Backlash is rising against climate policies in the West: Consider farmers’ pushback against the European Green Deal, Yellow Vests protests against fuel taxes in France, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration’s stance on environmental laws. This backlash—widespread, sudden countermobilization against a policy—can arise from a combination of economic, social, or practical grievances and threatens the ambition and stability of climate policy.1 One type of policy in particular, carbon pricing (which places a monetary cost on carbon emissions to encourage polluters to reduce their greenhouse gas output), is favored by Western governments because it is seen as the most efficient way to reduce emissions. Yet, carbon pricing also seems to be at particular risk of backlash due to its perceived unfairness, coerciveness, and association with elites.2 The puzzling contradiction between government preferences for carbon pricing and its high risk of backlash warrants analysis, as this could inform strategies for those seeking to promote pro-climate policies.
This chapter examines two prominent cases of carbon pricing backlash: Australia and Canada. The carbon pricing mechanism (CPM) introduced in Australia in 2011 faced strong conservative party and public opposition, leading to its repeal in 2013 and a decade of policy instability. Canada’s two-part carbon pricing scheme, starting in 2018, encountered persistent pushback from conservative politicians and grassroots movements, resulting in its partial cessation in 2025. These cases demonstrate how carbon pricing implementation faced similar opposition (both led by elites, who spurred public discontent), but it unfolded differently due to unique national characteristics. A comparative analysis offers valuable, albeit sobering, insights into the challenges of ambitious climate policy in Western democracies.
Earlier in this series, Issam Kayssi and Mohanad Hage Ali analyzed climate activism in Iraq and Yemen, two countries where governance is fragmented and climate risk is most immediate. Their analysis highlights how civil society actors are representing direct public grievances and, as much as politically possible, trying to engage the state by relaying popular concerns. This is a contrast to the centrality of elite disputes in Western climate policymaking, where both pro- and anti-climate elites operate largely through formal institutional channels to drive the politics of carbon pricing, though with varied relationships to grassroots efforts.
Indeed, this article first unpacks how pushback against national-level carbon pricing emerged in each case, in both bottom-up and top-down ways. It explores the resilience of climate activism in the face of sustained opposition, including not just overt but also covert strategies employed by pro-climate actors to defend carbon pricing and advocate for greater climate policy ambition. Finally, it identifies common themes and unique differences contributing to backlash and, ultimately, policy failure in each case. While these failures raise questions about the viability of coercive climate mitigation policies, the sometimes-hidden battles involved still hold lessons for other pro-climate actors facing similar challenges.
Case Study: Australia
Australia’s first national-level carbon pricing scheme, the CPM, began in 2012.3 A previous attempt at carbon pricing had failed to gain parliamentary support due to opposition from parties on both the left and right: The Australian Greens argued the policy was not ambitious enough, and the Liberal Party and the National Party contended it would hurt the economy.4 This meant the CPM’s introduction was met with immediate and strong pushback, occurring within an already politically divided landscape.
Backlash against Australia’s carbon price manifested in interconnected top-down and bottom-up ways. From the top, conservative political elites, led by Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott, intensely criticized the CPM. Abbott campaigned to “axe the tax”5 and made a “blood oath”6 to immediately repeal the “great big new tax on everything”7 if elected in 2013. After the conservatives were elected and repealed the CPM, climate action remained a political wedge issue, even within conservative ranks. The far right thwarted any carbon-pricing-like policies, even when proposed by their own leadership.8 From the bottom, backlash emerged through protests and social media, often accentuated and steered by elites. This included heated public rallies, strong criticism from right-wing media figures, and industry-led lobbying campaigns.9 Civic-level backlash peaked before the 2013 election, after which climate policy divisiveness largely remained in the political sphere.
