cath joins Akshat this week to talk about the political practicalities of passing a carbon tax. She has advice about who to lean on, handling threats, and why focusing on outcomes above all else is the key to climate policy that works.   

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Welcome to zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week Carbon costs Canada. Last month, nearly fifty heads of state met in Paris to talk about how to bring global finance in line with climate goals. It's a huge undertaking and the to do list is long. A lot of what needs to be done on that list could be made easier if governments had more money, and right now, after the pandemic and the economic consequences that have followed, there is not a lot of it. One way to fill government coffers is through taxes. Taxes are not popular, but they are crucial and perhaps the most interesting thing at the meeting was that instead of dividing rich and poor countries, there was somewhat of a unity on taxes. French President Emmanuel Macron, the host of the meeting, brought up international taxes on shipping and even financial transactions multiple times throughout the two day event, and at the final press conference, Kennyan President William Ruto said.

The discussion about carbon tax is a discussion that is a must have and on this one, we do not want the North to pay for the South. We want all of us to pay.

From an economic standpoint, taxes on emissions are an optimal way of speeding up the transition to clean energy, but the politics of those taxes aren't a winning cars in any country, let alone Globally. Among G seven members, only three have some form of tax on carbon the UK, the EU and Canada. And Canada is the case study that I'm going to explore today. It's worth learning a country's experience to understand whether carbon taxes could ever work international. Last year I interviewed Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and he's very proud of introducing the tax.

No matter how many times I go around saying, look, you can do it. I want two reelections on putting a broad based price on pollution. People still think that it's a real challenge.

You might notice he does not call it a carbon tax, but a price on pollution. This is no accident.

If you start off looking at the police, terrible, If you like, say, do you want a carbon tax? Darable? Terrible? Terrible? What about carbon pricing a little bit better? What about putting a price on pollution better? No longer free to pollute? Best?

This is my guest today, Catherine McKenna, former Minister of Environment and climate change in Trudeau's cabinet. She was tossed by Trudeau with selling the idea and whether you call it a carbon tax, a carbon price, an emissions trading system, or a price on pollution, all of it is meant to economically disincentivize emitting greenhouse gases. Countries that introduce these policies inevitably see their emissions decline. But the politics are delicate. Conservative politicians are still fighting Trudeau's price and pollution.

Tends to be conservative politicians that are most resistant to this straightforward mechanism, looking instead at bringing in heavy regulations or trying to do other ways around it, when a price on pollution is the cleanest way to do it.

I wanted to learn from Kat about how Trudeau has managed to counter opposition to climate action and how she figured out getting people on board for a price on pollution. By the way, Kath is now the chair of a UN group that is setting standards about what exactly the term that zero means for corporations. She's the best expert I know about how to use language in selling complex policies. In twenty fifteen, you became a member of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet and you were the first minister to have climate in their portfolio. Could you briefly tell the story of how you got to that point.

So I should serve from the beginning. I got elected, so I was I'd worked really hard over a couple of years to get elected, so I hadn't really thought about you're asked by the Prime minister. You have to be elected as part of the team, and then you're asked to serve in cabinet. I almost fell off my seat when I was asked to be Minister of Environment in climate change, because I knew folks that worked on climate change, and those were like the climate folks. I'd done human rights, I'd also done corporate law, so I thought, oh, my gosh, you know, I really don't know anything on climate. And I think I realized that really quick because a few days later, I was off to Paris for the negotiations around the Paris Agreement at COP twenty one, and I'm reading my briefing books and I'm like, what in God's name is anyone talking about? First of all, so many acronyms like COP. I was like I had to ask. I said, Okay, let's just start at the beginning. There are no dumb questions. What's a cop They were like confidence of the parties, and I was like, okay, could we stop with all the acronyms. But I mean, my job was pretty clear from the Prime Minister that one we had to go to Paris and fight for an ambitious global agreement, which was great. The question was would it be ambitious enough. So in fact getting for the first time ever, world's coming together degree that everyone needed to do their part on climate change, and that there was a clear target staying well below two degrees driving for one point five That was all really important. But then I had to come home and we had to get a climate plan for Canada. And that's hard because I think everyone knows we produce a lot of oil and gas in Canada. What they may not know is Canada's eighty percent clean electricity. So that's a very good story. We have a lot of hydro, and we have significant nuclear in Ontario, and then we have some wind and solar. But the real thing in the climate plan was going to be to get a price on pollution.

