Where the GHG comes from

 

The Economist offers a brief on Joe Biden’s climate-friendly energy revolution and what it will take to fight rising temperatures.

https://www.economist.com/img/b/800/420/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20210220_FBC760.png   

 

Despite having played a key role in the negotiations which produced the Paris agreement in 2015—an agreement that it is rejoining on February 19th—America has to date offered no comprehensive outline of the goals and strategies it will use to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions which, in 2019, were equivalent to 5.3bn tonnes of carbon dioxide.

 

Those emissions declined in 2020 by a staggering 9%, according to estimates from Bloombergnef, a data provider. But as the economy recovers they will bounce back quickly1.

 The United States  benefit from wide plains and long coasts for wind power, ample sunshine for solar farms across the South, rich forests to act as carbon sinks, expanses of land for producing new energy crops and well-understood reservoirs where emissions might be stored. It has magnificent human resources, too, and a history of rising to challenges, even if it sometimes needs a wake-up call to do so.

 

References

1(2021, February 20). Decarbonising America - Joe Biden's climate-friendly energy .... Retrieved April 5, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/02/20/joe-bidens-climate-friendly-energy-revolution

 

Public good and private gain in vehicle standards

An article in The Economist from February of 2019 explores some facts about big oil and climate change.

A crucial blnce

The balance that some business leaders believe must exist between private gain and public good

Polluting capitalism

may be in danger of disruption. The resulting pollution of capitalism may hasten the collapse due to failure to address inequalities.

 Yet amid the clamour is a single, jarring truth. Demand for oil is rising and the energy industry, in America and globally, is planning multi-trillion-dollar investments to satisfy it. No firm embodies this strategy better than ExxonMobil, the giant that rivals admire and green activists love to hate. As our briefing explains, it plans to pump 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017. If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequence for the climate could be disastrous.ExxonMobil shows that the market cannot solve climate change by itself. Muscular government action is needed. Contrary to the fears of many Republicans (and hopes of some Democrats), that need not involve a bloated role for the state.1

 National Public Radio (NPR) has asked What's The Future For Gas-Powered Transportation? 

 Going electric is not just an eco-friendly goal, an ambition that would help fight climate change. It's a business reality, according to industry analysts. But if the general path ahead is widely agreed on, the speed of the change — and the role that combustion vehicles will play during the transition — is far from clear.2

 Merran Smith & Joanna Kyriazis offer an opinion in the National Observer that Canadians will save money and reduce GHG production if Canada maintains the agreement, designed by the Obama administration, and adopted by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to require auto manufacturers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles.

These standards don’t just cut pollution, they also keep money in the pockets of Canadians by making cars less expensive to fill up. While more fuel-efficient vehicles have a slightly higher sticker price, this can be recouped in a few years, beyond which drivers come out ahead. The International Council on Clean Transportation predicts that the average car built to comply with 2025 standards, for instance, will save about $383 per year on fuel. That same analysis finds that pickup trucks and SUVs built to 2025 standards would see an annual savings of $662. Trump’s rollback would lead to higher fuel bills with higher polluting, less efficient vehicles.
In a recent public opinion survey conducted by Pollara on behalf of Clean Energy Canada, two-thirds of Canadians were supportive of the current vehicle emission standards. They frequently cited cutting pollution, improving public health, improving vehicle efficiency, and spending less on gas as reasons for their support.3 

The local CBC Maritime Noon radio program investigated the economics for Maritimers to choose electric vehicles (EV’s) now.

 June 4, 2019: ... Phone-in on electric cars4

When manufacturing more efficient vehicles, either ICE or EV, produces real public good for Canadians’ fight against the climate emergency, we have to question unregulated private gain by large companies that increase GHG emissions.

References

1	(2019, February 9). The truth about big oil and climate change - The Economist. Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/02/09/the-truth-about-big-oil-and-climate-change
2	(2019, February 16). As More Electric Cars Arrive, What's The Future For Gas-Powered .... Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.npr.org/2019/02/16/694303169/as-more-electric-cars-arrive-whats-the-future-for-gas-powered-engines
3	(2019, May 21). High gas prices? There's a policy for that, and it helps combat climate .... Retrieved June 5, 2019, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/05/21/opinion/high-gas-prices-theres-policy-and-it-helps-combat-climate-change
4	(n.d.). Maritime Noon with Bob Murphy | Live Radio | CBC Listen. Retrieved June 5, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-38-maritime-noon

Finding Facts in GHG Opinion

The articles curated here provide some reviews of opinion and facts concerning the links between the oil and gas industry and our ability to meet Paris greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Coastal storm

Terry Glavin writes “There may be no right way to do fossil-fuel megaprojects at all anymore if we’re going to have a hope in hell of meeting our 2015 Paris Climate Accord commitments… the politics, promises and planning seem to have gotten just about everything wrong.”

