Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 32

Carbon taxes come with a price — who knew?! – by Anthony Furey (Toronto Sun – April 23, 2018)

April 25, 2018

The average Canadian would be forgiven for thinking “carbon pricing” is some sort of intellectual notion that has nothing to do with the lives of regular people.

It’s not like we’re led to believe it’s at all connected to life at home. The feds are in their element discussing their climate action measures overseas at international gatherings and alongside people like French President Emmanuel Macron.

You don’t see Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna touring Tim Hortons to tout the merits of this endeavour to swing riding constituents. Instead, it’s all done in the far-and-away and the abstract.

Radical environmentalism has containment problems of its own – by Rex Murphy (National Post – April 21, 2018)

April 23, 2018

http://nationalpost.com/

Eco extremists are threatening the economy and even Confederation with their opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline project

For now your straws and swizzle sticks are safe. Prime Minister Trudeau is not (yet) going along with Britain’s Theresa May in her fierce campaign to ban the drinking straw.

It is a tribute to the wily manoeuvres and insidious influence of the international straw lobby that our PM “refused to be pinned down” and remained “noncommittal” on the menace of the common drinking straw to the planet’s ecosystems. On so grand a question he felt it better to defer till at least a full convocation of the world’s great economies, the G7. Wise man.

It was a severe disappointment to those hoping for Trudeau leadership on the straw cartel. After all, straws are, as one environmentalist noted, just small pipelines for CO2-saturated, atmosphere-degrading soft drinks. “Anyone can stand up to the oil lobby, but the gnomes of the international straw trade … ?” Well, that’s a different set of emissions.

Alberta’s now copying Ontario’s disastrous electricity policies. What could go wrong? – by Kevin Libin (Financial Post – April 20, 2018)

April 20, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Not every province gets the chance to live through the kind of white-knuckle excitement in its electricity sector that Ontario has enjoyed over the last decade: soaring power bills, fleeing industries and endless boondoggles in provincial contracts for solar and wind energy.

The dramatic climax arrived last week as David Livingston, the one-time chief of staff to Dalton McGuinty, the premier who imposed on Ontario the entire electricity fiasco, was sentenced to prison over a scheme to destroy evidence of the Liberal government’s political mischief in the power market.

But get ready, Alberta, because all the thrills and spills that inevitably follow when politicians start meddling in a boring but perfectly well-functioning electricity market in the name of pointless political symbolism are coming your way, next.

Michael Bloomberg Takes on the Coal Industry – by Carolyn Kormann (The New Yorker – April 12, 2018)

April 12, 2018

https://www.newyorker.com/

On Monday afternoon, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman and former three-term mayor of New York City, escaped to a deserted ballroom at the Grand Hyatt, in midtown Manhattan, to talk about climate change.

Moments earlier, he had announced to attendees of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit that his philanthropic organization was partnering with the Canadian and British governments to expedite the global eradication of coal mining.

His two new partners—Catherine McKenna, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, and Claire Perry, the United Kingdom’s minister of state for energy and clean growth—came along for the discussion.

Trudeau still gives green fanatics cover as they strangle Trans Mountain – by Rex Murphy (National Post – April 11, 2018)

April 11, 2018

http://nationalpost.com/

If the Trans Mountain pipeline had received a mere fraction of the support the PM has given to fighting climate change, it would not be in danger

The question is: Who has authority to decide Canadian energy policy?

Governments or Green-machine protesters?

That is the question: Which bunch will it be, Canada’s parliaments, or those who self-appoint as the green guardians of whatever place on Earth — usually in Canada — they choose to exercise their very particular kind of media-and-protest-pressure politics?

Will it be government? Or Green end-of-days monomaniacs? We had an answer on Sunday when Kinder Morgan announced that the relentless harassment of its proposed pipeline has moved to the company to the very edge of outright cancellation. And it wasn’t government.

Trans Mountain becomes another project sacrificed to Trudeau’s false green gods – by Joe Oliver (Financial Post – April 10, 2018)

April 10, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

This is a national disgrace. The Liberals have effectively landlocked our vast oil reserves and condemned the country to a poorer, more divisive and less secure future

Kinder Morgan finally succumbed to lawsuits, delays, escalating costs, threats of civil disobedience and one-sided regulatory policy. It has announced it is suspending all non-essential activities on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, Canada’s last chance to get our oil to tidewater.

Anti-resource-development activists here and in the United States will be triumphant. The rest of us should be disconsolate that Canada’s ability to export oil to offshore markets may be blocked for a very long time, perhaps forever.

The Alberta government’s offer of provincial funds for Kinder Morgan, fully backed by the opposition conservatives, might at least provide a last chance for life support.

Colombia’s top court orders government to protect Amazon forest in landmark case – by Anastasia Moloney (Reuters U.S. – April 6, 2018)

April 9, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Colombia’s highest court has told the government it must take urgent action to protect its Amazon rainforest and stem rising deforestation, in what campaigners said was an historic moment that should help conserve forests and counter climate change.

In their ruling on Thursday, the judges said that Colombia – which is home to a swathe of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined – saw deforestation rates in its Amazon region increase by 44 percent from 2015 to 2016.

“It is clear, despite numerous international commitments, regulations … that the Colombian state has not efficiently addressed the problem of deforestation in the Amazon,” the supreme court said.

Regulatory ‘poisons’ are ‘suffocating’ oil industry by driving investors away – by Claudia Cattaneo (Financial Post – April 5, 2018)

April 5, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Industry’s warning that toxic regulations mean no more major pipelines will be built in this country is not hyperbole

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is planning another tour to Toronto and New York to talk up the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to business leaders.

