Trump trumps Trudeau in reducing greenhouse gases

[Anonymous]

To understand the difference between climate change rhetoric and reality, consider this:



After four years of President Donald Trump, the United States ispoised to meet and likely exceed its target of reducing its industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change to 17% below 2005 levels by the end of this year.



By contrast, after five years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is poised to miss the same target by a huge margin.



This despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, never imposed a national carbon tax on the U.S. (Nor has any American president done so.)



Also, despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, announced he was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2017, saying it was contrary to the economic interests of the U.S..



Based on the latest available government data from 2018, Canada's emissions are down only 0.14% from 2005 levels.



That means to meet Canada's 2020 target, we would have to cut our current emissions by 123 million tonnes — the equivalent of the annual emissions from our entire agriculture sector and most of our electricity sector — in less than a month.



What this tells us is that political rhetoric doesn't lower emissions — market forces, innovation and energy policy do.



The U.S., for example, freed up vast reserves of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing. That made it cheaper to replace coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants.



Natural gas burns at half the carbon dioxide intensity of coal, contributing to a significant decrease in U.S. emissions in recent years.



In Canada, by contrast, several provinces have banned fracking.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... ouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases



Canada's approach to climate change needs a 180 degree turn if it is to make any dent in global emissions and possibly moving the climate needle ever so slightly. Canada is narrowly focused on domestic emissions when we could be exporting LNG to replace the 1800 coal-fired power plants around the globe. And we wouldn't need to deliberately make life more expensive and export resource jobs to do it.

[Renee]

Oh well, don't worry...The Green New Deal is coming and once again the US will save the world. Canada won't have to decrease it's carbon footprint...The American working people will carry all the green regulations on our broad taxpaying backs and the four or five hundred of you living in Canada won't have to do shit.



This place really does need a sarcasm font...Even if it's just for a few of us that will use it...

[Anonymous]

To understand the difference between climate change rhetoric and reality, consider this:



After four years of President Donald Trump, the United States ispoised to meet and likely exceed its target of reducing its industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change to 17% below 2005 levels by the end of this year.



By contrast, after five years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is poised to miss the same target by a huge margin.



This despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, never imposed a national carbon tax on the U.S. (Nor has any American president done so.)



Also, despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, announced he was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2017, saying it was contrary to the economic interests of the U.S..



Based on the latest available government data from 2018, Canada's emissions are down only 0.14% from 2005 levels.



That means to meet Canada's 2020 target, we would have to cut our current emissions by 123 million tonnes — the equivalent of the annual emissions from our entire agriculture sector and most of our electricity sector — in less than a month.



What this tells us is that political rhetoric doesn't lower emissions — market forces, innovation and energy policy do.



The U.S., for example, freed up vast reserves of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing. That made it cheaper to replace coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants.



Natural gas burns at half the carbon dioxide intensity of coal, contributing to a significant decrease in U.S. emissions in recent years.



In Canada, by contrast, several provinces have banned hydraulic fracturing.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... ouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases



Canada's approach to climate change needs a 180 degree turn if it is to make any dent in global emissions and possibly moving the climate needle ever so slightly. Canada is narrowly focused on domestic emissions when we could be exporting LNG to replace the 1800 coal-fired power plants around the globe. And we wouldn't need to deliberately make life more expensive and export resource jobs to do it.

I don't mind sacrificing if it leads to change..



But, all the hardship Ottawa and some provinces have inflicted on us are symbolic.

[Anonymous]

To understand the difference between climate change rhetoric and reality, consider this:



After four years of President Donald Trump, the United States ispoised to meet and likely exceed its target of reducing its industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change to 17% below 2005 levels by the end of this year.



By contrast, after five years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is poised to miss the same target by a huge margin.



This despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, never imposed a national carbon tax on the U.S. (Nor has any American president done so.)



Also, despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, announced he was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2017, saying it was contrary to the economic interests of the U.S..



Based on the latest available government data from 2018, Canada's emissions are down only 0.14% from 2005 levels.



That means to meet Canada's 2020 target, we would have to cut our current emissions by 123 million tonnes — the equivalent of the annual emissions from our entire agriculture sector and most of our electricity sector — in less than a month.



