Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 2

The global backlash against climate policies has begun (The Economist – October 11, 2023)

October 17, 2023

https://www.economist.com/

Cost, convenience and conspiracy-mongering undercut support for greenery

“We need to be good stewards of our planet. But that doesn’t mean I need to do away with my gas vehicle and drive an electric vehicle with a battery from China,” said Kristina Karamo, the chair of the Republican Party in Michigan, on September 22nd.

America’s Democrats, she warned, are trying to “convince us that if we don’t centralise power in the government, the planet is gonna die. That seems like one of the biggest scams [since] Darwinian evolution.”

The global backlash against climate policies has begun (The Economist – October 11, 2023)

October 12, 2023

https://www.economist.com/

Cost, convenience and conspiracy-mongering undercut support for greenery

The politics of climate alarmism – by Derek H. Burney (National Post – October 3, 2023)

October 4, 2023October 4, 2023

https://nationalpost.com/

The climate debate has been hijacked by a political narrative that brooks neither dissent nor balance

Damaging weather events inevitably lead to climate evangelists making apocalyptic claims of imminent disaster. UN Secretary General António Guterres led the most recent chorus, talking about “global boiling” and raising alarmism to a fever pitch.

Yet, more than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel physics laureates, have signed a declaration stating that, “There is no climate emergency.” That poses a serious political problem for any government that has been arguing the contrary.

Climate Change May Usher in a New Era of Trade Wars – by Ana Swanson (New York Times – January 25, 2023)

October 3, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/

Countries are pursuing new solutions to try to mitigate climate change. More trade fights are likely to come hand in hand.

WASHINGTON — Efforts to mitigate climate change are prompting countries across the world to embrace dramatically different policies toward industry and trade, bringing governments into conflict.

These new clashes over climate policy are straining international alliances and the global trading system, hinting at a future in which policies aimed at staving off environmental catastrophe could also result in more frequent cross-border trade wars.

Opinion: China needs to pay a higher price for its coal plants – by Gwyn Morgan (Financial Post – September 26, 2023)

September 28, 2023September 28, 2023

https://financialpost.com/

Take the carbon taxes off the shoulders of Canadians and transfer them to carbon-spewing Chinese imports

In my last column, in early July, I wrote about the irony that a self-described “progressive” Liberal government kept in power by a deeply socialist NDP, both supposedly dedicated to protecting the poor, was fighting a war on carbon emissions whose costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has calculated, fall disproportionately on lower-income Canadians.

Since then we’ve had a devastating wildfire season, so it’s understandable that Canadians may be wondering if high and rising carbon taxes are a sacrifice we simply must make in order to fight climate change.

Climate targets threatened by lack of mining investment: McKinsey – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – September 27, 2023)

September 27, 2023

https://www.mining.com/

Soaring demand for metals and minerals needed to achieve a reduction in global emissions, paired with low commodity prices driving investors and mining firms to cut spending are set to cause major shortages of key elements for the world’s energy transition, a new report shows.

According to consultancy McKinsey & Company, looming supply gaps for rare earths, lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt, boron and copper could lead to higher prices and market volatility, hindering emissions goals.

British PM Rishi Sunak rolls back key climate measures – by Paul Waldie (Globe and Mail – September 21, 2023)

September 21, 2023

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a major reversal of his government’s environmental policies while promising that Britain will still meet its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In a speech Wednesday in Downing Street, Mr. Sunak said Britain had come further than most countries in addressing climate change but a more pragmatic approach is now needed.

“We seem to have defaulted to an approach which will impose unacceptable costs on hard-working British families – costs that no one was ever really told about and which may not actually be necessary to deliver the emissions reduction that we need,” he said.

Mandating EVs while discouraging mining is a recipe for disaster – by Joel Kotkin (National Post – September 12, 2023)

September 18, 2023

https://nationalpost.com/

The current policy is devastating our economy, enriching our enemies and making middle-class life less affordable

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” wrote the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. This may prove no problem to the West’s climate-obsessed elites, who rail about the coming apocalypse, even while undermining the production of the very resources that would be essential if they are to have any chance to reach their cherished “net zero” utopia.

Although North America, and most particularly Canada, possesses many of the critical resources — lithium, copper, graphite, nickel, cobalt and rare earths — necessary to build solar panels and electric vehicle (EV) batteries, green lobbyists are fighting even modest plans for new mines.

