Lack of climate action frustrating
I’m sad, frustrated and angry.
I’m sad that our world is becoming increasingly unlivable with floods, fires and extreme heat and these extremes will increase for the foreseeable future, a future that my children and grandchildren will have to live in. To quote Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault, “Every aspect of a young person’s future will be affected by climate — their jobs, their homes, energy use, transportation, food, water, health, personal security, and more.”
I’m frustrated because we have known both the cause and the solution to these extremes for more than 30 years. Burning fossil fuels is the cause, switching to renewable energy sources the solution.
I’m angry because while unelected leaders — the UN secretary general, the head of the International Energy Agency, even the Pope — have made the situation crystal clear: governments at all levels, and in almost all jurisdictions, have not done enough to persuade their populations of the need to act, and have not used their own power to act sufficiently. Even worse, some politicians, like Alberta’s premier, have weaponized climate change instead of coming together to defeat a common enemy.
Meanwhile, the warnings become more alarming. “Humanity has opened the gates of hell,” said the UN secretary general, while the fossil fuel industry is allowed to continue obfuscating and deflecting the needed action.
The federal government is planning to introduce new clean electricity regulations and further emissions reduction plans. Both are really important. But they don’t go far enough.
Just last week, we learned that Canada’s oil production reached an all-time high in November 2022 and that the operation of the TransMountain pipeline is expected to boost production eight per cent higher within the next two years.
The plans to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry largely rest on the tenuous hope that carbon capture, storage and utilization will greatly reduce emissions from the growing production of oil and gas.
Yet currently, the seven CCS projects in Canada capture less than two per cent of the sector’s emissions.
What we really need is a commitment, a plan and targets to reduce production of oil and gas, not just a cap on emissions. Not the least because most emissions come from consumption, not production.
The plan to reduce production is not just needed to save emissions. It is needed to save our environment, our economy and our way of life. If a proper plan to transition in a timely way is not made — and there is very little time left — then the economy will fall off a cliff when the world finally realizes what is needed, and the demand for oil and gas plummets.
With respect to the clean electricity regulations, inaction and obstacles by the provinces, particularly Alberta and Ontario, need to be dealt with.
In Ontario, we have seen no new renewable generation capacity added since the Ford government cancelled more than 700 projects in 2018. That’s five critical years of missed opportunity. The proposed clean electricity regulations have a big loophole, which encourages Ontario’s behaviour. It has an “end of prescribed life” provision that allows gas plants to continue polluting without consequence for 20 years if their date of commissioning is prior to 2025. Ontario is planning expansion before then, meaning some projects will continue emitting on Canada’s grid until 2045, causing Ontario’s electricity generation emissions to rise by over 300 per cent.
So, my sadness, frustration and anger stems from how little things that have changed since the Paris Agreement in 2015. Eight years later, we are pumping more oil and gas each year, with no plans to reduce.