And here we always thought that world meetings were fun? Here was prime minister Justin Trudeau and his minister of global warming, Steven Guilbeault, at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow fending off the sceptics and the other world leaders. “Why cannot Canada do more” they were constantly being asked.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) whines that Canada counts on the oil and gas industry as the country’s largest volume of export products, supporting as many as 500,000 jobs and representing about $30 billion in annual economic investment. They point out that the most greenhouse gas emissions are the fault of coal. They seem to think we are going to blame coal and let the oil and gas industry have a pass.
It seems to this writer that CAPP, the Alberta government and the federal government have to start finding new jobs for those oil and gas workers over the next ten years. And we certainly need to find a better long-term investment for that $30 billion.
CAPP’s answer to this is that the world needs access to lower emission natural gas and oil and given a friendly federal government footing the bill, Canada’s oil and natural gas industry would figure out how to do that.
So far, CAPP companies have figured out how to stuff some of the carbon, from upgrading bitumen to synthetic crude oil, back into the earth where the removal of tar sands bitumen has left the space underground. Whether that is a long-term solution remains to be seen? It hardly answers the question of what happens to the additional carbon from the use of that ersatz crude oil?
But in the meantime, the Trudeau government intends to place a hard cap on industries that are emitting greenhouse gasses. The only problem is that Trudeau’s minister of global warming and natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson have absolutely no idea how to do that and what the cap might be. They are asking for advice.
-30-
Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to: