The uselessness of Canada's climate alarmism

[Shen Li]

SE Asia is using their resources to adapt to climate change rather than follow Canada's failed climate policies of forcing poverty on it's citizens.

[caskur]

SE Asia is using their resources to adapt to climate change rather than follow Canada's failed climate policies of forcing poverty on it's citizens.

Indonesia is ripping out the rain forests... they are environmental vandals.

[DKG]

SE Asia is using their resources to adapt to climate change rather than follow Canada's failed climate policies of forcing poverty on it's citizens.

It's a lot cheaper and produces real results. Trying at all costs to reduce our international rounding error emissions is so short sighted as well as expensive.

[Shen Li]

It's a lot cheaper and produces real results. Trying at all costs to reduce our international rounding error emissions is so short sighted as well as expensive.

Singapore introduced a carbon tax, but it isn't like Canada's. It is more like the one Alberta used to have on large emitters.

[Herman]

It aint just one province. Right across the country, agriculture costs are soaring because of Justine's carbon tax.

The crushing impact of the federal carbon tax on agriculture
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-the-crushing-impact-of-the-federal-carbon-tax-on-agriculture

Alberta is a centre for advanced agricultural practices and irrigation, yet the federal carbon tax stands as a formidable challenge.

It is particularly damaging to the province's competitiveness in exporting crops, including the export hay market. Designed to reduce carbon emissions, this tax inadvertently threatens the viability of our most vital agricultural exports by inflating farm and freight costs, eventually eroding market share.

The carbon tax's effect is severe on all operations that produce crops or add value to primary crops. This sector's reliance on energy-intensive processes such as seeding, harvesting and baling, which are powered by diesel-fuelled machinery, means that every uptick in fuel costs driven by the tax directly diminishes profitability, forcing farmers to raise prices in the domestic market.

Value-added operations are saddled with the tax that increases freight, drying and utility costs directly. The damage extends across all ag sectors, including potatoes, sugar beets, canola, peas and specialty grains. These crops undergo additional processing to enhance their market value — cleaning, sorting and packaging — all of which consume significant energy, now more costly due to the carbon tax. Grocery prices have to increase to cover the carbon tax burden.

This tax places Alberta's agricultural export producers at a stark disadvantage. Our main competitors, notably from the United States, are not subject to such fiscal burdens. They benefit from lower production costs, affording them a competitive edge in pricing their products on the international market. As a result, Alberta's value-added crops are at risk of being priced out of the market, potentially costing not only immediate sales but also relationships with global buyers.

[Herman]

Justine says there aint no business case to be made for LNG export facilities. Business says Justine is an idiot.

LNG exports offer a wealth-creating way to reduce global emissions
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-lng-exports-offer-a-wealth-creating-way-to-reduce-global-emissions

Pierre Poilievre's Axe the (carbon) Tax campaign is a spectacular success. But the Conservative party needs its own plan to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Paradoxically, it's a fossil fuel that provides the answer.

Canada's rich endowment of natural gas offers us the chance to both reduce global emissions and also rescue a Canadian economy ravaged by the Liberal government.

How? By exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China, Japan, South Korea and the other coal-dependent Asia-Pacific countries. Switching from coal to natural gas reduces CO2 emissions by 50 per cent while also eliminating the toxic compounds and lung-clogging particulates that shorten the lives of millions in Asian cities.

A November 2022 study by respected consulting firm Wood Mackenzie concluded that:

· "Canada is well-positioned geographically: Western Canadian LNG is much closer to Asia relative to the U.S. Gulf Coast LNG, which needs to be shipped to Asia through the Panama Canal."

· "LNG from Canada would be cost-competitive for northeast Asian importers."

· "Asia will not be able to produce enough natural gas domestically to meet its escalating demand. With its high environmental standards and stewardship, Canada would be a great partner to fill the LNG demand gap."

In 2010, there were more than 20 LNG projects in the works in British Columbia, representing hundreds of billions in investment. These included ExxonMobil's $25-billion West Coast Canada project, Chinese-owned CNOOC's $36-billion Aurora project, Malaysian firm Petronas's $36-billion Pacific Northwest project and the Shell-led $31-billion Kitimat LNG Canada project.

