Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 29

Exclusive: At U.N. climate talks, Trump team plans sideshow on coal – by Timothy Gardner (Reuters U.S. – November 15, 2018)

November 15, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration plans to set up a side-event promoting fossil fuels at the annual U.N. climate talks next month, repeating a strategy that infuriated global-warming activists during last year’s talks, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

As with the 2017 gathering in Bonn, Germany, the administration plans to highlight the benefits of technologies that more efficiently burn fuels including coal, the sources said.

This year’s talks in Katowice, Poland – located in a mining region that is among the most polluted in Europe – are intended to hammer out a rule book to the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, which set a sweeping goal of ending the fossil-fuel era this century by spurring a trillion-dollar transition to cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind power.

NEWS RELEASE: Top scientists, writers and academics sign open letter backing nuclear to tackle climate change

November 5, 2018

OTTAWA, Nov. 5, 2018 /CNW/ – A distinguished and prominent group of Canadians and international men and women today released the text of an Open Letter to Canadians they will publish later this week in support of urgent action to reduce carbon emissions, including the need for next-generation nuclear technology to be part of the mix.

“Despite a vocal but dwindling ‘anti-nuke’ contingent stuck in last century’s political battles,” said David Schumacher, a signatory of the letter and organizer of the initiative, “these innovative nuclear power efforts deserve the support of government, industry, and all Canadians. Without nuclear it is going to be impossible to tackle climate change, so everyone has a stake in the success of these efforts.”

Mr. Schumacher is an Emmy-winning Canadian filmmaker, whose documentary, “The New Fire,” makes the case for next-generation nuclear to battle climate change.

The Open Letter is signed by 25 influential individuals, including prominent Canadians, Frank McKenna, former Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. and former premier of New Brunswick;

The art of politically expedient planning in an age of climate ague – by Rex Murphy (National Post – October 27, 2018)

October 29, 2018

https://nationalpost.com/

In the fantastical ambition to change the Earth’s climate, Canada is not even a player. It is at best a ball boy on the court, scampering after fouls

Let us assume you are in St. John’s, N.L., and devise a plan to go to Port aux Basques on the far side of the Island. Your vehicle is an 18-year-old beater, and gets, on a good day, 15 miles to the gallon (unleaded). Your plan calls for taxing — er borrowing a few bucks from your credulous neighbours and buying the gas for the trip from that subscription.

You get 12 bucks, enough for two gallons, and that might, with a wind at your back, get you to Whitbourne, 50 miles from St. John’s, a fine place — great pea soup, with dumplings at Monty’s restaurant and worth the drive. But it’s roughly 500 miles short of Port aux Basques.

And that’s it. That’s your plan. You offer it as a blueprint for other trans-island travellers. Well, it is, technically, a plan. But you’re never going to see Port aux Basque under this plan. Your plan is gallons short of a full tank. You’ve promised a marathon and delivered a sprint.

The Liberals ignored my carbon-tax plan. Theirs is much worse – by Jack Mintz (Financial Post – October 25, 2018)

October 26, 2018

https://business.financialpost.com/

An esteemed colleague of mine showed up in Twitterland on Tuesday to graciously offer me credit for the Liberal government’s carbon-pricing announcement this week. This fellow economist made the link to a 2008 paper I co-authored with Nancy Olewiler, which proposed converting the federal fuel excise tax into a carbon tax in Canada.

While recognition of my past work is always appreciated, I don’t think I can take credit for this Liberal plan. In fact, I am disillusioned with these evolving climate policies that seem to be laid out in a helter-skelter fashion — and with high economic costs.

I stand behind the points of the 2008 paper. I still maintain that a single uniform carbon tax is the least distortionary way to implement carbon policies. And we should integrate existing federal- provincial fuel taxes — for example, almost 25 cents per litre on gasoline in Ontario — by transforming them into general carbon taxes. With a single carbon tax rate, businesses and consumers can determine the best way to respond to reducing emissions.

Report Debunking Trump’s Coal Plan Is Under Review, Administration Says – by Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News – October 15, 2018)

October 15, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The Trump administration is pushing back against assertions it buried a study that undermines its efforts to prop up coal and nuclear power plants.