Pushback against Australia’s carbon price was driven by political, economic, and social factors. Given Australia’s resource-intensive economy, fossil fuel interests and powerful lobby groups like the Business Council of Australia and Minerals Council of Australia actively fueled this opposition.10 Their ties to both right-wing neoliberal and left-wing working-class interests meant that neither political side could ignore industry concerns about the CPM’s economic impact.11 However, their strong opposition was primarily voiced through formal stakeholder consultations. In contrast, conservative political elites strategically mobilized more volatile public opposition through misleading arguments about the CPM’s impact on everyday Australians. Abbott claimed it would wipe the steelmaking town of Whyalla off the map,12 and National Party leader Barnaby Joyce warned of a $100 leg of lamb.13 By framing the CPM as a broken promise by then prime minister and Labor Party leader Julia Gillard, these elites also exploited existing distrust in government and entrenched misogyny to mobilize a small but vocal segment of the public.14 These efforts culminated in 2011, with protests erupting in many state capital cities. Protesters were drawn from far-right members of the public, heavy industry (for example, trucking associations), and leading conservative shock jock radio broadcasters and elites. This so-called Convoy of No Confidence movement converged on Canberra, with thousands attending a rally outside Parliament House on August 22, 2011. Conservative elites such as Abbott, Joyce, deputy opposition and National leader Warren Truss, and shock jock Alan Jones made speeches against a backdrop of visceral protester placards (for example, “Ditch the Witch” and “JuLIAR—Bob Brown’s Bitch” [Brown was the Greens Party leader]).15 Smaller protests against the “toxic tax”16 occurred when the CPM began in 2012, but the primary locus of opposition subsequently shifted back to the political sphere as the next federal election approached.
In response to the backlash, a broad coalition of pro-climate actors, including government politicians and officials, academics, and youth, defended carbon pricing in Australia.
In response to the backlash, a broad coalition of pro-climate actors, including government politicians and officials, academics, and youth, defended carbon pricing in Australia. The Labor government attempted to mitigate pushback through policy design, compromises, and amendments. This included providing generous industry compensation, income tax cuts, and energy bill relief for vulnerable households, as well as trying to link the scheme to a lower, floating EU carbon price.17 However, their failure to explicitly connect such benefits to carbon pricing revenue meant these efforts did not alleviate public concerns,18 and in fact they fueled ongoing criticisms that the scheme gave industry too many concessions.19 Academics and some think tanks advocated for the CPM through established channels, producing models and presentations to evidence its effectiveness.20 Meanwhile, university students engaged in more activist methods, such as holding a protest during parliamentary question time where they unveiled a banner painted on their bodies proclaiming the CPM a “GR8 big new opportunity.”21
In the unstable period of conservative government following the CPM’s repeal, pro-climate actors inside and outside government continued to push for greater action. This involved both grassroots campaigns—such as Stop Adani, which sought to halt the development of a new coal mine due to concerns over its negative climate, ecosystem, and land right impacts—and participation in global movements such as the school strike for climate.22 Over the subsequent decade of conservative leadership, Australia’s climate policy appeared increasingly unambitious. Events like the catastrophic 2019–2020 bushfires (coupled with the prime minister’s decision to be in Hawaii at the time) further intensified domestic criticism of the conservative government’s inaction on climate change.23
However, some pro-climate activism, particularly within the government, operated behind the scenes to subtly defend and expand climate policy. These covert, incremental efforts increased after the CPM was repealed. Some focused on promoting alternative policies with climate co-benefits but less risk of backlash, such as funding for hydrogen or renewable innovation.24 Others quietly laid the groundwork for a new carbon market through the Safeguard Mechanism. This mechanism, which set emissions baselines for large emitters, was initially left unused due to backlash concerns, but it stood ready to be strengthened when political conditions were favorable.25 It was not until a Labor government came to power in 2022 that the Safeguard Mechanism could be strengthened to become Australia’s leading climate policy.26 Reflections on these times show that despite (and often because of) ongoing opposition to carbon pricing, government actors in particular reverted to more covert advocacy for climate action.
