Open Collections

Transportation habits, motor fuel prices, and public support for carbon pricing in Canada

University of British Columbia

This thesis explores the relationship between transportation habits, motor fuel prices, and public support for a carbon tax in Canada. It lies at the intersection of literatures on public opinion, environmental taxation, and climate politics. The thesis analyses an original panel survey conducted in five provinces around the implementation of the Canadian federal carbon tax in 2019. The thesis finds that driving as principal mode of transportation decreases support for a carbon tax by 11.3%, and an additional one cent increase in the price per litre of gasoline over the past month decreases support for a carbon tax by 0.3%. The thesis also finds that living in an urban center increases support for a carbon tax by 9.4% to 9.9% in Canada, as opposed to living outside of an urban center. This could be because more reliable transportation alternatives are available to urban dwellers. Partisanship is also found to have a strong effect on support for a carbon tax in Canada, in accordance with previous literature on the topic. The role of respondents’ overestimations of the impact of a carbon tax on gasoline prices is explored but remains inconclusive. Several avenues for future research on the matter are presented in this thesis.

Text

2020-10-08

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76270

Political Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/