The UN Climate talks ended with a global commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault celebrated Canada’s leadership role in negotiating the agreement.
The federal government faced fierce external pressure to abandon or weaken its plan to cap oil and gas sector emissions from provincial governments and industry lobby groups in the lead-up to its announcement last week.
Countries around the world, including Canada, are officially under pressure to further ratchet up their commitments under the Paris Agreement, the UN’s climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told delegates at the annual climate negotiations in Dubai.
The latest grim findings from climate scientists estimate that based on current trajectories, the planet has roughly six years before blowing past the Paris Agreement’s goal to hold global warming to 1.5 C, Stiell said during the COP28 opening ceremony.
Earlier this month, the CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) stood before the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and pledged our national retirement fund’s continued support for the Alberta oil and gas industry.
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.
As winter sets in, many people in Canada are struggling with home heating affordability. Fuel oil is expensive — not because of the federal carbon levy, but because it’s an inefficient way to heat, and Big Oil is taking advantage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to increase prices and rake in record profits.
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.
Canada’s environment commissioner said it is not clear how the oil and gas sector will achieve the greenhouse gas emission reductions prescribed under the federal government’s climate plan, and called for more transparency around the modelling.
Following a federal committee hearing that dragged a Suncor executive over the coals for his company’s plans to expand fossil fuel production, NDP MP Charlie Angus says now is the time to hold Big Oil accountable, and Ottawa is failing Canadians by not acting.
