The B.C. government is trying to sugar-coat bad climate news with good after making back-to-back fossil fuel announcements last week, environmental groups say.
On Thursday, B.C. pledged to roll out a “backstop” regulatory emissions plan in 2026 in case the federal government’s proposed oil and gas emissions cap isn’t implemented, is scrapped or doesn’t meet provincial reduction targets.
In perhaps one of the great ironies of human civilisation, mechanical devices to truly magnify human power came along as soon as we didn’t need them. Pedal-powered devices like bicycles only appeared after coal had already begun to transform the landscape, however – mass production was necessary for the standardised metal parts — and around the same time that gasoline was first being introduced as a fuel for automobiles.
“It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”
— William Stanley Jevons
"The science is clear: No new oil and gas fields, or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle," said one analyst.
Fossil fuel-producing countries late last year pledged to "transition away from fossil fuels," but a report on new energy projects shows that with the United States leading the way in continuing to extract oil and gas, governments' true views on renewable energy is closer to a statement by a Saudi oil executive Amin Nasser earlier this month.
“The accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is irreversible on human timescales and will affect climate for millennia.” — World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Despite decades of global efforts to prevent a full-blown climate crisis, the primary driver of it — CO2 — continues to pile up in our atmosphere at an accelerating rate. And last year’s CO2 rise was record-busting extreme.
The federal government provided at least $18.5 billion to the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries last year, according to a new report by Environmental Defence.
The largest single subsidy was to Trans Mountain, which benefited from $8 billion in loan guarantees to try to get its nearly completed $35-billion pipeline expansion project to the finish line.
We must resist the temptation to think that "Canada is different." The analysis and strategic points below definitely apply here, provincially and federally. Organizing our power to replace profit as the goal of society with democratic social and economic planning is the task before us.