And that brings us to one of the things you were most famous for which is starting Canada's carbon pricing scheme officially known as the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. Now, in the simplest possible terms, how does Canada's carbon pricing system work?

Oh, in the simplest possible terms, Well, first of all, I learned one you don't call something a carbon tax. That's extremely unpopular. But by the way, the Supreme Court found it wasn't a tax because we give all the money back to people. So essentially, what our system is that there's a price on pollution across the country. Now, certain province has already had a price on pollution, some had it and then got rid of it. But we needed to have from a competitiveness perspective and a uniformity perspective, but also a performance perspective, we needed to have a price across the country. So essentially, we just said there's going to be a price. It's going to be starting at ten dollars. It's going to go up at that time to fifty dollars. It's now it will go up to hundred and seventy dollars by twenty thirty, and that's across the board. Now, there are always nuances. So you said you wanted. It's simple, but I think it is important beyond the fact that all the money goes back to people. We also have what's called an output based pricing system, so that's a very un sexy name, but competitiveness is an issue. So for heavy emitters, we figured out a system to look at competitiveness, but to of course put a price on pollution. So I mean, essentially, at its basics, there's a price on pollution. It started a ten bucks a it's across the board, and the money goes back to people in a transparent way through the tax system.

And the history of when you came to this point was that there were a few provinces within Canada that already had some form of a system, and so you had to design something that would work at a federal level, but also take into consideration all these different systems that existed in different provinces. So what was the solution that you came up with to make it all work?

Well, I mean, so we could have just done something easy. We could have just said we're just doing a direct price, but we said we're actually just focused on outcomes, which I think in climate policy you should always just do that focus on outcomes. We needed to reduce a mission with a price, but we allowed provinces to decide how they were going to do the price. But if they didn't want to do the price, then the federal government was coming in and that's where the problem started.

So how hard was it to get this act introduced and then passed in Canada?

It was super hard. Hard things are hard. I mean, look, we started with a discussion and we were coming up, by the way, with a comprehensive climate plan, so I knew this was going to be the hardest element, and it was clear that there were some provinces that were never going to agree. So in quite a dramatic moment, I said to the Prime Minister, so I can't land this. I need you to just go out and say we're doing it. So we time did. There was a what we call these federal provincial meetings, which generally are the provinces ganging up on the federal government. So we're at this meeting. I think we're in Halifax. We're having this discussion once again about pricing, and then of course there were people saying, well, we can't do it all these reasons. I said, okay, you may want to just have your officials follow what's going on in the House of Comments, because I said, the Prime ministers announcing that he's putting a price pollution across the country.

Provinces and territories will have a choice in how they implement this pricing. They can put a direct price on carbon pollution or they can adopt a cap and trade system.

So that was very dramatic. Bunch of ministers just pushed their chairs out of the table and then immediately ran to the microphones to say how terrible we were. But we had set it up because the major provinces Ontario, BC, Alberta and Quebec, which represent a huge amount of the population, had already agreed. A number of provinces did not support it. They were led by conservative politicians. In fact, they created the resistance. One of our national magazines had a picture of the resistance. It was six guys, the leader of the opposition, a conservative, and then five provincial politicians. As like the resistance to climate change. But I'm not bananas, right, So we had thought about this and determined, like, first of all, we're federations, so I actually believe that provinces should design the system that makes sense for them. Every economy is different. We're a very big country, and you know we have provinces that have a lot of oil and gas. We have provinces that have none. But I did learn, and I think this is a good lesson for folks that are trying to figure out climate policy. And it's hard, but policy matters. You have to think about people. In fact, like I had to fight quite hard internally to get it so all the money went back in a transparent way, I said to the Prime Minister eventually, because there was just a lot of discussion, and you can imagine finance, everyone has ideas. They had ideas, and I said, no, I have to have a clear message. I have to say how much everyone's getting back. And then there was even a discussion on well should lower income people get more back? And I said, it's progressive by definition because they emit less, so they're going to pay less. And that's what the economists showed. So these are all very norty things, but policy matters, both in terms of the very nuts and bolts of the policy, but also how you can sell it.

