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GOLDSTEIN: Only recessions dramatically lower greenhouse gases
The only way Canada will achieve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s target of reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 will be through a major recession or recessions. Federal environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco didn’t put things quite that bluntly on Tuesday when he gave the feds a failing grade on their efforts to reduce Canada’s emissions, but he came close. What he said was: “There has been no sustained downward trend in Canada’s emissions since 2005. This has been the case despite numerous climate change mitigation plans projecting that emissions would decrease as a result of implementing the plans. There have been just 2 significant, isolated drops in emissions. Environment and Climate Change Canada attributed the first to the 2008 financial crisis and the second to the 2020 pandemic.” DeMarco is saying that all government efforts to reduce emissions since 2005 haven’t significantly cut them. It only happens during major recessions. In the 2008 global financial crisis, Canada’s annual emissions dropped by 58 million tonnes over two years, from 748 million in 2007 to 690 million in 2009. Then they started rising again. The same thing happened during the recession caused by the pandemic in 2020 when emissions dropped by 65 million tonnes in one year — from 724 million tonnes in 2019 to 659 million tonnes in 2021 — before starting to rise again. Major recessions are the only things that drop emissions quickly and dramatically, albeit temporarily, because as the economy contracts, people have less money to buy goods and services that are created using fossil fuel energy. That means fewer industrial greenhouse gas emissions are produced in order to provide them. But, once the economy begins to recover, emissions start to rise again as more goods and services are purchased and more fossil-fuel energy is used to create them. In 2021, the last year for which government data are available, Canada’s total emissions were 670 million tonnes. To get that down to Trudeau’s 2030 goal of at least 40% below 2005 level — Canada must reduce its annual emissions to 440 million tonnes, a reduction of 230 million tonnes annually between 2021 and 2030. That would mean eliminating the equivalent of all emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector in 2021 (189 million tonnes) by 2030, plus 79% of all emissions from the electricity sector (52 million tonnes in 2021). Meanwhile, Canada’s emissions are going up, not down. In 2021, total emissions were 670 million tonnes, 1.8% higher than in 2020 as the economy began to recover from the global economic downturn caused by the pandemic. In the 16 years from 2005 until 2021 — including major recessions in 2008 and 2020 — Canada only reduced its annual emissions by 8.4% compared to 2005 levels, far short of Trudeau’s targets of at least 40% by 2030 and net zero by 2050. In the 31 years from 1990 to 2021, Canada’s emissions have actually increased by 13.9%. Given these realities, the idea Canada is going to be able to reduce emissions by 40% compared to 2005 levels between 2021 and 2030 is a fantasy. While the Trudeau government’s carbon tax and other climate initiatives — with a price tag so far of over $200 billion — will make some contribution to lowering emissions (we hope), the main driver of emissions from now until 2030 will be how well the Canadian economy performs. The bad news is that in order to hit Trudeau’s emission targets, it will have to perform poorly.
Publish Date : 2023-11-08 21:48:08
Image and News Source : torontosun
