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