Let me capture that moment that you brought up. Prime Minister Trudeau could pull off that dramatic moment because he had a majority in the House of Commons and he could get the Aact through just because of that majority. Isn't that right?

I mean yes in a sense, although the majority of Canadians supported parties, so not just us that had a price on pollution, But yes, I mean I think that you know, if you're going to have a majority, like do things with it. I mean, I think it was seen as so important because we could not meet our target without it, so it was a critical element of our climate plan. I like to think that everything isn't in life just about politics and saying well do we think we can land things like? Because I needed to sell this right and to regular people, and so I went and I was like, Okay, who can I talk to you? So first of all I talked to George Schultz, so unfortunately he's.

Passed away, and he's the Republican advisor.

To Rey Agan and also Bush Senior, and he had been a real proponent of putting a price on pollution. But he said to me, I remember looking at me, I like, give the money back, give it back. Because he's a Republican, right, he just believes in that so that was one person that was helpful. But the other person was really helpful was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I'm so happy that Canada is putting a price on pollution.

I was trying to get anyone who I thought could get some attention that didn't look like an environmentalist, because my problem wasn't with people who believed in environmentalists, as my problem was people didn't believe in environmentalist didn't want them telling them what they needed to do. So I got Ernie Arnold Schwartzenegger, who put a price on pollution in California, brought in the cap and trade system and it was bipartisan and we have done this year in California in a bipartisan way of it. As a Republican governor and with the Democratic legislators, we brooked together and got it done. But it was very serious. It wasn't a jokey video. But I was trying to reach folks who liked the terminator and I think I use it as quite cheesy, but I was like, we need to terminate climate change.

So you make this point, which is giving the money back was crucial. How did you make it work because all these provinces are doing different things and putting prices in a different way. Right.

Well, I mean the money back's crucial because it's your message. Right. You can say we're making it no longer free to pollute, but most families are getting more money back. It's a very simple message right now. We also made sure that people knew how much they were getting back because we were in a fight. So the conservative politicians and the provinces that didn't have a price on pollution would put up the price that people were going to pay and forget how much they were getting back because there was a delta, and you would make it, you would get more money back. So it was very important to do that, but it was extremely ideological. I think that there was a view that they could win an election. The conservative politicians could win an election, and while we have multi parties in Canada, it's basically a liberal conservative fight. So the Conservatives were really all in, really focusing on this message. And it's hard because you know you are fighting an uphill battle on messaging. I really became obsessed with comms. And it's funny because I'm a lawyer, so I was terrible on comms. But I realized that environmentalists were worse. So that was my advantage because I say, I don't know what anyone's talking about here, and neither do people in Hamilton. I'm from a steel town, kind of like Detroit, and being able to say something very simple, and I realized, like I could go into a class of grade four students and say do you think it should be free to pollute? And they'll all tell it back no. And so that was the message and Canadians they understood that.

But then you still had to counter the opposition from conservative leaders to the act. And that's where the revenue neutral pop came in, right focus through the numbers, you know what exactly happens when this revenue is collected, and you know how did that help you fight these politicians.

The thing that was a little bit tricky is it depended what province you were in, because you're putting a price on pollution that includes heavy emitters and businesses, so it'll be a different emissions profile depending on the province. So in a way, in Alberta and Saskatchewan, two provinces where the premiers refuse put a price on pollution, the amount that you would pay was going to be significantly higher than you might pay in another province, but the amount you would get back would also be significantly higher. So if you take it to what I did, you know, I would have a card and we actually I think we mailed it out to them, and I said, like, this isn't advertising, this is just letting people know what the policy is. So it would say, you know, we're putting a price on pollution, and the average family will get three hundred and forty three dollars back. I don't know. For some reason that sticks in my head for Ontario and buy average family. It just depended on your family, if you have three kids or two kids, how old they were. By average family, we got three hundred and forty three dollars back, which is more than they will pay. But the most help we got was from an unusual source. So I suddenly noticed these signs from H and R Block. H and R Block is like they're just you know, one of these accounting groups that'll do your taxes. So a lot of people they just got to HNR Block and you know, drop all their tax documents. So they're big signs. They were like get your taxes done, to get your climate action incentive, and so I was like, this is amazing because it's actually a third party that's just being practical.