Case Study: Canada
Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA), passed in 2018, established a national carbon pricing backstop (starting in 2019) that kicked in when provincial schemes were insufficient.27 It comprised two parts: a consumer fuel charge (often called the “carbon tax”) and an industrial pricing system based on emissions intensity.28 The scheme was developed during a rare period of pro-climate political alignment between the federal government and provinces. However, this alignment soon deteriorated, leading to significant provincial pushback against the GGPPA.29
Like in Australia, the backlash climate activism experienced in Canada emerged in an interlinked top-down and bottom-up manner. Interestingly, this opposition mostly targeted the consumer fuel charge (the carbon tax) and not the industrial system, which most big businesses came to accept. From the top, conservative political elites at both the national and provincial levels united against the consumer charge. The governments of Ontario and Alberta not only rejected the federal scheme but also rapidly dismantled complementary provincial policies from previous governments.30 Provinces’ formal opposition culminated in a legal challenge to the carbon tax’s constitutionality. At the civic level, public protests and other forms of mobilization were concentrated in key provinces and often stoked by conservative elites who opposed the tax. Protests inspired by France’s Yellow Vests movement coalesced in late 2018 into the United We Roll convoy. Protesters lined highways, chanting “no surrender” and “resist” in opposition to the carbon tax (alongside broader grievances including delays in building oil pipelines and the Liberal government’s relatively open immigration policy).31
Despite the Supreme Court ruling carbon pricing constitutional in 2021,32 public opposition persisted. Small but vocal “axe the tax” protests against annual price increases caused significant disruption to highway and border traffic, especially in 2023 and 2024.33 National conservative leaders Andrew Scheer and Pierre Poilievre strongly championed the axe the tax campaign, and provincial elites (notably the premiers of Alberta, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan) petitioned then prime minister Justin Trudeau about the carbon price’s impact on inflation and living costs.34 The ideological and regional divide over carbon pricing only intensified over time. In late 2024, a leadership crisis within the Liberal Party government, driven by economic management concerns including the perceived costs of the carbon tax, culminated in Trudeau’s resignation.35 The incoming Liberal leader, Mark Carney, deemed the consumer charge untenable, and it was quietly ceased in April 2025.36 The era of assumed dominance for economy-wide carbon pricing has ended in Canada, with the country’s remaining targeted industrial scheme now more closely resembling Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism.
Political elites, especially provincial leaders, significantly shaped a frequently misleading narrative against carbon pricing, strongly tied to public concerns about the cost of living.
Top-down backlash in Canada exploited various social, political, and economic tensions. Political elites, especially provincial leaders, significantly shaped a frequently misleading narrative against carbon pricing. This narrative was strongly tied to public concerns about the cost of living, with conservative elites regularly labeling the GGPPA a “job-killing carbon tax.”37 Scheer staged a social media campaign at gas pumps, urging people to fill up before the consumer charge’s first price rise and claiming the GGPPA would raise the cost of “everything from driving your kids to school, to heating your home, to your groceries.”38 In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford repeatedly blamed the GGPPA for economic pressures, and his energy minister stated it “makes life more unaffordable and hits the wallets of Ontario families.”39 Ford echoed that the tax would “drain resources from our police, firefighters, and paramedics.”40 Ford even mandated gas pump stickers that erroneously claimed the GGPPA added 4.4 cents per liter to gas prices.41
This rhetoric exacerbated existing social, cultural, and economic regional divides in Canada. Residents in fossil-rich provinces (such as Alberta and Saskatchewan) and manufacturing-heavy provinces (such as Ontario) felt the carbon tax would disproportionately impact their cost of living compared to hydropower-rich provinces (such as Quebec and British Columbia).42 The escalation of conflict to the Supreme Court amplified the link between carbon pricing opposition and provincial autonomy concerns. Even Quebec, a traditionally pro-climate province with its own carbon pricing scheme, intervened in the court case to support the opposition, demonstrating how strong concerns about sovereignty can override other differences and create unlikely alliances against climate action.43
Pro-climate elites responded to this well-anticipated backlash through various overt and covert strategies. Overtly, the government designed policies with long lead times and explicit benefits and compensation to mitigate pushback. Government bodies and key think tanks also presented modeling and analysis that projected carbon pricing to be the least-costly policy option.44 Behind-the-scenes efforts included advocating for an emissions intensity scheme (rather than a direct carbon tax) to alleviate industrial competitiveness concerns, and continuous reforms to how carbon pricing revenue rebates were paid out to improve public awareness of the scheme’s benefits.45 However, unlike the minor bottom-up activism seen in Australia, no specific grassroots support or defense of carbon pricing emerged. While many Canadians readily advocated for more climate ambition and participated in general pro-climate protests, they also remained divided on carbon pricing.46 This indicates that while pro–carbon pricing advocacy persisted, it largely remained within the formal and political realms.
