Viewpoint: Climate change, front page news

By Larry Samcoe on November 4, 2021.

The 26th International Conference on Climate Change is currently in Glasgow, Scotland. World leaders and their delegates are addressing what many people consider a global emergency and what action is needed.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called 2021 the “make it or break it” for global action. He is worried because he hasn’t seen the movement and ambition to reach targets to keep global warming within 1.5-degrees Celsius. The mistrust between developed and developing nations should have been subsiding, but the decade-old goal by the developed countries to provide US$100 billion in aid to developing nations by 2020 has been delayed for another two years. [The News, Oct. 26, 2021]

New targets have been announced prior to COP26 as President Biden commits the United States to cut emissions by 50% from 2005 levels within a decade, even “if it has to slap windmills along the entire U.S. coastline.” Prime Minister Trudeau has also promised that Canada will cut 2005 emissions by 45% by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.

Europe planned to lead in the reduction of emissions by eliminating fossil fuels for renewables – wind, solar and biofuels. The installation of renewables was underestimated; coal-fired and nuclear energy was also phased out. Then the wind velocity dropped by 15%, and natural gas, the backup to renewables, began to spike in price. Now Europe is relying on supply from Russia, and the unpredictable President Putin will do them no price favours.

Mark Milke / Lennie Kaplan [National Post, Oct. 14, 2021] report “an estimated 80 million households across Europe struggled to pay their power bills, with 12 million in arrears. A quintupling of power prices will cause these numbers to surge this winter.”

Lorrie Goldstein [Calgary Sun, Oct. 17, 2021] has analyzed Canada’s record with emissions. In 2015, the Trudeau Liberals inherited from the Harper Conservatives emissions at 723 million tonnes(Mt). The latest figures for 2019 report emissions at 730 Mt, an increase of 7 Mt [1.0%], but a decrease by 1.2% over 2005. No Canadian government, Liberal or Conservative, has ever hit a single reduction target it has set in 33 years.

A reduction of 45% in nine years over 2005 levels [739 Mt] means a decrease of 332.5 Mt at an average of 37 Mt per year [5.0%.] Environment / Climate Change Canada has identified the sources of emissions in 2019: energy [electricity, oil/gas, mining, manufacturing] [44%] and transportation [30%].

The Federal Government has not finalized its detailed plan. Ministers S. Guilbeault, Environment/Climate Change, and J. Wilkinson, Natural Resources, will have that task. Terence Corcoran [National Post, Oct. 27, 2021] writes “that they will have a dominant influence over all aspects of the economy.” The carbon tax is to increase to $ 170 within eight years, and a second tax – the clean fuel standard, is yet to be announced.

Two recent reports from the the Institute for Sustainable Finance [Queen’s University] and the Royal Bank project the costs for dealing with climate change. The Institute projects spending nearly $201 billion to reach the target by 2030. Ryan Riordan, a co-author, believes this spending is manageable at 1.3% of GDP. The burden will be spread unevenly. Alberta would have to spend 2.1% of its GDP, Saskatchewan 2.6%, British Columbia 0.7%, Ontario and Quebec 0.6%. Understandably the Prairie provinces are concerned.

The Royal Bank projects a spending of $2 trillion over the next 30 years to get to net-zero emissions. Senior vice-president John Stackhouse believes governments and the private sector will have to spend at least $56.4 billion annually to reach this target, and “capital is not a problem.” RBC has committed $500 billion to sustainable finance for lending for good projects and for potential interest income.

This transition is slow and disorderly. The dollar figures are overwhelming. Canada’s record on emissions reduction averaged 0.08% per year. A detailed plan is still to come.

This whole scenario, is it the way “to build back better”?

Larry Samcoe is a Medicine Hatter

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