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Last week, Greta Thunberg forcefully called out governments for their “empty words” on climate change. She has a point. Here in Canada, we have an unfortunate history of setting ambitious climate targets — and failing to achieve them.

What then should we make of the federal Liberal party’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050? After all, while new policies are bending our emissions trajectory downward, we are not yet on track to achieve our 2030 target, let alone deep reductions by 2050. Is this another empty promise?

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Or perhaps this time is different — if we can build on the progress we’ve already made.

For the first time, Canada has multiple policy tools in place that reduce emissions. We can debate which of these is best. But we can agree that taking these tools off the table is a sure path to failure.

Under the Pan-Canadian Framework, every province in Canada faces either a federal or provincial carbon price. Carbon pricing makes producing greenhouse gas emissions more expensive, and thereby creates incentive to look for alternatives.