Critical thinking about the critical choice we will have to make in the fall election requires that we continue to assess the quality of the various strategies proposed by the political parties to address the climate emergency.
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| Source (Extinction Rebellion Nova Scotia, 2019) |
David Taylor, Assistant Professor in Global and Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, write that Andrew Scheer’s green investment plan is missing key details and needs two major improvements.
Reinvestment makes green technologies and their emissions reductions available at a lower cost to consumers and businesses. Owning profitable and growing green technologies gives businesses, consumers and heavy emitters a transition plan, which my colleagues and I call “black-into-green,” or the BIG transition.
Combining investment and reinvestment into proven and successful green technologies allows green technologies to expand more quickly. Our work suggests Scheer should make another modification to his plan: The green investment standards should mandate that heavy emitters make profitable or cost-saving green investments and reinvest a portion of those profits or savings.1
Kathryn Harrison, professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, (Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Political Science from MIT, PhD in Political Science from UBC) writes that the longer-term challenge looms even larger. A pipeline is an investment in long-lasting infrastructure. Yet Canada’s 2030 target is just the first step. It will be ever-harder to make the deeper cuts needed after 2030 (if not before!) if we chain ourselves to new pipeline infrastructure and associated heavy oil production expected to operate for decades to come.
As with fossil-fuel consumption, we face a collective-action problem in fossil-fuel production. Oil-exporting countries say they support the Paris Agreement, but hold out hope that their oil will be the last drop consumers buy. This is especially unrealistic for Canada: our oil is relatively costly to produce and carbon-intensive to refine, and thus likely to be the first to go.2
Without the explicit emissions-reduction targets for investments, the CPC plan may be ineffective. With the purchase of a pipeline, the Liberal plan seems to support continuing profits for oil and gas in the hope that Canadian carbon energy is chosen to carry users through the transition to net zero emissions.
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