Article content

Evidence that the global move to save the planet from climate change has fallen apart is now conclusive and ubiquitous. No matter how hard United Nations’ climate bureaucrats, green activists and the media try to instill apprehension and fear across the world, climate change is way down the priority list for governments and much of the corporate world — and in the mind of the public.

Sign In or Create an Account

or View more offersArticle content

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content

When the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) confirmed this week that the world will overshoot the UN’s official 1.5*C increase in temperature target, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued another of his routine emergency warnings. “This summer’s scorching heat, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead. We must make the overshoot above 1.5 degrees as small and short as possible. That demands an overshoot of ambition.” The temperature overshoot could hit 1.8*C or even 2*C, said Guterres as he introduced the UNEP report. To prevent a rise to more than 1.8*C, UNEP called for a major increase in carbon control action.

Article contentWe apologize, but this video has failed to load.Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.Article contentArticle content

That the climate issue has fallen off the international policy radar is nothing new. In a commentary in Foreign Affairs magazine last November, University of Toronto Professor Jessica F. Green declared that “Global Climate Policy is Broken.” The cause, said Green, is excessive dependence on meandering political institutions such as the UN and international conclaves such as the aimless and endless Congress of the Parties meetings. What is needed, she said, is greater government control and massive spending supplied by taxing corporate offshore assets worth up to $32 trillion.

Article content

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content

Taxing trillions of corporate cash is great fossil fuel populist politics, but it fails to acknowledge a fundamental problem: Controlling the climate by removing carbon and other greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere can be destructively uneconomic. The costs are impossible, which is the main reason global carbon emissions are not declining.

Article contentRead More

  1. Terence Corcoran: The economics of free trade are being lost in the fog of trade war
  2. Terence Corcoran: In auto trade, Mexico is the new Canada
  3. Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content

The cost reality behind the great crusade to transition away from fossil fuels is the main reason Prime Minister Mark Carney openly admitted last June that Canada will not meet its official carbon reduction targets. To do so would have been “too expensive,” he said. The question today is whether Carney’s replacement strategy is also too expensive.

Article content

A key part of Canada’s new energy superpower strategy is the Carney government’s deal with Alberta to (1) build a new West Coast Oil Pipeline (WCOP) to move oilsands product to the B.C. coast for export and (2) build a pioneering carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility that would at least nominally offset the carbon emissions of the oil flowing through the WCOP. In the many months since the two projects were announced, the real financial, economic and environmental aspects of the projects remain a mystery.