Maybe you're wondering how exactly you would get money back from the government if you lived in Canada. The exact calculation will depend on where you live, because, as Kat explained, there isn't one corbon pricing system across the country. However, in most provinces, the federal government applies some form of carbon pricing, which means goods or fuel that are carbon intensive are a little bit more expensive based on the emissions that are attached to them. The government calculates roughly how much extra you, the consumer, are paying for those and then sends that money back to you. We check the numbers for twenty twenty two, and an individual in Ontario would get four hundred and eighty eight dollars. In the jargon of policymakers, this is revenue neutral. The government sends back almost all of the money it collects. It does keep a small amount for very clear purposes.

Ninety percent of the money went back to people in the provinces. It did not go to the provinces. That was a very important distinction. This other ten percent was for small, medium sized businesses, indigenous people's public institutions. So it wasn't all the money going back to people. It was, but it was done in a thoughtful way, thinking about who's going to be impacted. And then you get into nuances, right, you bring in policy and you have to iterate. So I mean at the beginning it was already complicated enough. I said, we're probably going to screw up in some areas, doesn't matter, just do it. We will adjust and I have to hand it to the public servants because it was extremely complicated from an administrative perspective. Now, I was kind of hoping like someone showed up your door with a really big check, but obviously that doesn't happen. It's automatic deposit for most people, so that's harder because you want people to see it.

And you are not a minister now, but you tweeted your most recent climate action incentive payment.

Right.

I was excited. I just I got home. I was traveling in Europe and I was like, wait, what's this from the government and it's like, hey, guess what, you got a deposit? And I was like, oh, my climate action incentive good policy. So I was really excited to open up the envelope. It said that my annual entitlement was seven hundred and forty five dollars and we're getting this in two installments, so I got three hundred and seventy two dollars and fifty cents.

After the break, I asked Kat about the pushback and got her advice for anyone wanting to implement a corbon tax. By the way, if you want to hear my interview with Justin Trudeau from October, and you should because it's one of the most popular episodes, you can find a link in the show notes. And if you're enjoying this conversation, consider leaving a review. It really makes a difference. A recent one from Artichoke eighty two said, every time I started to give the guests the side I the host would ask the right question, give the right context, and leave it up to the listener to pay attention. Thanks Artichoke eighty two. If you do leave a review, we might read it on a future episode of the show. Now, what are the main reasons that people continue to oppose it even today?

Their ideologues? I mean, okay, I will that's a flip at answer. It deserves a more serious answer. There are conservative politicians who think this is a winning issue. I don't know why in Canada they still think it's a winning issue because we've now fought two elections on it. And it goes back to every policy that any policy you design in climate you need to think about regular people. And as I say, I think it's very helpful that I came from Hamilton, a steel town, and people care about like they generally, I think they care about climate change and they believe in climate change. But I think that some people may not understand how the system works. So when you have politicians who actually mislead or lie, we sometimes call it like disinformation. I'm like, yeah, sometimes it's actually just lies. You know, it can be very confusing for your average person. And so you will see a difference in the perspective on pricing by provinces in particular, like in Alberta, Saskatchewan, where you've had humongous opposition from the highest levels and so you know, just saying things that are patently untrue. Now I had to be very loud on this, like I had every question in the question period in our House of Commons from the opposition some days on pricing and so it was a real fight and it really wasn't that pretty. But the good news is you have a lot of allies on pricing pollution. So to anyone who's thinking about this beyond, I think, give the money back so you have a good message. I think, like, go get people outside the box. I had religious leaders and religious groups supporting it. We had health professionals, we had young people who were very vocal about their future. We had economists, we had environmentalists, we had indigenous leaders. So I think you also need to get as many people as you can, like I found a bunch of reasonable conservatives who also supported it.

And so talking about this at a personal level, this is your first job as a minister. You're taking through what is probably one of the hardest policies that had to go through the government at that time. Give us a few examples of how bad it got and how you found a way to deal with it.