The analysis, which was initially ordered up by the Energy Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy last fall and completed earlier this year, is still moving through an internal review process, spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said.

“It is premature and irresponsible to criticize and jump to politically motivated conclusions about a report that has not yet been finalized or released,” Hynes said by email. The study disputes a key Trump administration argument for preventing the closures of more coal and nuclear power plants: that those facilities are critical in ensuring the nation’s electric grid is resilient because they store their fuel on site.

The UN climate-change panel that cried wolf too often – by Rex Murphy (National Post – October 13, 2018)

October 15, 2018

https://nationalpost.com/

You can’t set multiple deadlines for Doomsday. It’s a kind of one-off by nature. Do it too often and people cease to take notice or even care

Everybody loves the Apocalypse. The idea of the end of the world, the more imminent the better, has always had enthusiastic popular support.

For as long as we’ve enjoyed life on this delightful Earth there has been a morose and righteous sect of one sort or another telling us the lease was nearly up, the doomsday bailiff coming any minute now to shut things down forever. And whether from the abrasive thrill of the message, or the melodrama of the scenario, people have lapped it up.

Indeed there is a whole category of philosophy devoted to that time when the world in flame and fire renders itself into ash, when time stands still, life evaporates into eternity and all is dead and cold. It is impressively called eschatology — the study of The Four Last Things.

Even if carbon taxes are implemented, are electric cars really the best way to go? – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 15, 2018)

October 15, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A transportation revolution is in the making and bets worth hundreds of billions of dollars are being placed. Who might the winner be? Will it be the Tesla-style electric car, the Toyota-style hybrid or the hydrogen car?

Will personal transportation of the Uber ilk, possibly in self-driving form, replace public transportation as we know it? Might the gasoline engine surprise us all and endure for another 20 years, or even a century?

It’s impossible to know, but we do know the game changed more than a little this week when the United Nations published a frightening report that said the planet is warming at a far faster rate than the climate-change scientists had suspected.

Glencore Emerging A Big Winner From Coal Consolidation – Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – October 12, 2018)

October 12, 2018

https://www.forbes.com/

Tim Treadgold has been writing about the mining and oil industries for more than 40 years.

The inconvenient truth of coal prices which refuse to fall as demanded by environmental activists and some investors and governments is proving to be a rather convenient fact for one of the world’s biggest mining and commodity trading companies, Glencore.

While other big miners have been selling coal assets Glencore has been buying and if recent indications are correct it now controls enough of the seaborne coal market to have a noticeable effect on price.

An example cited in a research report published this week was how Glencore was able to delay settlement in annual coal-price negotiations with Japanese buyers in order to win a higher price.

How clean energy demand could fuel conflict in Congo – by Irina Ivanova (CBS News – October 9, 2018)

October 11, 2018

https://www.cbsnews.com/

If there were ever a time to mass-produce solar energy, it’s right now, according to the U.N. To stave off the most catastrophic effects of global warming, the world needs to rapidly shift away from fossil fuels and into large-scale solar, wind and energy storage, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said this week.

But if the clean-energy boom isn’t managed carefully, it could fuel mineral conflicts in developing countries. That’s according to a recent report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, which urges governments and corporations to source minerals responsibly to avoid “grievances, tensions and conflict.”

Solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and batteries are all high-tech devices, and like other technology, they rely on tiny amounts of rare minerals to work.

Climate politics heating up after the UN releases bombshell report on global warming – by Alex Ballingall (Toronto Star – October 10, 2018)

October 10, 2018

https://www.thestar.com/

OTTAWA—The politics of climate change just got hotter. On Sunday night, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dropped a bombshell report.

If humanity is to avoid the catastrophic extremes of global warming — widespread extinctions and species loss; an Arctic without sea ice; the disappearance of coral reefs; mass displacement from rising oceans and extreme weather — then governments around the world need to ramp up their efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, the report concludes.

