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Letter: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

‘The PBO has blinders on and is going to smash our country into a fiery brick wall if they don't conduct an in-depth analysis’
Letter to the Editor
typewriter pexels-cottonbro-3945337 (From Pexels by Cottonbro)
From Pexels by Cottonbro

Editor’s note: This letter is in response to the story “Liberal MP calls out PBO for error in carbon price analysis, asks for correction” that ran May 28.

Those Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) reports have done much damage and have politicized the most economically efficient tool we have to tackle our climate change: carbon pricing. 

In 2022, concerned Canadians sent 319 letters to the PBO and their MPs asking for the PBO to incorporate more details on overall costs related to the impacts of climate change, on the economy, on the health of all Canadians and on the environment with regards to Canada's plans for tackling climate change. Citizens' Climate Lobby supporters asked the PBO to consider the following two reports in their next analysis:

  1. The Physical Costs of Climate Change: A Canadian Perspective, (April 2022) from the Institute for Sustainable Finance. The data reveals that under multiple rising warming scenarios, the associated physical costs grow dramatically, with 2030, 2050, and 2070 being inflection points.
  2. DAMAGE CONTROL: Reducing the costs of climate impacts in Canada (September 2022) from the Canadian Climate Institute. They found that the economic impacts of climate change impact all households. The good news is that If global emissions reductions in line with a low-emissions scenario are achieved, the total costs could be cut by three-quarters.

I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I read what the PBO's Yves Giroux said, "We don't think it will change the nature of the findings. So the overall conclusions of the reports will still remain for the economic side."

Seriously? Has the PBO been outside lately? Watched the news? Temperature and weather records are being regularly smashed around the world and scientists are warning the models are not working. 

Does the PBO not know that the climate crisis is progressing much faster than models are predicting? An office charged with the economic and physical well-being of Canadians must know this. 

In August 2023, a critical actuarial analysis highlighted the financial risks of climate change. While the intricate details of the analysis may be complex, the message is clear: the current climate-scenario models are flawed and do not accurately predict the future or its financial ramifications.

Is it any wonder that Canadians treat climate change solutions as if they were a debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? The PBO has blinders on and is going to smash our country into a fiery brick wall if they don't conduct an in-depth analysis.

We are in a terrifying moment in history, and the PBO has blinders on.

We all must stop treating the solutions to the climate crisis as if we had time, or we risk joining those dancing angels.

Later is too late. 

Cathy Orlando
Greater Sudbury
Program director, Citizens’ Climate International