What this tells us is that political rhetoric doesn't lower emissions — market forces, innovation and energy policy do.



The U.S., for example, freed up vast reserves of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing. That made it cheaper to replace coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants.



Natural gas burns at half the carbon dioxide intensity of coal, contributing to a significant decrease in U.S. emissions in recent years.



In Canada, by contrast, several provinces have banned hydraulic fracturing.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... ouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases



Canada's approach to climate change needs a 180 degree turn if it is to make any dent in global emissions and possibly moving the climate needle ever so slightly. Canada is narrowly focused on domestic emissions when we could be exporting LNG to replace the 1800 coal-fired power plants around the globe. And we wouldn't need to deliberately make life more expensive and export resource jobs to do it.

I read that oil imports are up in Canada before the pandemic. That is Canada's solution for every problem, kill domestic industry and jobs and import everything including foreign pollution. Oh ya, and charge working class Canadians for everything. Trudeau doesn't have a serious plan of attack on climate change, he has a serious plan of attack on the working class in this country.

[Anonymous]

To understand the difference between climate change rhetoric and reality, consider this:



After four years of President Donald Trump, the United States ispoised to meet and likely exceed its target of reducing its industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change to 17% below 2005 levels by the end of this year.



By contrast, after five years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is poised to miss the same target by a huge margin.



This despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, never imposed a national carbon tax on the U.S. (Nor has any American president done so.)



Also, despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, announced he was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2017, saying it was contrary to the economic interests of the U.S..



Based on the latest available government data from 2018, Canada's emissions are down only 0.14% from 2005 levels.



That means to meet Canada's 2020 target, we would have to cut our current emissions by 123 million tonnes — the equivalent of the annual emissions from our entire agriculture sector and most of our electricity sector — in less than a month.



What this tells us is that political rhetoric doesn't lower emissions — market forces, innovation and energy policy do.



The U.S., for example, freed up vast reserves of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing. That made it cheaper to replace coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants.



Natural gas burns at half the carbon dioxide intensity of coal, contributing to a significant decrease in U.S. emissions in recent years.



In Canada, by contrast, several provinces have banned hydraulic fracturing.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... ouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases



Canada's approach to climate change needs a 180 degree turn if it is to make any dent in global emissions and possibly moving the climate needle ever so slightly. Canada is narrowly focused on domestic emissions when we could be exporting LNG to replace the 1800 coal-fired power plants around the globe. And we wouldn't need to deliberately make life more expensive and export resource jobs to do it.

I read that oil imports are up in Canada before the pandemic. That is Canada's solution for every problem, kill domestic industry and jobs and import everything including foreign pollution. Oh ya, and charge working class Canadians for everything. Trudeau doesn't have a serious plan of attack on climate change, he has a serious plan of attack on the working class in this country.

Our government's intentions are probably good, but they haven't seen their ideas through to their natural and logical conclusions.

[Anonymous]

Oh well, don't worry...The Green New Deal is coming and once again the US will save the world. Canada won't have to decrease it's carbon footprint...The American working people will carry all the green regulations on our broad taxpaying backs and the four or five hundred of you living in Canada won't have to do shit.



This place really does need a sarcasm font...Even if it's just for a few of us that will use it...

Then it will be a competition between Jim Crow Joe and Justine to see who can fuck the working class more with globalist green bullshit,

[Anonymous]

To understand the difference between climate change rhetoric and reality, consider this:



After four years of President Donald Trump, the United States ispoised to meet and likely exceed its target of reducing its industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change to 17% below 2005 levels by the end of this year.



By contrast, after five years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is poised to miss the same target by a huge margin.



This despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, never imposed a national carbon tax on the U.S. (Nor has any American president done so.)



Also, despite the fact Trump, unlike Trudeau, announced he was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2017, saying it was contrary to the economic interests of the U.S..



Based on the latest available government data from 2018, Canada's emissions are down only 0.14% from 2005 levels.



That means to meet Canada's 2020 target, we would have to cut our current emissions by 123 million tonnes — the equivalent of the annual emissions from our entire agriculture sector and most of our electricity sector — in less than a month.