It’s certainly good exposure for her re-election campaign. It probably won’t change investors’ pessimistic views of Canada’s oil and gas sector.

Here’s the problem. Aside from Canada’s dysfunctional handling of the Trans Mountain project, governments (including Alberta’s) have burdened energy companies with so much new regulation, so many new costs, and are on a path to make regulatory reviews of big energy projects so much more political, investors have tuned out and moved to jurisdictions where governments aren’t kneecapping their companies to meet commitments on climate change.

The growing national push to suppress Alberta’s economy – by Don Braid (Calgary Herald – April 3, 2018)

April 5, 2018

http://calgaryherald.com/

A few years ago, Albertans would only see red ink in a Quebec budget. Now we just see red. Quebec’s latest budget is being painted as a model for Canada. The province will have a $1.3 billion surplus. Its Generations Fund, devoted to paying down debt, is growing. Quebecers will get a tax break of up to $336 per person.

Wonderful. Way to go, Quebec. But could the province do all this without its annual equalization cheque — $11.8 billion today, rising to $13.3 billion next year?

Of course it couldn’t. Without this indirect wealth transfer based on the strength of western economies, Quebec would still be a deficit-ridden mess.

BHP says to quit global coal lobby group, stick with U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Reuters U.S. – April 4, 2018)

April 5, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Global miner BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) (BLT.L) said on Thursday it had made a final decision to leave the World Coal Association (WCA) over differences on climate change but would remain a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

BHP has largely quit mining coal for power plants, but is the world’s largest exporter of coal for steel-making. It said in December it had taken a preliminary decision to withdraw from the WCA, pending a full review.

The miner came under pressure from Australian green groups last year to leave any industry associations with policies that fail to match the company’s support of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

[Canada Climate Change] The same old Liberal arrogance sure is coming back in a hurry – by Kelly McParland (National Post – April 3, 2018)

April 3, 2018

http://nationalpost.com/

Catherine McKenna is the latest to display a sense of righteousness in telling CTV she can’t be bothered with people who don’t support her approach to climate change

Governments grow understandably tired of critics who spend their days finding new things to complain about, but the Trudeau Liberals are unusually forthright in displaying their contempt for anyone who holds views they reject.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau did little to make life easier for himself when he heaped derision on anyone who dared question his attempted changes to the small business tax last summer. If he’d done a bit more listening and a lot less attacking he might have lessened the embarrassment that came when he eventually had to capitulate.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau evidently learned nothing from concerns — including from within his own caucus — raised when he made clear that anyone who differs from his beliefs on abortion is not welcome to run for the Liberal party or to vote their conscience in the House of Commons.

Ottawa to levy tax against polluting industries in non-compliant provinces under planned carbon-pricing regime – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 28, 2018)

March 28, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa is targeting heavy industry in provinces that fail to adhere to federal standards for carbon pricing by forcing those emitters to reduce their greenhouse gases by 30 per cent or pay tax on emissions above that threshold.

The federal carbon levy – which could grow to tens of millions of dollars per plant – would currently only apply to Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.

However, opposition Conservatives in Ontario and Alberta have threatened to kill existing carbon-tax plans in their provinces should they win in coming elections, raising the spectre of future federal-provincial showdowns.

Judge says officials must consider reduced coal mining to address climate change (Casper Star Tribune – March 26, 2018)

March 27, 2018

http://trib.com/

CHEYENNE — U.S. government officials who engage in regional planning for an area of Wyoming and Montana that supplies 40 percent of the nation’s coal must consider reducing coal mining as a way to fight climate change, a judge has ruled.

Friday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls, Montana, applies to the Powder River Basin, where house-sized dump trucks haul loads mined around the clock from open-pit coal mines. Some of the mines measure more than a mile wide.

Morris rejected U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials’ argument that climate change could be addressed when they consider whether to allow individual mine expansions.

‘Off the chart’ carbon target means Canadian refiners stuck paying tax on emissions no one in the world can eliminate – by Peter Boag (Financial Post – March 27, 2018)

March 27, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Peter Boag: This scheme might actually achieve emissions reductions in Canada — by closing refineries

The federal government’s proposed carbon-pricing “backstop” requires large emitters like refiners to reduce their emissions by 30 per cent from their sector average or pay the federally mandated carbon price on excess emissions, starting in January 2019.

For now, refiners in provinces that already have a carbon-pricing system in place — Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia — are exempt. Not so for refiners in other provinces like New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. A review in 2020 will determine the longer-term application of the backstop to refiners currently exempt.

What does a 30 per cent reduction mean for Canadian refiners? It’s an emissions-performance level that no refiner in the world has been able to achieve — by a wide margin. Comprehensive and credible global data shows that when compared with their peers in the developed world, Canadian refiners’ emissions performance is in the middle of the pack.

Trudeau will learn a painful lesson — voters really dislike climate crusading – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – March 23, 2018)

March 23, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Global warming is so yesterday. There’s pretty much nothing the public cares less about than climate change

The United States government is expected to approve a massive US$1.3-trillion omnibus spending bill Friday, a sweeping victory for Democrats who fought for — and won — funding for virtually all of the left’s priorities, everything from Planned Parenthood to gun control to child care to public transportation.

The Democrats even won funding, and plaudits, for infrastructure and domestic programs they couldn’t secure under the Obama administration.

But no one is remarking on the Democratic cause that was thrown off the omnibus — climate change — because no one still considers it a Democratic priority. Nowhere in the bill’s 2,232 pages of spending goodies do the words “climate change” or “global warming” even appear.