http://business.financialpost.com/
The Institute for Energy Research last year reported that “China is building
one coal-fired power plant every 7 to 10 days, while Japan plans to build 43
coal-fired power projects to replace its shuttered nuclear units.”
Seems a little odd that Prime Minister Trudeau should show up in Vancouver Monday to outline plans to make the harbour safe for oil- and gas-tanker traffic on the same day the world’s climate community gathers in Marrakech to outline their plans to shut down such traffic.
Welcome to the wonky world of carbon contradiction, in which the backers of the 2015 Paris climate agreement go about the earnest business of global carbon reduction while the same nations — including Canada — join hands with big business to keep the carbon economy humming.
About 10,000 politicians, bureaucrats, corporate PR weasels, green activists, NGOs, rent-seekers, UN officials and other members of the carbon-control movement have descended on the Moroccan city for the 22nd meeting of the Congress of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The congress opened Monday in a celebratory mood, reports say. Over the next two weeks, through to Nov. 18, the objective is to keep the carbon-control train moving forward to achieve its Paris target — to hold the global rise in temperatures to about 1.5 degrees Celsius.
But this is not the Marrakech Express. It’s a train to nowhere, or at least a train that will never get where it wants to go. A report last week from the United Nations said that national carbon-reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement will fail to reduce temperatures. By 2030, said the UN report, the world will still be on track for temperature increases of up to 3.4 degrees “even if the Paris pledges are fully implemented.”
For the rest of this article, click here: http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/terence-corcoran-the-road-to-the-marrakech-climate-conference-is-paved-with-carbon