Steven Guilbeault goes to China and burns his climate credibility – by Terry Glavin (National Post – August 23, 2023)

August 23, 2023August 23, 2023

https://nationalpost.com/

China’s greenhouse-gas outputs have doubled and tripled, while emissions from the rest of the industrialized world have flatlined since 2001

It’s no wonder that Canadians are among the most skeptical people in the world when it comes to confidence in their government’s capacity to deal with climate change. That was the finding of a global Ipsos survey earlier this year, and there’s no reason to think that this summer’s record-breaking wildfires across Canada will change things much.

The Trudeau Liberals’ hectoring and hyperbole won’t help matters, and their invitations to cynicism are only coming thicker and faster now that Justin Trudeau’s government is sending Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault to Beijing to participate in a pantomime of global-warming earnestness.

Guilbeault wants China as ally, serves as adviser to Beijing – by Brian Lilley (Toronto Sun – August 16, 2023)

August 17, 2023

https://torontosun.com/

Trudeau’s environment minister is picking fights with Canada’s premiers while advising the government of coal powered China.

Justin Trudeau’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, is pulling double duty as an official adviser to the Chinese government. Turns out, he also wants to make Beijing an ally on the environmental issue and will head to coal-powered China at the end of the month after lecturing Canada’s premiers on using fossil fuels.

During an exclusive interview Guilbeault granted to environmental activist media outlet the National Observer, he acknowledged that he’d be criticized for the trip.

Trudeau Liberals offer pie-in-the-sky energy plan, Smith fires it back in their face – by David Staples (Edmonton Journal – August 11, 2023)

August 15, 2023

https://edmontonjournal.com/

How much credibility should we give to economic forecasts by the Trudeau Liberals? Next to zero.

The dreams of the Trudeau Liberals amount to pies in the sky. The Liberals are big on lofty goals, short on pragmatic process and down-to-earth deadlines, the most recent example being their draft regulations for a net-zero energy grid by 2035, announced at a news conference Thursday in Toronto by federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

Guilbeault used many fine phrases to sell his scheme — “generational economic opportunity,” “good middle-class jobs,” “a future where energy is clean, affordable and reliable.” He made his happy assurances with all the confidence of someone who has jetted off to 100 climate change conferences and believed every word he’s ever heard there.

The perils of rushing to net-zero electricity – by Joe Oliver (Financial Post – August 15, 2023)

August 15, 2023

https://financialpost.com/

Ottawa’s rush to net-zero electricity will be risky and expensive

In March 2022, from its green perch high above us mere mortals, the federal government arbitrarily mandated a virtually unachievable net-zero national electricity grid by 2035, which will undermine electricity’s reliability and affordability and cost $54 billion, less hoped for future savings.

Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change, supported by Jonathan Wilkinson, minister of energy and natural resources, set a policy table groaning with threats and only a few inducements. They specifically decreed that no new unabated natural gas facilities should be commissioned after 2025, i.e. without carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), which will make the transition exceptionally difficult.

Rio to build Canada’s largest solar farm – by Esmarie Iannucci (Mining Weekly – August 11, 2023)

August 14, 2023

https://www.miningweekly.com/

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major Rio Tinto has announced plans to build Canada’s largest solar plant at its Diavik diamond mine.

The solar plant will feature over 6 600 solar panels that will generate approximately 4 200 MWh of carbon-free electricity annually for the mine. The solar power plant will provide up to 25% of Diavik’s electricity during closure work that will run until 2029, with commercial production from the operation expected to end in early 2026.

The unspoken story about what it will take to reach net zero goals – by Adam Legge (Toronto Star – August 7, 2023)

August 10, 2023

https://www.thestar.com/

Adam Legge is president of the Business Council of Alberta.

The hard reality is if we don’t improve our regulatory systems, Canada will not be able to approve, let alone build, the projects required.

Politicians, business leaders, bureaucrats and the media regularly discuss decarbonization and a rosy future where Canada is no longer a net contributor of emissions that are causing global climate change.

But too often, absent from that discussion is what we actually have to do to meet the federal government’s objective to be a net-zero nation by 2050, never mind the ambitious environmental targets that are quickly approaching in 2030.

An inconvenient truth… there’s not enough critical metals to reach net zero – by James Cooper (Mining.com – August 8, 2023)

August 8, 2023

https://www.mining.com/

James Cooper is a commodities analyst and geologist.

I’ve taken the title for this article from the 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to educate people about global warming…

It was called An Inconvenient Truth.

So today, we’re going to deliver you perhaps a more pressing ‘inconvenient truth,’ one that’s set to undo our multi-generation assumption that energy supplies would remain cheap and abundant. I set the scene back in June showing you why this energy crisis is being born out of years of under investment in the oil and gas industry. If you haven’t already, I suggest you read that here.