The UN climate summit—hosted this year by the United Arab Emirates, a major oil producer—begins Thursday in Dubai. It will review the progress on countries’ 2015 Paris Agreement commitments toward limiting rising global temperature to 2 C, preferably 1.5 C, above pre-industrial levels. It will also define what new commitments countries can agree on to avoid planetary catastrophe.
“This (IEA) report is a stunning rebuke to all the Canadian oil executives and politicians claiming that they can simply slap on some government-funded carbon capture and continue with business as usual in a world rapidly weaning itself off of oil and gas," said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, in an email Thursday.
In my last article I looked at the material flows of the military-industrial complex with a focus on aluminum and Canada’s status as a major aluminum exporter for the Western military industrial complex despite Canada not having bauxite.
“At the end of the day, that’s still counting on the market … to build out these industries and then hoping the benefits trickle down to workers and to communities and to people,” he said. But Mertins-Kirkwood stressed the crux of the issue is time. “If we had 100 years to decarbonize, I’d say it’s better to take it slow and let the market figure it out, but every month counts right now.”
Since the mid-1980s, the 25 largest oil and gas companies around the world have fought climate policies tooth and nail, making US$30 trillion in the process, according to a study published Thursday.