What this tells us is that political rhetoric doesn't lower emissions — market forces, innovation and energy policy do.



The U.S., for example, freed up vast reserves of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing. That made it cheaper to replace coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants.



Natural gas burns at half the carbon dioxide intensity of coal, contributing to a significant decrease in U.S. emissions in recent years.



In Canada, by contrast, several provinces have banned hydraulic fracturing.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... ouse-gases">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-trump-trumps-trudeau-in-reducing-greenhouse-gases



Canada's approach to climate change needs a 180 degree turn if it is to make any dent in global emissions and possibly moving the climate needle ever so slightly. Canada is narrowly focused on domestic emissions when we could be exporting LNG to replace the 1800 coal-fired power plants around the globe. And we wouldn't need to deliberately make life more expensive and export resource jobs to do it.

I read that oil imports are up in Canada before the pandemic. That is Canada's solution for every problem, kill domestic industry and jobs and import everything including foreign pollution. Oh ya, and charge working class Canadians for everything. Trudeau doesn't have a serious plan of attack on climate change, he has a serious plan of attack on the working class in this country.

Our government's intentions are probably good

No, they are very dumb.

[Anonymous]

Will Trudeau take credit for the drop in emissions caused by the worst economic contraction in ninety years? You know he will.

 

Recession cutting greenhouse gases, not Trudeau's policies



The good news is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is presiding over the largest annual drop in Canada's industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change in three decades.



The bad news is this is happening not because of government policies like Trudeau's national carbon tax/price, but because of the global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.



This is the worst way to lower emissions because recessions weaken our economy and increase unemployment and public debt.



The reason it's happening is that in recessions, people have less money to buy goods and services, most of which require energy from fossil fuels.



Because of that, global emissions are expected to drop by about 8% this year.



The predicted decrease in Canada is potentially higher, in the 11% to 13% range.



But let's assume our emissions this year drop by the projected global average.



(We won't know the actual decrease for 2020 until 2022, if the Trudeau government continues its current practice of reporting annual emissions data two years after the fact.)



At an 8% drop for 2020, the only decrease of comparable size in Canada's emissions' history since 1990 — and that took two years instead of one — was the 8.4% decrease between 2007 and 2009, when the Stephen Harper government was in power.



That was in the wake of the 2008 global recession set off by the subprime mortgage derivative scandal in the U.S. that led to a global credit freeze.



This illustrates that the only times Canada's annual emissions have dropped dramatically in three decades, despite Liberal and Conservative governments missing every reduction target they have ever set, were as the unintended consequences of global recessions.



The problem with relying on recessions to lower emissions is that they end.



When they do, emissions rise dramatically, as unemployment decreases and people start buying more goods and services because they have more money to spend.



Those goods and services require more fossil fuel energy and that, in turn, increases emissions.



In Canada, except for decreases during recessions, the trend line for our emissions has gone steadily up.



Between 1990 and 2018, the last year for which government data is available, Canada's annual emissions increased by 21% from 603 million tonnes annually in 1990 to 729 million tonnes in 2018.



Weigh that against the likelihood of Trudeau achieving his 2030 target to reduce our annual emissions by more than 30% below 2005 levels — he hasn't announced the specific target yet — having already missed his 2020 target of reducing them by more than 17% below 2005 levels, meaning by more than 123 million tonnes.



Put another way, in the 28 years between 1990 and 2018, Canada's annual emissions increased by 126 million tonnes.



The Trudeau government now promises to reduce them by more than 218 million tonnes in the 12 years from 2018 to 2030– from 729 million annually in 2018, to less than 511 million tonnes in 2030.



Finally, there's the fact the United Nations says in order to avoid catastrophic global warming, global emissions have to be reduced by an average of 7.6% annually every year between now and 2030.



That's almost the same as the predicted 8% drop in global emissions because of the COVID-19 recession this year, meaning we'd have to repeat the equivalent cut in emissions caused by this recession every year for the next decade.



How has the world done so far? Between 1990 and 2017, global emissions increased by 41%.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-recession-cutting-greenhouse-gases-not-trudeaus-policies">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... s-policies">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-recession-cutting-greenhouse-gases-not-trudeaus-policies