Lessons Learned: Countering Backlash Against Carbon Pricing
Australia and Canada both experienced carbon pricing backlash spearheaded by conservative elites using strikingly similar rhetoric. Slogans like “axe the tax” and emphases on cost-of-living impacts effectively mobilized concentrated yet vocal citizen groups who felt unfairly targeted by carbon pricing. While some elites may have genuinely shared these concerns, the highly polarized nature of the opposition in both countries suggests that political gain was a primary motivation.47 A key difference between the two countries was the geographic spread of public opposition and countering pro–carbon pricing efforts. Campaigns in Australia remained national, while in Canada, opposition was regionally divided, and pro-climate efforts were largely at the national level. In both nations, pro-climate elites, rather than citizens, led the most significant, often covert, efforts to defend and advance climate policies. However, Canadian policymakers were more effective at publicly communicating the benefits of carbon pricing than their Australian counterparts, contributing to the GGPPA’s relatively longer durability. These similarities and differences offer crucial lessons for future efforts to counter carbon pricing backlash.
First, effective communication is crucial in linking carbon pricing revenue to tangible benefits and thoughtfully framing these to the public, but it is insufficient alone in countering opposition. In Australia, communication failures, particularly the lack of connection between carbon pricing revenue and compensation, were likely a major factor in its scheme’s collapse. Canada’s system, with its more transparent and explicit revenue neutrality goals, was more immune to pushback. However, in both countries, official communication about the policy ultimately failed to overcome the policy opposition’s simplistic, often misleading, and emotionally charged messages about negative impacts. This is partly due to the inherent difficulty of explaining technically complex carbon pricing and revenue mechanisms. It also suggests that rational and economic arguments alone will not secure public acceptance for ambitious climate policies, especially when the underlying premises or ideologies are contested or the policy is perceived as enacting major economic transformation. In effect, policy supporters and activists, constrained by the need for rational, evidence-based arguments, were on an uneven playing field against opponents. Irrespective of whether they genuinely held fears and grievances, opposing elites successfully leveraged this emotional dimension. This meant rational arguments were often ignored, while irrational ones gained traction.
One way for pro-climate actors to try to level the playing field is to build and strategically differentiate coalitions of policy supporters and opponents. Canada’s longer-lasting carbon pricing policy arguably benefited from policymakers explicitly segmenting potential opposition through its design. By establishing a separate industrial scheme, Canada mitigated the influence of its powerful fossil fuel industry on general and more emotive anti–carbon pricing narratives aimed at consumers. The distinct industrial scheme also more explicitly addressed industrial competitiveness than Australia’s CPM did, and additional amendments were made over time to further simplify compliance and thus reduce the likelihood of industry backlash. While it may have been at the expense of policy ambition, over time, many major industrial players not only accepted but even advocated for the policy certainty Canada’s scheme provided. While the industrial scheme’s long-term future is not guaranteed, Canada’s relative success in isolating, neutralizing, and even gaining the support of such powerful industrial stakeholders likely extended the durability of the carbon pricing policy.
Canada’s longer-lasting carbon pricing policy arguably benefited from policymakers explicitly segmenting potential opposition through its design.