Citing evidence from more than 6,000 scientific references, the report’s 91 authors outline the path to limiting global warming by 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100 — the target set under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Global greenhouse gases will need to fall by about 45 per cent below 2010 levels within the next 12 years, and then reach “net zero” by 2050, the report says.

War on coal is heating up, but China is still the key – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – October 9, 2018)

October 9, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia (Reuters) – Coal-fired power has to end by 2050 to save the planet. That seemingly simple but bold sentiment is likely to set much of the political, social and economic agenda for the coming decades, but in the end it will come down to what China does.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report on Monday that “unprecedented” changes will have to take place to limit the rise in the Earth’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), warning of devastating weather events and species loss if the target is exceeded.

In order to achieve the goal, the IPCC said coal burning would have to drop to between zero and 2 percent by 2050, while even natural gas, coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS), would have to decline to 8 percent of electricity generation by the middle of this century.

Trudeau stands alone as Canada — and the world — abandons green energy – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – September 28, 2018)

October 1, 2018

https://business.financialpost.com/

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s repeal of the Green Energy Act and balks by premiers of other Canadian provinces at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate agenda aren’t rearguard moves by Donald Trump wannabes. They are part of a worldwide trend rejecting renewables, rejecting climate change alarmism, and embracing coal and other fossil fuels.

Renewables and the high electricity rates they ushered in drove individuals into energy poverty and led industry to flee, putting the lie to the claim that wind and solar are the fuels of the future. Wind and solar, rather, have become the fossils of the energy industry; oil, gas and coal remain the fuels of the future.

China was once the poster boy of the renewable energy industry — just a few months ago Bloomberg stated, “China’s investment in renewables is leaving the rest of the world in its wake” thanks to its subsidy-driven growth.

Globe editorial: The problem isn’t the pipeline, it’s the way it was approved (Globe and Mail – August 31, 2018)

August 31, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Federal Court of Appeal decision quashing cabinet’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is a huge political setback for the Trudeau government. That it comes on the heels of the government’s reckless decision to buy the existing pipeline for $4.5-billion only complicates matters.

But it would be a mistake to conclude that Ottawa cannot salvage this snake-bitten project. With the proper response, Canada could end up with both a much-needed pipeline expansion and a clearer set of rules for approving projects of this kind.

At the moment, that probably looks like a long shot. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent a lot of political capital on Trans Mountain and has little to show for it.

Trudeau said he’d solve pipeline stalemate problem. It’s become a political disaster – by John Ivison (National Post – August 31, 2018)

August 31, 2018

https://nationalpost.com/

The decision slaps a large sign on Canada’s resource industry that reads: Closed for Business

The Federal Court of Appeal has spoken clearly for the southern resident killer whales of the Salish Sea, for the First Nations that live along the Pacific Coast and for the environmental activists who run the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby.

The court’s decision to quash the federal cabinet’s construction permits for the Trans Mountain pipeline will be hailed by professional objectors everywhere.

Justice Eleanor Dawson, who wrote the decision, and her colleagues, justices Yves de Montigny and Judith Woods, can take comfort from the fact that their jurisdiction did not extend to considering the thousands of jobs across the country that have been imperilled by the decision — not to mention the deleterious impact it will have on national unity.

The pessimists have it right, assassins are gunning for Trans Mountain – by Kevin Libin (Financial Post – August 31, 2018)

August 31, 2018

https://business.financialpost.com/

With every court challenge, political stunt, blockade and act of sabotage, the odds have been stacked ever higher against the pipeline happening

After narrowly missing an assassination of Margaret Thatcher by bombing her hotel room in Brighton in 1984, the IRA reminded everyone the odds were still on its side. “Remember we only have to be lucky once,” the terrorists warned the then British prime minister. “You will have to be lucky always.”

That in a nutshell has long been the strategy of those fighting against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. With every court challenge, political stunt, blockade and act of sabotage, the odds have been stacked ever higher against the pipeline happening. Its builders and their political backers might win a few rounds.

But eventually something would stop them. Maybe Thursday’s federal appeals court decision overturning the National Energy Board’s approval of Trans Mountain is that something. Maybe not. But the project will face many more assassination attempts. And it will have to be lucky enough to survive every one.