It started off really early. I was given the Moniker climate barbie. That was like, uh, probably week one or two. I did nothing with it. I ignored it, and in fact, my advisors like, you know, I have my team and they're like, don't do anything. It was irritating because obviously it was trying to belittle me because of the color of my hair or something, and also just personally, I never played with barbies, so I was like, this is really weird. But it got a lot worse. There was a lot of I got threads, death threats, like a lot of things sent to my office, like all of those things. I ended up having security, And you know what, I'm just gonna say it, like there are some right wing politicians that are completely responsible for adding fuel to the fire because they would just say things that were patently untrue and that people would get riled up because they were worried about being able to pay their bills or their jobs. And so I suddenly became like I was like trying to be the most like the smartest policy more people get money back, like trying to talk to conservative like and it was. It was bad, And I was also worried We're gonna lose an election on it. So I felt a ton of personal pressure. So I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd be like, Okay, who else can support it? Like what can I do? What massage can I have? And then I always had to fight now I'm Irish. My dad is from Dublin, as ours five brothers. I'm from Hamilton. It's a hard scrabble steel town and I'm a competitive swimmer, so you put your head down, your drive for the walls. So I'm tough, but it was a lot like I did feel a heavy weight because I thought, gosh, if we don't land this, we're not going to be able to have a credible climate plan. But worse, we're going to lose the belief in people who want serious, credible action and climate change. In particular, the ones that impacted me most were young people, and by the way, my three kids were on me every day.

One of the things that is part of the Pricing Act, which is that it's going to increase the amount to pay for pollution. So now it's at fifty dollars a ton, it's going to go all the way up to one hundred and seventy dollars a ton. Is it sustainable?

Well, once again, I mean nothing changes in the sense that you're going to pay more, but you get more money back, and in fact, hopefully you continue to proportionally pay less because you have options that will enable you to reduce your emissions. But it's hard, right, Like obviously you know, people like it's going up, and then people there's always you know, people who want to fight it are opportunists, so they'll say, well, the gas prices are so high, it's all the price and pollution, which is obviously not at all true. Like the we've seen humongous fluctuations in gas prices as a results of the rest is the legal war in Ukraine, and because people are very price sensitive to gas. It is hard. And when politicians kind of say, well we've landed that, I say, you've never landed it. You always have to fight it. You always have to be like good in your comps, making sure you're explaining to people they're getting more money back, right, And also what's going on. Our emissions are going down, like we're tackling we're doing our part to help tackle climate change.

What has been the effect of the legislation so far on emissions?

Well, I mean initially with a price of ten dollars or twenty or thirty forty, it's having you know, not the it has to continuously go up to have the bigger impact. But when you look at our twenty thirty target, it's a significant part of the plan, and it also has other impacts on innovation that is in price competitive right now, it suddenly becomes a very realistic option. Yeah, and that's everything from carbon capture storage to electric vehicles. So you're seeing it having a behavioral change on folks and that's of course the intent.

The way you've designed the Pricing Act, it's supposed to try and make sure that the large emitters pay more, but also that they are competitive with industries globally. How do you stop those companies from moving abroad where there's no carbon tax.

Well, that's why we brought an output based pricing system. So you said, don't make it complicated. That is the compleated part. I mean, competitiveness is an issue, right The last thing we want to do or send Canadian jobs to a country that's polluting. That's not the intent at all. We want companies to have the incentive to reduce their emissions, to invest in technologies that'll mean that they are polluting less. That's the whole point of an output based pricing system.

A complex system that is too involved to describe right now, but it works for Canadian industries. There is something else that could work globally a carbon border tariff or carbon border adjustment.

So for border carbon adjustments, an example often talked about is like steel. So you're importing steel, you're using it in Canada, but you've decided you're going to go and get steal from a heavy polluting country because the steel's cheaper, but the carbon footprint is cheaper. So the government just says, Okay, at the border, we're going to adjust for the fact that your emissions or your profile are much higher, so we're going to put a tariff on that. And that will mean that there isn't this competitiveness issue, that there isn't a drive to like the bottom where we're going to go buy aluminum for steel from wherever where it's got a huge carbon footprint and it's really cheap because they haven't put a price on pollution. My background is in trade lass, so I certainly believe that we need to bring climate in trade together. I think that's very important. Climate is not just an environmental issue, it's an economic issue quite frankly, because I mean we're talking about transforming the economy now.