Another way to tackle the uneven playing field in climate backlash activism is to understand the intricate links between top-down and bottom-up opposition. It is often difficult to discern if climate policy backlash stems from genuine citizen discontent or from strategically framed, elite-led narratives designed to appear grassroots (that is, astroturfing). The Australian and Canadian cases are perhaps exceptional because it was clear that political elites played a central role in stoking backlash, to the point where their actions were more instrumental to policy outcomes and often preceded or even triggered broader civic opposition. Yet, elites’ clear role does not negate the fact that the groundswell of public fears and grievances was also genuine in both countries. Policymakers and pro-climate actors should anticipate opposition from both levels and be prepared with specific strategies. For instance, clear communication about how carbon pricing revenue is recycled (for example, through rebates or investments) can somewhat help alleviate public concerns about cost burdens. This, in turn, would make tax grab rhetoric a less salient argument against carbon pricing.
Finally, climate activists must accept that any continued or future carbon pricing attempts will likely be linked, accurately or not, to diverse societal and economic concerns. This forces a critical look at carbon pricing’s feasibility in achieving the West’s decarbonization goals. Directly countering misinformation is increasingly difficult in polarized political systems where fake news (or even AI-hallucinated news) proliferates.48 Policymakers and pro-climate advocates are more constrained by the rules of the game than their opponents are. Yet, deviating from these rules could be seen as contributing to the erosion of values that misleading rhetoric exploits (for example, evidence-based policymaking or democratic norms). This suggests that, even in robust Western democracies, the windows of opportunity for carbon pricing, and its pace of rollout, may be far more limited than they appear.49
Canada’s experience, in particular, shows that even seemingly opportune policy windows cannot fully insulate policies from future backlash. Indeed, policymakers are already realizing that carbon pricing is not the panacea that economists once presented it to be.50 Its eventual failure in both Australia and Canada in the face of backlash adds to growing evidence that Western governments cannot rely solely on hard or coercive climate mitigation policies for durable climate action, despite the strong movement of pro-climate actors asking for urgent action. Yet, carbon pricing remains a relatively common climate policy in the West, both in ideals and in practice.51 Therefore, pro-climate activists can adapt by both promoting carbon pricing’s benefits—while acknowledging its imperfections—and advocating for its implementation alongside more ambitious, complementary policies. Practically, this means policymakers and activists can both design carbon pricing policies that embed backlash mitigation mechanisms (for example, revenue neutrality/rebates) and simultaneously be prepared with plans B through Z—integrated, softer, or sector-specific policies—should option A fail.
Conclusion
This article’s comparison of carbon pricing backlash in Australia and Canada reveals several lessons for those seeking to mitigate climate change. First, genuine public concerns can fuel carbon pricing backlash, but these sentiments are often deliberately and strategically exploited and amplified by opportunistic elites. Pro-climate actors can anticipate opposition from both grassroots and top-down sources, recognizing that elite-led efforts can precede or even trigger broader civic unrest. Second, even well-intentioned carbon pricing policies, designed to mitigate unfair impacts and include built-in backlash mitigation mechanisms, can still succumb to pushback when economic and social contexts shift. Particular characteristics make Australia and Canada more susceptible to climate backlash: They both have two-party political systems that likely enabled greater political polarization around contentious issues, and both are relatively fossil-reliant economies with a powerful incumbent industry. However, their experiences with policy failure still underscore that advocacy for climate action must persist long after ambitious legislation is enacted.
On a more optimistic note, the covert strategies employed by some policymakers in both countries demonstrate that pro-climate actors can continue to advance climate policy ambitions, even in the face of significant backlash. Such efforts necessitate pragmatism above all else: the perfect cannot become the enemy of the good. This approach, however, raises a morally complex question for Western climate activists: In the face of the climate emergency, is a durable plan B (like Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism or Canada’s targeted industrial scheme) truly sufficient, or merely better than nothing?
In this series of articles, Carnegie scholars and contributors are analyzing varieties of climate activism from around the world, focusing on the intensification of activity both from the protesters themselves and from the authorities and forces who are the objects of their discontent.
Read more from the series here:
Notes
1James Patterson, Ksenia Anisimova, Jasmin Logg-Scarvell, and Cille Kaiser, “Reactions to Policy Action: Socio-Political Conditions of Backlash to Climate Change Policy,” Policy Sciences (2025): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-025-09578-5; and Eric M. Patashnik, Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age (University of Chicago Press, 2023).
