As long as Canada continues to underwrite the oil and gas industry, it cannot make meaningful progress on the economic transformation needed to address climate change.
We are three of the more than 400 Canadian climate scientists and academics who called for the government to scrap the proposed tax credit in January, pointing out that it would provide a boost to the oil and gas industry instead of implementing a real strategy for its managed decline.
CCUS includes a number of different technologies, all of which capture carbon dioxide and either store it in the ground or use it for a variety of industrial and agricultural purposes.
Canadian governments have provided oil, gas and coal with an average of $14 billion per year over the last three years, which is more than any other country in the developed world.
By contrast, Canadian renewable energy has only received about $1 billion in public financial support.
“Carbon lock-in” means that decisions we make today about fossil fuel investments, use and infrastructure have long-term implications.
By making long-term investments in oil and gas infrastructure more economically beneficial, the proposed credit would effectively tip the balance toward continued fossil fuel extraction and use.
So, a focus on carbon capture for the oil and gas sector is a distraction from the much larger emissions problems that this technology cannot solve.
Currently, CCUS capture capacity is only 0.1 per cent of global annual emissions.
The Liberal government should focus support on climate solutions that will contribute the most to emissions reductions: increased electrification, wide-scale use of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency.
The same International Energy Agency report cited by the ministers clearly states that no new fossil fuel infrastructure should be built if we want to have a hope of reaching net-zero by 2050.
At a time when Canadians are struggling with the effects of the pandemic and rising inflation and interest rates, the government should not be giving handouts to the fossil fuel industry.
Petro-progressives like Trudeau, Notley, and Horgan claim to accept the climate change science, but still push pipelines, approve LNG projects, promote oilsands expansion, subsidize fossil fuels, and let fossil fuel interests dictate the agenda.
Until we have a credible and competitive Green candidate, or full proportionality, we have to vote strategically to stop the Tories who would be far, far worse on so many more fronts than just climate.
In such ridings, the climate-insincere Liberals can count on the progressive vote , because the Conservatives, as Alex says, are infinitely worse on other fronts.
If progressive Canadians vote their values, and the Liberals lose power, the Liberals will be forced to change their policies in alignment with progressive values in order to regain power.
How else to get the message across to that climate failure, a litany of broken promises, betrayals, cynicism, and Trudeau’s mockery of First Nations, etc.
Democracy does not work unless voters hold politicians to account.