Going into COP 26, Justin Trudeau talks a good game. But, Michael Harris writes,
the truth is, the Liberal government’s spin machine is the only place Canada looks good on the climate file. Not that it has done nothing. It has done a lot. The carbon tax was an excellent place to start the battle against GHG emissions in this country, especially since the Conservatives still had their heads buried in the tar sands. But the fundamental problem with Liberal climate policy is that it is a tug-of-war between resource development and environmental protection, in which Justin Trudeau still believes he can have it both ways. If Net Zero by 2050 is the plan, he can’t.
Our record on protecting the planet is dismal:
And on an individual basis, Canada still has the largest carbon footprint in the world. No matter how the political barkers try to sell it, the country is well short of the UN’s Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change targets. Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain are well below their 1997 levels under the old Kyoto Accord, but Canada is well above. Some politicians try to minimize the whole issue by saying Canada contributes so little to the global emissions problem it doesn’t matter much what we do here. Here’s how engineer and climate activist Walter Bauer responded to that on Twitter: “Despite our world-leading, individual carbon footprints, Conservatives and sometimes the Liberals like to say that Canada only contributes 1.6 per cent to global greenhouse gas emissions. Using that thinking, I guess it’s ok to pee in the public swimming pool.”
The plain fact is that oil and gas extractions, including the tar sands, account for 15 per cent of GHG emissions in Canada, second only to the Road Transport Sector on the demand side, which accounts for 20 percent. But here is the point. Any gains the country makes on lowering emissions from the demand-side domestically will be offset by ramping up oil and gas production for export on the supply side.
Even if we reduce Greenhouse emissions in this country, we will still sell fossil fuels to the rest of the world. GSEs will continue to rise. And their source will be The Great White North:
When Justin Trudeau spent $4.5-billion to buy Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, he was showing the country where it was headed. In combination with Trans Mountain, the Coastal GasLink is the beginning of Canada’s ramping up oil and gas production for sale to Asia and other markets.
The proposals and plans already underway around Kitimat, British Columbia, make the case: Kitimat LNG and Pacific Pipeline; Pacific Traverse Energy; Cedar LNG, where the Haisla First Nation was granted a 25-year export license in 2016; and Kitimat Clean Lt., an oil refinery proposal that would refine 400,000 barrels per day of bitumen from the tar sands for at least 50 years.
So if all of those plans come to fruition, Canada will remain what it is today, owner of the third largest oil reserves in the world, and the planet’s fourth largest oil producer. On a global basis that comes down to the sad reality that even if fossil fuels are no longer burned here, Canada’s oil buyers will burn them. Bad news for a planet choking to death on GHG emissions. To eliminate the problem means eliminating burning fossil fuels, not moving the bonfire.
There is a big difference between talking and doing.
Image: macleans.ca
6 comments:
Is there any evidence that the Lib carbon tax has reduced Canadian carbon emissions? Because as far as I can tell, our emissions continue to rise far beyond the levels we committed to. So the carbon tax may have been a good place to start, but let's not pretend that it's enough to get us to where we need to be. We'll know the government is serious when oil and gas activities start shutting down permanently.
Cap
That will be the heard evidence we need, Cap. So far, I don't see it.
Hamlet told Gertrude not to lay that flattering unction to her soul; it would but skin and film the ulcerous place whilst rank corruption, mining all within, infected unseen. I have a feeling that is what Canada, along with the rest of the world, is doing when it comes to carbon emissions, Owen. It is political theatre of the worst kind.
There is nothing so disastrous as being blind to what is right in front of you, Lorne. Sophocles left us Oedipus to remind us of that.
This fight we're in is both global (mitigation) and domestic (adaptation). We may be no hell on mitigation but we're far more negligent on adaptation.
There is no cheap way to do this. It is going to be very costly and it will require a major re-jigging of our economy. The costs of not acting now, however, will be far worse.
We don't like bitter pills. Our governments don't like it. Our citizens don't like it. An increasing majority of us want action, now. We just want somebody else to foot the bill.
I don't see Justin Trudeau as capable of leading us in this struggle. After a solid win in 2015, he stumbled twice to stay in power with a minority. In both of those minorities the Conservatives won the popular vote. Does he have the political capital, not only with the provinces or the Canadian public but within his own caucus to lead the country? Can you see him having one of those JFK moments when he says we do these things "not because they are easy but because they are hard."
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
JFK reminds us that governments can do hard things, Mound -- with the right leaders.
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