Aaron Cosbey

My latest: What if many countries adopt border carbon adjustment? How to prevent the nightmare scenario of many different requirements for measurement, reporting and verification of GHG emissions - a burden that would fall most heavily on SME exporters and those from developing countries?

(1/8) 🌍 An industrial policy renaissance
Governments are using #subsidies and other measures to help domestic industries play a role in the green transition—while strengthening economic competitiveness.
A new IISD report explores how this is reshaping trade and investment .👇

Natural resources minister presses case for Canadian LNG exports to Europe | CBC News At a news conference wrapping up a trip to Berlin, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said German companies have told him they are interested in Canadian liquefied natural gas, and that his govern...

Nameless German firms to Hodgson: We'd be "interested" in Canadian LNG.

I'm sure. Every importer wants a surplus of exporters.

That doesn't mean they'd commit to any long-term deals. And it doesn't mean that they've thought through the business case from a Canadian perspective.

bit.ly/3Kvro96

At this point you expect more outrageous stuff every day.

But this is a whole new level of outrageous.

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bsky.app/profile/aaro...

More Republican lawmakers demand legal action over Canadian wildfire smoke The Republican lawmakers called for an investigation of Canada's wildfire management practices and for potential remedies under international law, saying Canada must face "real consequences."

Republican lawmakers' smokescreen:

"The smoke you're choking on definitely has nothing to do with climate change.

The real culprit is criminally negligent foreign forest managers."

bit.ly/45tXeKj

I used to believe that the increasing frequency of climate disasters would create a constituency for climate policy ambition.

Not if so many people believe that climate-related disasters are globalist plots.

my rising home insurance cost in Canada, in large part due to climate-change-fueled floods, wildfires, storms in recent years

Hey fellow Canadians. Cost of living more important to you than addressing climate change?

Here's a 10-year graph of my home insurance costs, following on recent years of monstrously costly floods, wildfires, storms.

Just 1 of so many ways in which we're paying for *not* addressing climate change.

Alberta will never double its oil production Both Danielle Smith and the separatists she keeps enabling want to see Alberta double its oil production. Spoiler: It won't be Mark Carney or the Liberal government that ends up stopping them.

On her dream of doubling Alberta's oil production, as on most things, Danielle Smith is in complete alignment with Alberta's separatists.

Here's why they're both going to be proven badly wrong. #abpoli #cdnpoli
www.nationalobserver.com/2025/07/10/o...

1 - We’ll get busy improving your voters’ vacations, right after we deal with the misery of 10s of thousands of CAD wildfire evacuees.

2 - We’ll improve forest management (already doing it), and you stop pretending arson is the issue, and instead stop emitting so much goddamned greenhouse gas.

Trump allies fume Canadian smoke is ruining summer – and offer misinfo as the solution Smoke from Canadian wildfires that have forced about a quarter of a million Canadians to evacuate since 2023 are preventing Americans in Trump-voting districts from "spend[ing] time outdoors recreatin...

Six US Congressmen complain to Canada’s Ambassador that Canadian wildfires are wrecking their constituents’ summer holidays, ask us to do better at forest management and preventing arson.

How about this for a deal? (1/2)

bit.ly/3TArY6K

Your years of waiting and yearning are over! 😁

Deep-detailed guidance on best practice in border carbon adjustment -- the product of dialogues that brought together over 20 global experts from a wide range of backgrounds.

The key is that any subsidy that encourages exports is a prohibited subsidy, and I guess you can see why they would agree to that. Free allocation, granted to all production, does not favour or encourage exports.

The first man through a minefield makes it more feasible for those that follow, even if he blows up in the attempt

Less glib: EU will argue that their solution is legal. Followers can parrot the argument. By the time WTO rules one way or the other, the policy will have solved short term problem.

Because it's almost certainly WTO-illegal, and that's a bridge the EU has up until now refused to cross.

oops - sorry - details by *2025*

BCA levels playing field between domestic goods paying a carbon price and imported goods. But only in domestic markets. A producer exporting a significant % of production will be hooped, sending commodities burdened by a C-price into global markets. CAD producers export a high % of their production.

This opens the door for other countries considering BCA (e.g., UK, Norway, Australia, Canada) to follow suit.

I’ve argued the main reason Canada can’t do a BCA is hesitation to implement a potentially WTO-illegal export adjustment (Canada’s export percentages being much higher than the EU’s).

Details by end of 2050. Per the proposal, will be:

• Quickly adopted
• Proportional to phase out of free allocation
• Contingent on progress on decarbonization (?)
• WTO legal

On that last point, let’s see: many argue it’s not possible. (3/4)

This was inevitable. Those industries are under pressure from high feedstock/fuel prices, global over-supply. Losing their export markets (which they would if no export adjustment) would be a death knell for many, would be a major source of carbon leakage. (2/4)

Breaking: European Commission has proposed that CBAM-covered producers of steel, aluminum, cement & fertilizers will be relieved of the EU ETS carbon price for exports. Some thoughts. (1/4)

bit.ly/4knZmZl

The economics version of "It doesn't count if it's not on Strava"

Insiders say Mark Carney could compromise on emissions cap Once hailed under prime minister Justin Trudeau's leadership as a marquee plank of Canada's climate action under the Liberal government, the proposed emissions cap is also politically contentious, wit...

This isn't surprising, in that the emissions cap has for a while seemed an obvious sacrificial lamb. But if Ottawa sees it as potentially a straight-up trade-off for Pathways (oil-sands carbon capture) finally happening, I think it's missing a step. www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

Thoughtful coverage of our new report calling for a new Canadian industrial strategy.

We lay out specific recommendations, based on the lessons of successful Canadian and international industrial policies.

carboncompetitiveness.ca/wp-content/u...

‘More convenient’: why China’s travellers are ditching planes for bullet trains More passengers on busy Beijing-Shanghai route are choosing high-speed rail, which offers flexibility, comfort and stable internet access.

Chinese HSR does Beijing-Shanghai – which is about the distance as NYC-Atlanta – in just over four hours, and gets six times the ridership of airlines. $1.8 billion in net profit last year. scmp.com/economy/chin...

In that same request for consultations: an argument against free allocation to sectors at high risk of leakage under the EU ETS, alleging that it's an export subsidy.

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – wh...

“Climeworks’ [direct air capture] energy needs: … It would take up to 72 terawatts to fully offset Iceland's carbon footprint each year … equivalent to almost four times Iceland's electricity production.”

Something very wrong with this equation.

bit.ly/4drzWbA

Gas stoves increase cancer risk, especially for kids, new study finds The appliances emit benzene, a potent carcinogen. Exposure varies depending on ventilation and other factors, but there’s no safe level.

Have you ever wondered what things we’re doing today will be shocking to folks 20 years from now? The “kids dancing in DDT fog” test?

In my top 10: cooking by burning fossil gas inside our homes.

bit.ly/4kmHZbG

‘It’s bleak’: Trump prepares to gut investments to clean up heavy… The Industrial Demonstrations Program would create thousands of jobs while helping modernize U.S. industries like steelmaking. It’s on Trump’s chopping…

Trump to scrap billions in DoE support for industrial decarbonization. Terrible for climate progress, jobs, investment.

But also: condemns US industry to be dirty & uncompetitive in the global green markets of the future. Threatens the manufacturing base that GOP claims to cherish.

bit.ly/452NbNv