BUDGET 2024

What’s new in Budget 2024?

Amid the headline-grabbing commitments on housing, Budget 2024 helps build something else critically important: a cleaner economy with affordable clean energy. To that end, the federal government’s popular EV rebate program received a $608 million top-up. Meanwhile, the Canada Greener Homes Initiative got a reboot as the Greener Homes Affordability Program with $800 million for energy efficiency retrofits for low- to median-income households, including renters. There were also dollars for modernizing existing energy efficiency programs and building codes as well as support for a national approach to home energy labelling.

It also delivered a number of measures designed to grow a more sustainable economy. In a bid to maintain Canada’s momentum in the EV battery supply chain space (head to a new Clean Energy Canada op-ed for more on this), Budget 2024 introduced a 10% tax credit on the cost of buildings used in key parts of the EV supply chain. Clean Energy Canada’s Joanna Kyriazis told the Washington Examiner that the new credit is “sort of a cherry on top (for Canada) to try to win over final investments and outcompete the U.S.” Indeed, the credit is rumoured to be targeted at securing an investment from Honda to build EV batteries in Canada. In Joanna’s words, “The joke right now is that the federal government should have said, ‘This new tax credit is only available for companies with names rhyming with Rhonda.'” 

There were also new details on the previously announced tax credit for clean electricity generation, storage, and inter-provincial transmission projects as well as commitments to industrial carbon pricing and an enhanced Carbon Contracts for Difference program. As Clean Energy Canada’s Mark Zacharias concluded his statement, “Budget 2024 is all about Canada’s largely generational housing crisis. But today’s young Canadians will also live in a climate-impacted world at the other end of a global economic transformation. This budget hasn’t forgotten that.”

B.C.’s climate journey

B.C. is home to one of the strongest climate plans in the world. And it’s working: the province has seen a meaningful decline in emissions following a 2018 peak—and in spite of a growing population and economy. At the same time, B.C. has experienced some of the best per-capita GDP growth in the country. So what’s next for the province’s climate plans? Head to this new op-ed from Mark and our colleague Evan Pivnick for some ideas, from maintaining support for EVs and heat pumps to fostering clean industries to communicating the costs of climate change.

‘Redefining communities’

Indigenous communities across Canada are leading the energy transition, from geothermal power to solar plants to battery manufacturing facilities. As the president of an Indigenous-owned clean energy company put it, “It’s important to use technologies that don’t harm the environment and that align with Indigenous knowledge and values…Community-led renewable energy initiatives in rural areas are symbolic of a shift toward redefining communities on Indigenous peoples’ terms.” In related news, the utility Hydro-Québec has inked a deal with Kahnawà:ke to co-own a power transmission line that will deliver power from Montreal's South Shore to New York City. And speaking of transmission lines, a California-based company “has developed a power cable that weighs less and can carry more electricity than the standard wires.”

A breezy 2023

The global wind power industry has been facing some turbulence in recent years in the form of supply chain disruptions and cancelled projects. But the industry, in the U.S. at least, looks to be through the worst as more projects are announced and states line up to purchase wind power. The brighter outlook follows a record year for wind generation with a new report revealing a 50% year-over-year increase between 2022 and 2023.

Sales and resales

A new U.S. study on EV depreciation has found that the gap between EV and gas car depreciation is narrowing, with newer EVs holding their value almost as well as gas-powered cars. It’s perhaps unsurprising that older models with smaller ranges were found to depreciate faster than gas-powered counterparts. But with EVs now boasting ranges topping 400 kilometres as standard, modern used EVs are much more in demand. And speaking of EV demand, automaker Kia has reported that its March EV sales are up almost 80% compared to last year, despite an overall decrease in sales of 2.4%. In short, its EV business is on the up, while gas car sales stagnate. 

Pay cheques, floods, and a coffee crisis

In sobering news, a new study has found that climate change will cause incomes to fall by almost a fifth within the next 26 years while the costs of climate change will be six times higher than the price of limiting global heating to 2C. Case in point: just last week, record rainfall in Dubai (which was more likely caused by climate change than controversial “cloud seeding”) wreaked havoc on the desert city. And if climate impacts still feel distant, then look no further than your coffee cup—because climate change is coming for that too. Changing weather is affecting the world’s coffee-growing regions, with experts warning of an impending imbalance between supply and demand. 

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