Canada’s environmental ‘realism’ looks more like surrender | Tzeporah Berman
LLast week, the UK did something all too rare: it chose to show leadership by supporting science and prioritizing public safety. The Labor government announced it would ban new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, strengthen a windfall profits tax and accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies.
These are not symbolic gestures. They recognize that the global energy system is evolving and that mature economies must evolve with it.
And they came in the same week as catastrophic floods swept across Southeast Asia, killing more than 1,000 people and displacing more than a million. The real imperative to move away from fossil fuels has never been more urgent.
But just as Britain was moving forward, Canada was moving backward.
Ottawa has signed a new memorandum of understanding with Alberta to support a new tar sands pipeline that would facilitate increased fossil fuel production. The deal would delay methane regulations, roll back the cap on oil and gas emissions and exempt the province from clean electricity rules. All this comes as leaders lift environmental assessment requirements for major projects, prepare to weaken greenwashing laws and suspend the mandate for electric vehicle sales in Canada. MP Steven Guilbeault resigned from Mark Carney’s cabinet rather than defend the withdrawal.
The contrast couldn’t be starker: As climate impacts intensify and economies pivot, Canada is strengthening the very industries that are causing the crisis.
Supporters insist the prime minister is being pragmatic – that oil and gas expansion is simply “realistic.” Rather, it is a twisted idea that ignores reality: the catastrophic floods that affected Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka; the growing toll of drought and heat, fires and storms.
Government and industry see carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the technological solution that can allow Canada to continue developing its oil. But CCS has remained underperforming for decades, despite billions of dollars in public funding, as the International Energy Agency has documented.
Even if CCS worked perfectly, it only addresses production emissions, or about 20% of a barrel’s climate pollution. The remaining 80% comes from burning oil, according to IPCC life cycle assessments. Expanding pipelines while pointing at CCS is like telling a person with lung cancer to smoke more but use filtered cigarettes.
Internationally, the commitment is clear. At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, Canada, the United Kingdom and 190 countries agreed for the first time to abandon fossil fuels. You don’t phase out something by building more of it. A pipeline allowing 1 million additional barrels A day pushes Canada in the opposite direction of what it has already promised.
At the same time, other countries are working cooperatively to accelerate the phase-out. Eighty countries are supporting the development of a road map for phasing out fossil fuels during recent climate change negotiations in Brazil. Eighteen countries are now participating in dialogues aimed at developing a fossil fuel treaty. Colombia and the Netherlands will jointly host the first global diplomatic conference on the elimination of fossil fuels next April – the first meeting of its kind in the world dedicated to this goal.
Leadership emerges. Alliances are formed. The dynamic is growing. Meanwhile, Canada appears to be moving backwards despite opposition from First Nations pledging to protect the Great Bear Sea from oil tankers.
Nation states are increasingly choosing sides: ignore science and growing floods and fires or choose “Life before death,” as Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, said in explaining why the fifth-largest coal exporter has pledged to end the expansion of fossil fuels and is working to develop a fossil fuel treaty. With scientists now telling us that air pollution due primarily to fossil fuels kills 5 million people a year while the world experiences one death every minute from deadly heat, phasing out fossil fuels is literally choosing life over death.
The UK deserves credit for its decision: its leadership shapes markets and changes public expectations. This year, investments in renewable energy were double those in fossil fuels. By 2024, China will have installed more solar power than the rest of the world combined. China and the United Kingdom are not dreaming. They react to reality. The world is turning a corner, but the transition is not inevitable, nor will it be fast enough to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, unless the expansion of new fossil fuels is limited.
Carney built his reputation warning that climate inaction threatens economic stability and that finance must align with the reality of a warming world. Instead, he is overseeing decisions that reinforce Canada’s dependence on an industry whose expansion directly fuels the disasters already devastating communities.
Canada talks about the critical importance of skating to where the puck will be, not where it currently is. But at present, the country is going backwards.
