The Trudeau government endorsed “net-zero emissions by 2050” in December
2019 but the initiative was never debated in or approved by Parliament.
It remains largely undefined, especially in terms of what will be
“netted out” to attain the zero emissions. It has not been endorsed by
the United Nations. There is good reason to question whether it is even
feasible in technical and economic terms. Nor has any benefit-cost
analysis ever been done to demonstrate that it is in Canada’s interest.
Yet now, in order to get a permit to proceed, every new major energy
project (except wind, solar and biomass projects) must demonstrate how
it will conform with this goal.
But the many GHG emissions-intensive plants in the cement, steel, metal
fabrication, petrochemicals, pulp and paper and other industries will
not be affected. As noted, proponents of wind and solar energy projects
are exempted from the requirements of the Impact Assessment Act, even
though, as Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute has observed, building
wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as
batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10
times the materials and “embedded emissions” as does building machines
that use hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.
It seems some very large carbon-dioxide emitters are more equal than
others.
SETTLED SCIENCE over SCIENCE once again wins the day with Trudeau.