The Cement Association of Canada (CAC) has sent a joint letter to Canada’s provincial ministers of the environment emphasizing industrial carbon markets as the most flexible and cost-effective way to incentivize industry to reduce emissions and providing five recommendations to fix industrial carbon pricing:
- Remove interprovincial trade barriers.
- Create and align high integrity offset protocols.
- Make credit markets transparent.
- Enhance revenue recycling.
- Engage on measures at the border to support vulnerable sectors.
CAC signed the letter alongside 12 leading industry associations and firms from across Canada, including Alberta’s Industrial Heartland Association, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, the Canadian Steel Producers Association, Carbon Removal Canada, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, Clean Prosperity, Enhance Energy, Heidelberg Materials, Kiwetinohk Energy, Itoa Energy, and Lafarge.
In part, the letter reads, “We support industrial carbon pricing as the backbone of decarbonization across this country. Industrial carbon markets are the most flexible and cost-effective way to incentivize industry to systematically reduce emissions. Yet this critical policy isn’t working as well as it should. A patchwork of provincial carbon pricing systems has produced numerous barriers and created significant red tape across efforts to decarbonize our economy.
“We write to raise concerns about how provincial carbon markets work together, or rather how they do not. The disconnect across nine different markets makes it harder to invest in major projects in Canada. It is holding back capital, economic growth, jobs, and decarbonization. We need to act now to fix this.
“We are now less than two years away from the scheduled 2026 review of industrial carbon pricing systems, yet in Ottawa the work has already begun. Now is the moment for provinces to come together to tackle these challenges and demonstrate leadership. Provinces should seize this opportunity to improve industrial carbon markets from coast to coast to coast.”
