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Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs

Here’s a truth few dare to utter: Canada will benefit from climate change – by Joe Oliver (Financial Post – August 15, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

“Unfortunately, at only 1.6 per cent of global GHG emissions, Canada
cannot achieve a measurable impact on global temperatures, even if
it met the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change target,
which would devastate our economy.”

Why should Canada fight climate change? Finally, someone proclaimed an obvious truth that few dare to utter publicly. According to Moody’s Analytics, Canada will benefit from climate change. Although it will shock many, this forecast should surprise no one.

Canada is a very large, cold country, with 90 per cent of its population huddled within 100 miles of its southern border and an enormous agricultural potential if the land warms up. There will also be new opportunities for oil, gas and mineral development in the Arctic. And let’s not ignore the greater personal comfort of living in a more hospitable climate.

According to a CBC story about Moody’s study, “when all the changes to things like tourism demand, crop yields and the growing season are factored in, there’s a slight net positive.”

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Apparently world-savers don’t need to worry about the little people – by Rex Murphy (National Post – August 10, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com/

Green Leader Elizabeth May’s plan to ‘transition’ the entire oil and gas industry’s workforce, without consulting them, is frightening

Every little world-saver, and the big ones, too, are stars in their own private movie. They write and direct as well. The script never changes. They, and they alone, see a world in menace; they and they alone know, absolutely know, what the danger is and what the world must — must — do to avoid collapse and devastation.

And that salvation always — always — means they must be granted the power to change the world and all it does, so that their vision and certitude can be validated.

Frequent world-saver Naomi Klein has a cause every half-decade, but the title of one of her books in particular, gives the trend: This Changes Everything. Naturally she was on about global warming, being the universal queen bee of protest politics.

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EDITORIAL: Mining industry has role to play in carbon capture – by Marilyn Scales (Canadian Mining Journal – July 24, 2019)

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The carbon neutral mine is on the horizon. That’s the aim of a collaborative program to test immobilizing carbon dioxide in mine tailings. Lab scale tests are promising, and now the research is moving into the field.

The technology could reduce – if not eliminate – greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at mines and result in the world’s first carbon neutral mining operation.

The research is headed by the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, Trent University, and Institut national de la recherches scientifique. The program is financially supported by Geoscience BC, Natural Resources Canada’s Clean Growth Program, De Beers Group, FPX Nickel, Giga Metals, and the governments of British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories.

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Here are a few climate-change head scratchers for Canadian voters to ponder – by Gwyn Morgan (Financial Post – July 30, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

An eclectic list of little-known facts, head-scratching paradoxes and utter hypocrisy

With energy and the environment playing an important role in the fall election, Canadians face starkly different policy positions from political parties, together with a bewildering array of information and disinformation. Here is my rather eclectic list of little-known facts, head-scratching paradoxes and utter hypocrisy.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY

On June 17, the House of Commons passed a motion declaring a National Climate Emergency.

Firstly, there is no such thing as a “national” climate emergency. Climate change is global, not national, and Canada’s contribution to global CO2 emissions is a minuscule 1.6 per cent. Here are the answers to some questions that will help you assess whether there’s really a “climate emergency.”

Apocalyptic projections of rapid sea level rises are driving municipal and provincial governments on both our east and west coasts to implement “sea level rise plans” that include sterilizing waterfront from development, building sea barriers and even buying out and destroying homes that are deemed vulnerable.

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COLUMN-Where BHP goes on climate change, will others follow? – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – July 29, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, July 29 (Reuters) – BHP Group may just have set the template for how resource companies are going to deal with the challenge of climate change, even if some of its competitors would prefer a course of more talk and less action.

The world’s biggest miner announced on July 23 that it will invest $400 million over five years to reduce emissions. While this move is both laudable from the perspective of combating climate change and sensible from the point of making BHP a more attractive purchase for ethical investors, the real game-changer is BHP’s move to include emissions beyond what it directly produces.

The Anglo-Australian miner is the world’s largest exporter of coking coal used in steel-making, the third-biggest iron ore miner, and is also a significant producer of copper, crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

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Private investors protect vast forests in U.S. coal country – by Carey L. Biron (Reuters U.S. – July 15, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Private investors have backed what supporters say is one of the largest conservation acquisitions ever in the eastern United States, offering a promising new model to protect land.

Conservation group the Nature Conservancy announced Monday that it and partners now control almost 400 square miles (1,000 sq km) of land in three states in the central Appalachian Mountains, traditionally heavily dependent on coal mining.

The tracts, part of what backers say is one of the world’s largest intact forests, were purchased from timber management entities through a $130 million investment fund.

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[U.S. Coal Mining] Head of miners union calls Green New Deal’s main goal ‘almost impossible’ (The Hill – July 15, 2019)

https://thehill.com/

The president of the United Mine Workers of America characterized the progressive Green New Deal’s goal of transitioning to renewable energy over 10 years as “almost impossible.”

The Green New Deal, introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) earlier this year, aims to cut greenhouse emissions in half by shifting to 100 percent renewable energy over the next decade. The proposal also calls for creating millions of “good, high-wage” jobs to achieve that goal.

“It’s almost impossible to transition in 10 years away from fossil fuels even if everybody was for it,” Cecil Roberts told Hill.TV on Monday. “It just can’t really be done but if you did do that, you’re going to have a massive, terrible economic problem on your hands.”

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BHP Is Latest Giant Miner to Plan Exit From Thermal Coal – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg/Yahoo Finance – July 11, 2019)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — BHP Group is moving ahead with plans to exit thermal coal, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest move by the world’s biggest miners to retreat from the dirtiest fuel.

BHP is looking at options to divest the business that includes assets in Australia and Colombia, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the development has not been made public. There’s no guarantee the company will go ahead with a sale, the people said.

