Canada is the fourth largest oil producer in the world, if they have an ideological agenda against climate change they’re going about it all wrong.
How do we do that? Some think we should just leave the oil in the ground. Others think we should avoid building further export infrastructure (i.e. pipelines). These options strike me as politically unpalatable, and even our current government stepped in at one point a few years ago to bail out the troubled Trans Mountain pipeline.
One option I am strongly in favour of is nuclearizing the oil sands. AFAIK right now the process for extracting crude from the oil sands is very energy-intensive and is currently powered by nat gas since the producers have it on hand. There was a proposal a while back to power this process by nuclear energy, which failed because: a) nuclear energy was scary, and b) crude prices took off and reduced the economic incentive for cost savings.
I imagine that the nuclear option could be resurrected now alongside government investment in LNG infra as well as a supply-side carbon tax to provide extra incentive to push producers on board. Since we’re not going to leave the oil in the ground anyway, this would allow us to extract it in the cleanest possible way, while actually creating jobs and making our energy exports more competitive overall.
Now, if only Canada could elect a visionary government that actually cared about climate change and not just about virtual signaling…
This is a very bad-faith read of what actually happened. There’s been decades of interest in the supply side, but this isn’t happening in isolation: the fossil fuel industry is massive and has enormous political clout, and they know that there’s no path to a better world which doesn’t involve the fossil fuel industry making trillions fewer dollars. That means that supply side improvements have both been prevented or steered in infeasible directions which conveniently mean fossil fuel consumption won’t drop in the slightest until decades in the future when something very hard finally happens (hydrogen, nuclear). Any time you’re about to repeat a right-wing trope about virtue signaling, know that you’re contributing your time and credibility to assist their propaganda campaign entirely pro bono instead of doing anything which could help.
Re: tar sands, nuclear takes too long to construct and if you did get a plant through you’d want to use it to decarbonize usage directly rather than encourage more oil consumption.
A: The government and its voters.
That’s it. That’s who I am going to hold accountable.
Now, the point I am making that you seem to miss is that in Canada, the supply side is the larger issue. This is because we are a net energy exporter. So hence why to most Canadians outside of Alberta, blaming the consumer while giving the oil sands a pass feels like cheap political theatre.
OTOH Albertans feel very threatened any time the government starts to talk about doing something supply side, and I think many are actually very happy to go along with the political theatre of the demand side focus because they know it doesn’t directly threaten their jobs.
What should we do in an ideal world? Target both. But if I were designing an effective climate policy and had to pick only one, I would do supply side first.
On a side note, studies have estimated that the current carbon tax levels are 5-10x too low to effectively price in the externalities due to releasing the carbon. So yes, it’s virtue signaling.
Do they operate in an ideal state of perfect knowledge or have they possibly been influenced by the billions spent by fossil fuel companies trying to deny or minimize the problem, and massively overstate the economic cost of reducing carbon emissions? By all means, hold people accountable for bad decisions but also recognize that they’re not making those decisions in a vacuum. If you think the carbon tax is low, start your blame with the people who strenuously opposed it more than the people who got you the current tax.
* As a note, hydrogen and nuclear will be relevant, but only for the last (hard) fraction of it. Ironically, promoting hydrogen and nuclear as the “only viable technology” seems to be the latest PR campaign pursued by fossil interests.
I strongly agree that nuclear is relevant for some last n% stuff but am hoping that the renewable boom will buy enough time to deploy it. As you noted, the capacity there has been on a reassuringly massive growth curve with no barriers to stop it other than politics.
Alberta is the fourth largest oil producer in the world, Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba are basically 100% conservative party.
Ontario/Quebec/BC are the political battlefield of Canada. The Liberal party uses Climate Change basically as anti-western-Canada/anti-conservative-party tool.
The Liberal Party is in power, and promotes a lot do climate change rhetoric. The Conservative Party is pro oil. Alberta & Saskatchewan are pro oil.
It isn't used by the liberal party as an anti western tool. It's an actual threat that is creating serious problems across Canada today.
Here in Alberta today, we are facing an unprecedented drought in 2024 as a product of record low snowpack that itself is a product of 2023 being the hottest year in recorded history.
Pine beetle infestations are destroying forests across the BC / Alberta border because in the last decade our winters have simply no longer been cold enough to kill them off.
The revenue neutral carbon tax is the most effective market oriented policy for decarbonizing economic growth, as demonstrated by economic study after economic study.
It is both.
The question is, if Canada completely shut down everything, would that change anything? Would Canada literally ceasing all oil extraction fix any of the issues you bring up? Would it measurably help anything?