Mr. Speaker, in our platform we were pretty clear about our intention to provide comprehensive and national leadership on the climate change file, including ensuring that a price on carbon pollution existed across the country.
To respond to the member opposite's question, let me just talk a little about some of the actions we are taking and why.
Climate change is not a distant threat. It requires action now. Unlike the party opposite, which did virtually nothing for 10 years, effectively pushing the bill for future generations to worry about, our government intends to act.
Annual insurance claims for severe storms are up from $300 million in the year 2000 to an average of $1 billion today. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy estimated that total costs associated with climate change could reach $43 billion a year by 2050.
There are real and significant costs to not acting, but there is also a significant opportunity if we do act. As someone who was a senior executive in the clean technology space for 20 years, it is something I have seen first-hand. In 2015, there was nearly $350 billion of investment in the global clean energy sector, almost a sixfold increase since 2004.
To make the transition envisaged under the Paris agreement, it is estimated that a further investment of $13.5 trillion in low carbon and energy efficiency technologies will be required between 2015 and 2030. However, in Canada, our share of global clean tech exports has shrunk during the past decade by half, due to Conservative inaction. Our government, by contrast, knows that we must take advantage of this economic opportunity.
A key part of driving innovation and clean growth will be putting a price on what we do not want, pollution, in order to foster things that we do want, clean growth, innovation, and middle-class jobs.
British Columbia's introduction of a carbon price demonstrates well that we can reduce emissions while growing our economy. Not only that, but British Columbia used its revenue-neutral carbon price to cut taxes by 5% for the middle class and to provide rebates. British Columbia now has the lowest overall personal income taxes in Canada thanks to its carbon pricing system.
Many of the world's largest economies price carbon as a means to incent clean growth, and it is not just the countries of Europe. China, for example, is moving to implement a country-wide carbon pricing system.
Many leading Canadian businesses, economists, and even leading Conservative politicians are on board. They include Preston Manning, Mark Cameron, Patrick Brown, Brian Pallister, and MPs from the other side of the House. These people all know well that pricing carbon pollution is the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to reach our objective of protecting the economy and creating a clean growth environmental future. For this reason, it is a key part of the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change.
We on this side of the House understand that pricing carbon pollution will make our businesses more competitive and innovative, will reduce the pollution that threatens the health of Canadians and of the planet, and will give us an edge in building a clean growth economy going forward.