2James J. Patterson, “Backlash to Climate Policy,” Global Environmental Politics 23, no, 1 (2023): 68–90, https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00684.
3Parliament of Australia, Clean Energy Bill 2011, Retrieved from https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4653.
4“Carbon Tax: A Timeline of Its Tortuous History in Australia,” ABC News, July 10, 2014, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-10/carbon-tax-timeline/5569118.
5Alex Frankel, “From ‘Axe the Tax’ to ‘Climate Consensus’: How Abbott Reshaped Our Climate Story,” Guardian Australia, April 28, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/28/from-axe-the-tax-to-climate-consensus-how-abbott-reshaped-our-climate-story.
6Michelle Grattan and David Wroe, “Abbott’s Blood Oath to Repeal Carbon Tax,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 13, 2011, https://www.smh.com.au/national/abbotts-blood-oath-to-repeal-carbon-tax-20111012-1ll80.html.
7Rebecca Pearse, “The Political Economy of Carbon Pricing in Australia: Contestation, the State and Governance Failure,” PhD dissertation, University of New South Wales, 2015, https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/entities/publication/c7823d77-4bfb-4063-8c66-4cf2832e6231
8Katharine Murphy, “Malcolm Turnbull Pulled Back from Neg Legislation After Dutton and Pyne ‘Went Nuts,’” Guardian, 30 June 2019, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/01/malcolm-turnbull-pulled-back-from-neg-legislation-after-dutton-and-pyne-went-nuts.
9Pearse, “The Political Economy of Carbon Pricing in Australia,” 145–146.
10Business Council of Australia, “Carbon Price Package Raises Risks and Costs of Reducing Emissions,” July 10, 2011, https://www.bca.com.au/carbon-price-package-raises-risks-and-costs-of-reducing-emissions; and Minerals Council of Australia, “A New Carbon Pricing Scheme,” May 2011, submitted to the Parliament of Australia, https://www.aph.gov/DocumentStore.ashx?id=eae14e66-7fcb-41a1-bff2-1a0b1af6b3e3.
11Matto Mildenberger, Carbon Captured : How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics (MIT Press, 2020): https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12393.001.0001, 193.
12Simon Cullen, “Emerson Defends Whyalla Wipeout Stunt,” ABC News, July 3, 2012, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-03/emerson-defends-whyalla-wipeout/4106946.
13Lenore Taylor, “Carbon Tax Savings a ‘Bone Pick’ for Labor,” Guardian Australia, July 14, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/14/carbon-tax-savings-labor-bone-pick.
14Sabra Lane, “Gillard Decries Americanisation of Political Debate,” ABC News, August 31, 2011, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-31/gillard-decries-americanisation-of-debate/2863460; and Denise Varney, “‘Not Now, Not Ever’: Julia Gillard and the Performative Power of Affect,” in E. Diamond, D. Varney, and C. Amich (eds), Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times, Contemporary Performance InterActions (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2017), https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59810-3_3.
15Rae Wear, “Astroturf and Populism in Australia: The Convoy of No Confidence,” Australian Journal of Political Science 49, no. 1 (2014): 54–67, https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2013.864598.
16“Australian PM Gillard Defends Carbon Tax,” BBC News, July 2, 2012, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-18669376.
17Commonwealth of Australia, Securing a Clean Energy Future: The Australian Government’s Climate Change Plan, Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2011; and Christopher Rootes, “A Referendum on the Carbon Tax? The 2013 Australian Election, the Greens, and the Environment,” Environmental Politics 23, no. 1 (2014): 166–73, https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2014.878088.
18Rod Mitchell, What Happened With the Carbon Tax in Australia?, Citizens’ Climate Lobby Australia, https://ccl.org.au/policy-playbook/what-happened-with-the-carbon-tax-in-australia.
19The Climate Institute, Climate of the Nation 2013: Australian Attitudes on Climate Change, 2013, https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2013-Climate-of-the-Nation-web.pdf.