The decision demonstrates how growing climate-change pressure from investors and regulators is reshaping the future of extractive industries.

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The ‘fraud of the century’ finally reaches the end of the line after clogging up our court system for 7 years – by Peter Foster (Financial Post – July 11, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

The most baseless of cases — especially if they involve the words ‘Indigenous’ and ‘environment’ — can tie up business for years

After clogging up the Canadian court system for seven years, an utterly corrupt multibillion-dollar lawsuit against California-based oil company Chevron on behalf of “poor Ecuadorean villagers” was finally dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last Friday.

The suit, dubbed “the fraud of the century” by The Wall Street Journal, related to pollution caused by Texaco — a company that Chevron acquired in 2001 — when Texaco had been operating in Ecuador before 1992.

In fact, Texaco had paid for — and the Ecuadorean government had agreed to — remediation payments, but then a buccaneering American lawyer named Steve Donziger got into the act. A classmate of Barack Obama, Donziger engineered a US$9.5-billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador. He had no trouble recruiting then-Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa to the cause.

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Krause questions why Trudeau changed charity laws for activists – by Licia Corbella (Calgary Herald – July 4, 2019)

https://calgaryherald.com/

Why did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau order his revenue minister to stop the Canada Revenue Agency from auditing politically active charities? Was it to protect his best friend and former principal secretary, Gerald Butts?

Those are just two of the many questions asked by Vivian Krause during a sold out Calgary Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel and during a scrum with reporters afterwards.

Krause, the Vancouver-based researcher who has single-handedly exposed the foreign-funded campaign to “land-lock Alberta crude” — which Alberta Premier Jason Kenney vows to hold a public inquiry into — pointed out that her popular blog and Twitter account are called Fair Questions, because she doesn’t claim to have all of the answers.

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A rapid transition from fossil fuels? No way — here’s why – by Peter Shawn Taylor (National Post – June 29, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com/

Throughout history, new energy sources have largely been added to traditional supplies rather than replacing them entirely

Here’s a story popular with anyone claiming we have just 11 years to phase out fossil fuels or face the end of our world. (Or 31 years if 2050, rather than 2030, is your preferred doomsday.)

England once found itself in an energy crisis back in the mid-1500s. Rising demand for wood for home heating and industrial use was stripping forests bare. Plus, the Royal Navy was having a hard time sourcing mighty oak trees for its ships.

So, Queen Elizabeth I passed a decree. “The monarchy declared that coal shall be burned, and the kingdom made it so,” reports a recent University of Alberta publication on the history of energy transitions. “There were fears and protests and new challenges … but people adapted, even flourished.”

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Why the global fossil-fuel phase-out is a fantasy akin to time travel – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – June 21, 2019)

https://business.financialpost.com/

To produce the power needed to offset fossil fuels, Canada would have to build two and a half $13-billion hydro dams every year

Judging from the headlines, Canada and the world are on track to ratchet up renewable energy and begin the rapid scale-down and ultimate phase-out of fossil fuels. Most energy analysts consider the fossil-fuel phase-out to be a scientific, economic and political fantasy, akin to levitation and time travel, but the movement keeps making news.

Governments everywhere — from Canada to the United Kingdom to states in Australia — are declaring climate emergencies and committing to variations on zero emissions. The international organization promoting emergency declarations claims “a fast transition to zero emissions is possible.”

Canada’s Green Party, said to be gaining ground, has a new platform plan, headlined “Mission: Possible,” to eliminate fossil fuels by 2050. A proposed Green New Deal in America aims to eliminate fossil fuels from the U.S. power grid by 2030 and phase gasoline out of the transportation sector.

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OPINION: Nuclear power is the key to fighting climate change. So why don’t we embrace it? – by Dan Gardner (Globe and Mail – June 22, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Dan Gardner is the author of Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear and a principal at Tactix, an Ottawa consultancy

One in three Canadians thinks nuclear power emits as much carbon dioxide as burning oil. Almost three in 10 think it emits more.

There are several reasons to marvel at these facts, which were uncovered by Abacus Data earlier this year. First, they’re spectacularly wrong. After construction, nuclear power is effectively zero-emission electricity, while oil is one of the leading causes of climate change.

Second, the fight against climate change is about replacing fossil fuels such as oil with the short list of zero-emission energy sources. And yet it seems most Canadians don’t know what’s on the list.

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OPINION: Justin Trudeau’s climate mess – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – June 22, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

How’s this for incoherence? Last week the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax – his signature initiative on global warming – won’t be nearly high enough to make a difference.

To get people to change their carbon-hungry habits, the tax would eventually have to double from the $50 level it is scheduled to reach by 2022 (if the Liberals are still in power, that is).

The government immediately denied that it plans to do any such thing. “The price will not go up,” vowed Catherine McKenna, Mr. Trudeau’s earnest but preachy environment minister.

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Scheer and Trudeau both continue their tiresome climate charades – by Rex Murphy (National Post – June 22, 2019)

https://nationalpost.com/

“Daddy, what did you do in the Climate War?” “Son, I carpooled twice a week, and (his voice breaks, a tear bleeds down his cheek) gave up stir sticks and plastic coffee lids.” Quoted from It was Hard: Tales from the Climate War (Patmos Publications, 2077).

It is a fiction and a delusion that Canada is in any way now or ever will be a significant influence, for good or ill, in the dreary, endless, pup-chasing-its-own-tail “fight against climate change.”

Canada’s leverage over the future climate of the entire planet is incidental and trivial. We are as a toothpick among redwoods. This is acknowledged. Were we to halt this country’s entire energy output, the race to eco-apocalypse that the doom-mongers say we’re on would not be slowed by a week. The coal mines of India and China would see to that.

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