 If you think that’s a jurisdictional nightmare, bear in mind that the National Energy Board still doesn’t even know whether it’s involved in any of this, or whether provincial or federal jurisdiction holds higher sway. The NEB will be holding hearings in March to determine whether the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission gave the whole project the go-ahead unlawfully. If that’s how things shake out, the whole project has to be re-submitted for approval under a formal, dismal, drawn-out NEB process.
The other thing both the federal and provincial governments are trying to avoid is any public scrutiny of Trudeau’s and Premier John Horgan’s eloquent (but oddly imprecise) commitments to First Nations that their consent should be required, as per the United Nations’ guidance, for industrial developments such as pipelines to proceed in areas subject to some degree of aboriginal title.
So go ahead and blame those obstreperous Wet’suwet’en people all you like but it’s avoiding these tougher questions that caused this whole thing to go so wrong in the first place. And that’s without even dealing with whether there is any right way, if Canada is going to come even close to meeting its Paris Accord commitments, to do these sorts of projects at all 1

J. David Hughes shares his opinion that more than ever Canada’s emission reduction targets are doomed. According to Canada’s most recent submission to the United Nations, emissions are down a mere two per cent from 2005 levels as of 2017. If Canada was on track to meet the Paris Agreement, emissions should be down 14 per cent.

According to Canada’s most recent submission to the United Nations, emissions are down a mere two per cent from 2005 levels as of 2017. If Canada was on track to meet the Paris Agreement, emissions should be down 14 per cent. Moreover, emissions in 2017 increased by 1.1 per cent from 2016 levels.
Oil and gas producing provinces were most of the problem given that oil and gas production made up 27 per cent of Canada’s 2017 emissions.
Alberta (Canada’s largest oil and gas producer) accounted for 38 per cent of Canada’s emissions in 2017 and has increased emissions by 18 per cent from 2005 levels. In 2017 alone, emissions increased 3.3 per cent in Alberta and 11.6 per cent in the oilsands.2 

David Hughes also asks how real is Kenney’s bluster?

Source:https://www.policynote.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/pn_may2019_RealityCheckHighBCGas.jpg

In 2018 refined petroleum product shipments to Burnaby were down 47 per cent from the 2006–2016 average of 52,400 barrels per day. This created a shortfall of 3.9 million litres per day of refined products (18 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s demand), which was largely responsible for the fuel price spike.

Over the 2006–2016 period, on average about half (48 per cent) of the oil flowing through the Trans Mountain pipeline went to refineries in Washington state, a little over a third (35 per cent) went to Burnaby and the rest (17 per cent) was exported by tanker via the Westridge Terminal. Of the shipments to Burnaby, 54 per cent were refined products and 46 per cent was light oil for the Parkland refinery.
In 2018, shipments to Burnaby were reduced to 27 per cent of the pipeline’s throughput, exports to Washington state increased to 52 per cent and exports of heavy oil via tanker were increased to 21 per cent.
Of the reduction in shipments to Burnaby, refined petroleum products were down 47 per cent from the 2006–2016 average of 52,400 barrels per day. This created a shortfall of 3.9 million litres per day of refined products (18 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s demand), which was largely responsible for the fuel price spike.3 

We will be voting for a federal government soon. Fact checking and open discussion are required to help make this crucial voting decision.

References

1	(2019, January 9). Glavin: Pipeline protests – how politicians got it all wrong | Ottawa .... Retrieved January 11, 2019, from https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/glavin-pipeline-protests-how-politicians-got-it-all-wrong
2	(2019, April 30). Opinion: More than ever Canada's emission reduction targets are .... Retrieved May 2, 2019, from https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-more-than-ever-canadas-emission-reduction-targets-are-doomed
3	(2019, May 7). Reality check: High BC gas prices and pipeline rhetoric from Alberta's .... Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.policynote.ca/reality-check-high-bc-gas-prices-and-pipeline-rhetoric-from-albertas-new-premier/

Laudato Si and species disappearing

What does a news article on pink salmon threatened by greenhouse gases have to do with Laudato Si?

33. It is not enough, however, to think of different species merely as potential “resources” to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves. Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.

(2015). Laudato si' (24 May 2015) - La Santa Sede. Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.