Canada has the third largest stone supply of oil and that's a vast fortune to be made. Do you think the Cambon pricing plan will be enough to stop Canada from exploiting all that resource or not?

That's kind of a weird question. We can't all continue exploiting all of the fossil fuels anywhere. That's actually just a science thing. Do I think that putting a price on pollution will help create the right incentives for Canada's oil and gas to be cleaner? I certainly hope so. I think the proofs in the pudding. But the reality is we've known about climate change, and oil and gas companies have known about climate change, and you know, they need to diversify their portfolios and they need to drastically reduce their emissions. We need to see outcomes, and that includes in Canada. Because often we hear from the oil and gas sector we're the cleanest in the world. That is not true. The oil stands are far from the cleanest in the world. Sure, maybe you've reduced your emissions intensity. One emissions intensity is in emission reductions. The planet doesn't really care. But emission's intensity. It's not irrelevant to you know, a climate plan. But you need to see emission reductions, and we're just we're not really seeing that. So anyway, it's a complicated space, like this is the biggest challenge for Canada. But the reality is largest source of emissions. Twenty five percent of Canada's emissions are from the oil and gas sector. It's been increasing in Alberta and Saskatchewan are the two provinces that have increased. So everyone else is doing hard work, but there's no point. You could plant every tree, you could retrofit every building, You're not going to be able to get Canada's emissions to go down. I was just watching Borgan. I bet you've got Borgan watchers. Do you watch Borgan?

Acshat haven't?

It's a Danish political show. You have to watch it anyway. Borgan, who's awesome. She was like my inspiration for being able to take questions. But it's actually good because in this season of Borgan, it's like whether they should go exploit more fossil fuels in Greenland. And it's a big question, right, like is it ethical if it comes from Canada? Is it ethical? Look? Does Canda have good better regulations?

Yes?

Is it like we care about humor rates?

Yes?

But the problem is like in a way, actually like working on climate because it's just up and down. Missions either go up or they go down. The realities the missions have to go down. They have to go down in Canada, they have to go down everywhere. So now is it complicated. We're not off fossil fuels now, so do we need to figure that out? Yes, but we need to figure it out fast and everyone needs to do their part.

Right now, I'm going to ask thank you some questions that we've kind of touched on in our conversation so firm, So I'm going to ask you to keep the answers to maybe a sentence, if it's possible.

Do you think I can do one sentence acshot?

I don't know.

What do you think other countries can learn from Canada's carbon pricing system?

Make it no longer free to plute? Give all the money back?

What advice do you have for people who are charged with getting a buy in on this kind of carbon pricing system?

Care about real people?

How do you think the current system can be improved?

It's got to ratchet up.

Price has to go up, but there's already ratcheting up included in it.

Right, you have to stick to it, right, We can't have a different political party that comes in and dismantles it.

Do you think the carbon pricing system is going to be up for grabs in the next elections?

Oh?

I think hope. Spring's eternal for conservative politicians. I think regular people understand it can't be free to pollute.

Okay. One of the big ideas being discussed by Justin Trudeau is creating a minimum price on carbon. Is that how he's hoping that he can export what Canada has learned from the pricing scheme across the globe. Oh?

Right, So he said that there should be a minimum price on carbon globally. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just good policy. But it's not just Justin Trudeau. It's like economists, it's there's a wide range of people who believe in the evidence shows that it works. So I think it's really important. I think that. I mean, if we had a price on pollution, it can continue to go up. You would see a lot of innovation that we need and a lot of innovation that's now there that we need to scale but it's too expensive. You'd see actions by companies that pollute a lot that they would make serious investments to stopping to pollute. So but having said that, you know you have to be able to land it politically and you do need to think about the impacts on real people.

Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thanks for taking all those questions.

Thank you, it was great. If anyone needs any help wants to put a price in pollution, I have a lot to say on this.

Carbon pricing is complicated, both in how it is implemented and how it's politically perceived. But that's no reason not to try, because done right, it does work to reduce emissions. Thanks for listening to Zero. If you like the show, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Shared with a friend or someone who likes Danish political thrillers. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine driskell Ar. Theme music is composed by Wondering. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindram, Dave Sawyer, Colonel Wagner, Niallie Haramo Plata and Abreyer Ruffin. I am Akshatrati Back next week.