Ilya Gridneff of the Financial Times reports that Canada’s government, led by Justin Trudeau, is under fire from all sides on energy and climate policy. Gridneff writes:
Canada’s Trudeau government is under sustained attack over its stance on energy and climate change, as oil-rich provinces led by Alberta hit out at federal efforts to slow emissions while watchdogs and activists call for more action.
Ahead of the UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan next week, Canada set out on Monday how it aimed to cut greenhouse gases from the oil and gas sector, responsible for almost a third of its pollution.
The industry is booming, thanks to US demand and Canada’s extensive oil sands, among the dirtiest crude in the world. […]
The Trudeau government funded the Trans Mountain Pipeline to the US that opened in May this year after a decade of disruptions and costing C$34bn, four times over budget. It showed “Canada isn’t taking the climate crisis seriously”, Levin said. “There’s a lot of hypocrisy. The reason? The oil and gas industry’s influence on decision makers.” […]
The independent Climate Action Tracker scientific project has rated Canada’s plans as “insufficient” when measured against a Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to no more than 1.5C since the 1850s.
Bill Hare, chief executive of the Climate Analytics research group behind the project, was also critical of the country’s reliance on carbon capture. “Investing in CCS instead of switching away from fossil fuels is not the way to achieve net zero,” he said.
Read more here.