After a decade of trying to navigate Canada's byzantine regulatory process, LNG Canada is the only one left standing. And it succeeded only because South African project leader Andy Calitz refused to give up.

After five years of construction, the LNG Canada terminal is nearing completion with the first ship scheduled to sail to China in mid-2025. The $31 billion invested in the Kitimat liquefaction plant is just one component of Canada's first LNG export project. TC Energy Corp's $15-billion Coastal GasLink will carry natural gas from northeastern B.C. gas fields to the Kitimat terminal.

The economic benefits are myriad. B.C. natural gas royalties are forecast to double, from $700 million in 2024 to $1.4 billion in 2027. There are significant employment and business opportunities for First Nations, including Haisla Marine's 50 per cent interest in a $500-million contract.

A major barrier for LNG project sponsors has been the fixation of Canadian regulators on the project's domestic emissions, which are minuscule compared to the global emissions reductions they make possible. Rather than let the project use on-site natural gas-powered electricity generation, regulators insisted that LNG Canada use zero-emissions hydropower. Having BC Hydro build a new dam and costly new transmission line delayed the project significantly.

Before COP24, the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, in 2018, the federal Conservatives urged the leaders of the Canadian delegation to propose that national emissions reductions include reductions from displacement of coal with exported LNG. Our prime minister and his team of anti-fossil fuel eco-zealots declined this advice. A new government that encourages LNG projects may well see a return of the ExxonMobil, CNOOC and Petronas projects driven off by government intransigence.

As an alternative to the carbon tax, LNG export not only does better in emissions reduction but it also creates tens of billions of dollars in economic benefits for a beleaguered Canadian private sector.

Stepped-up LNG export is a vastly superior environmental alternative to the economically destructive and politically divisive carbon tax, and it would help reverse a proud, thriving nation's decline into an indebted, unproductive, government-dominated basket case.

[Brent]

This appered in the Sun newspaper chain. Trudeau is throwing good after bad.

Even as the much-vaunted electric vehicle (EV) transition slams into stiff headwinds, the Trudeau government and Ontario's Ford government will pour another $5 billion in subsidies into Honda, which plans to build an EV battery plant and manufacture EVs in Ontario.

This comes on top of a long list of other such "investments" including $15 billion for Stellantis and LG Energy Solution, $13 billion for Volkswagen (with a real cost to Ottawa of $16.3 billion, per the Parliamentary Budget Officer), a combined $4.24 billion (federal/Quebec split) to Northvolt, a Swedish battery maker, and a combined $644 million (federal/Quebec split) to Ford Motor Company to build a cathode manufacturing plant in Quebec.

Some would-be EV makers or users are postponing their own EV investments. Ford has killed its electric F-150 pickup truck, Hertz is dumping one-third of its fleet of EV rental vehicles and Swedish EV company Polestar dropped 15% of its global workforce while Tesla is cutting 10% of its global staff.

And in the U.S., a much larger potential market for EVs, a recent Gallup poll shows a market turning frosty. The percentage of Americans polled by Gallup who said they're seriously considering buying an EV has been declining from 12% in 2023 to 9% in 2024. Even more troubling for would-be EV sellers is that only 35% of poll respondents in 2024 said they "might consider" buying an EV in the future. That number is down from 43% in 2023.

Overall, according to Gallup, "less than half of adults, 44%, now say they are either seriously considering or might consider buying an EV in the future, down from 55% in 2023, while the proportion not intending to buy one has increased from 41% to 48%." In other words, in a future where government wants sellers to only sell EVs, almost half the U.S. public doesn't want to buy one.

And yet, Canada's governments are hitting the gas pedal on EVs, putting the hard-earned capital of Canadian taxpayers at significant risk. A smart government would have its finger in the wind and would slow down when faced with road bumps. It might even reset its GPS and change the course of its 2035 EV mandate for vehicles few motorists want to buy.