20Examples: Frank Jotzo, Carbon Pricing That Builds Consensus and Reduces Australia’s Emissions: Managing Uncertainties Using a Rising Fixed Price Evolving to Emissions Trading, vol. 1104, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, 2011, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1878205; and Tony Wood, Economics of Pricing Carbon, Grattan Institute, 2011, https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/104_wood_montmorency_community_group_august_2011.pdf.
21Australian Associated Press, “Protesters Punted from Parliament,” Australian, March 24, 2011, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/protesters-punted-from-parliament/news-story/73dfeecf55c54e0e67f8036ef36d7bfb.
22Robyn Gulliver, Kelly S. Fielding, and Winnifred R. Louis, Civil Resistance Against Climate Change (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, 2021).
23Kate Walton, “Scott Morrison: The ‘Daggy Dad’ Burned by Australia’s Fire Crisis,” Al Jazeera, January 9, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/9/scott-morrison-the-daggy-dad-burned-by-australias-fire-crisis.
24For example, Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy, which was agreed by all federal jurisdictions in 2019 alongside significant national funding for agencies responsible for renewable energy innovation. Marija Maisch, “Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy Adopted, Funds for New Projects Allocated,” PV Magazine, November 23, 2019, https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2019/11/23/australias-national-hydrogen-strategy-adopted-funds-for-new-projects-allocated.
25Peter Martin, “Who’s the Unsung Architect Behind Labor’s Climate Plans? A Retiring Coalition Minister,” The Conversation, December 7, 2021, https://theconversation.com/whos-the-unsung-architect-behind-labors-climate-plans-a-retiring-coalition-minister-173313.
26Emily Gibson, Anna Hellsing, and Martin Smith, Reforming Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism: An Update, Parliament of Australia, 2024, https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/Research/Research_Papers/2024-25/Reforming_Australia_Safeguard_Mechanism#:~:text=Significant%20reforms%20were%20enacted%20in,with%20Australia’s%20emissions%20reduction%20targets.
27Environment and Climate Change Canada, Technical Paper: Federal Carbon Pricing Backstop, Government of Canada, 2017, https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/technical-paper-federal-carbon-pricing-backstop.html.
28Government of Canada, “Carbon Pollution Pricing Systems Across Canada,” updated May 3, 2024, https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work.html.
29Kathryn Harrison, “The Fleeting Canadian Harmony on Carbon Pricing,” Policy Options, July 8, 2019, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2019/the-fleeting-canadian-harmony-on-carbon-pricing.
30Kathryn Harrison, “Climate Governance and Federalism in Canada,” in Alan Fenna, Sebastien Jodoin, and Joana Setzer (eds.), Climate Governance and Federalism: A Forum of Federations Comparative Policy Analysis, (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
31David Baxter, “Over 700 Trucks Take Part in Regina Anti-Carbon Tax Rally: Organizers,” Global News, April 4, 2019, https://globalnews.ca/news/5131311/trucks-regina-anti-carbon-tax-rally; and Brooks De Cillia and Patrick McCurdy, “No Surrender. No Challenge. No Protest Paradigm: A Content Analysis of the Canadian News Media Coverage of the ‘Yellow Vest Movement’ and the ‘United We Roll Convoy,’” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 57, no. 4 (2020): 656–80, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12304.
32“Case in Brief: References Re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act,” Supreme Court of Canada, updated March 23, 2021, https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2021/38663-38781-39116-eng.aspx.
33Sean Boynton, “We’ve Had Enough’: Protests Over Carbon Price Hike Halt Traffic Across Canada,” Global News, April 2, 2024, https://globalnews.ca/news/10395581/carbon-price-hike-protests-canada.
34Larry Hughes and Sarah Landry, “The Pushback Against Canada’s Carbon Pricing System: A Case Study of Two Canadian Provinces, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia,” Energies 17, no. 22 (2024): 5802, https://doi.org/10.3390/en17225802; and Mia Rabson, “Trudeau Says Conservative Premiers Are Lying About Carbon Pricing,” CBC News, March 27, 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-premiers-carbon-tax-1.7157396.
35Fatima Syed, Shannon Waters, and Carl Meyer, “What Carney’s Win Means for Environment and Climate Issues in Canada,” The Narwhal, April 28, 2025, https://thenarwhal.ca/federal-election-results-2025.
36Canadian Press, “Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Government Terminates Consumer Carbon Price,” CTV News, March 18, 2025, https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/prime-minister-mark-carneys-government-terminates-consumer-carbon-price.
37Kyle Bakx, “The Big Election Winner? The Carbon Tax,” CBC News, October 22, 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trudeau-sheer-election-carbon-tax-1.5330829; and Patterson, Anisimova, Logg-Scarvell, and Kaiser, “Reactions to Policy Action.”
38Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer), “Remember to fill it up tonight! Justin Trudeau’s Carbon Tax kicks in tomorrow, which will make everything from driving your kids to school, to heating your home, to your groceries more expensive.,” post on X, March 31, 2019, https://x.com/AndrewScheer/status/1112519502300758016.
39CBC News, “Ontario Court Strikes Down Doug Ford’s Mandatory Anti-Carbon Tax Gas Pump Stickers,” CBC News, September 4, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/carbon-tax-gas-pump-stickers-ford-struck-down-1.5712981.
40Doug Ford (@fordnation), “For the Ontario Provincial Police, the federal carbon tax will increase fuel costs by over $2 million for their 4,000 vehicles by 2022. Ontario is putting people first by fighting this burdensome tax that will drain resources from our police, firefighters, and paramedics.,” post on X, April 17, 2019, https://x.com/fordnation/status/1118621860479082498?mx=2.
41Shawn Jeffords, “Anti-Carbon Tax Gas Stickers Staying, Ontario Government Says,” Global News, 2019, https://globalnews.ca/news/6092593/anti-carbon-tax-gas-stickers-staying-ontario-government.
42Alice Lépissier, Chloé Boutron, Erick Lachapelle, Matto Mildenberger, and Kathryn Harrison, “Material Interest Vs. Partisan Identity as Drivers of Opposition to Carbon Taxes,” Brown University, working paper, November 27, 2022, https://alicelepissier.com/docs/Carbon-Cost-Exposure.pdf
43CBC News, “Quebec Joins Carbon Tax Fight to ‘Protect Provincial Jurisdiction,’” CBC News, July 9, 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-joins-carbon-tax-fight-1.5204883.
44For example, see Chris Ragan, Elizabeth Beale, Paul Boothe, et al., “Bridging the Gap: Real Options for Meeting Canada’s 2030 GHG Target,” Ecofiscal Commission, 2019, https://ecofiscal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Ecofiscal-Commission-Bridging-the-Gap-November-27-2019-FINAL.pdf.
45Clean Prosperity, “New Carbon Tax Rebate Payments Keep Climate Action Affordable for Canadians,” news release, July 5, 2022, https://cleanprosperity.ca/new-carbon-tax-rebate-payments-keep-climate-action-affordable-for-canadians.
46David Tindall, Mark C. J. Stoddart, and Philippe Le Billon, “Opinion: The Climate Conundrum Facing Political Leaders: The Public Wants to Have It Both Ways,” Vancouver Sun, April 24, 2025, https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/opinion-the-climate-conundrum-facing-political-leaders-the-public-wants-to-have-it-both-ways.
47Patterson, Anisimova, Logg-Scarvell, and Kaiser, “Reactions to Policy Action.”
48Stephan Lewandowsky, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, and John Cook, “Beyond Misinformation: Understanding and Coping with the ‘Post-Truth’ Era,” Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 6, no. 4 (2017): 353–69, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008.
49For example, windows of opportunity may include only those times when support for climate action is high and cost of living concerns are not.
50Michael Grubb, Alexandra Poncia, Paul Drummond, Karsten Neuhoff, and Jean-Charles Hourcade, “Policy Complementarity and the Paradox of Carbon Pricing,” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 39, no. 4 (2023): 711–30, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grad045.
51World Bank, State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2025 (2025): https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-2255-1.
