To help minimize my feelings of hopelessness around climate change, I’ve been attending local meetings of the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL).
In collaboration with Edmonton CCL Chapter leader Victor Dorian I wrote a response to an opinion piece by Alberta pundit and former politician, Danielle Smith called “Best way for Canada to get to net zero is to export LNG”.
The response was published in today’s Letters section. Below is the version I submitted, along with two helpful hyperlinks that don’t really work in a newspaper’s editorial section.
In her column, “Best way for Canada to get to net zero is to export LNG”, Danielle Smith argues that massive export of LNG to fuel other countries coal-converted-to-gas power plants is the most effective way for Canada to hit its net zero goal.
The column rests on a tenuous assumption: Canada will be recognized with emission reduction credits for this export. She links to a discussion of the Paris agreement’s Article 6; however, she neglects to point out that Article 6 is controversial, complicated and far from guaranteed (as her link discusses!)
Even the aspects recently clarified in Glasgow suggest that this sort of export cannot be counted in Canada’s favour, as ultimately it would be considered double counting of emissions reduction: You cannot both reduce Canada’s emissions, and the emissions of another country!
At the end of the day, climate change only stops when we stop emitting. Period. Natural gas conversion may reduce emissions in the short term, but being “twice as good as coal” is still problematic when we have to hit zero.
Emission free technologies have to be the direction; Rather than push for a particular solution, the approach our government should follow is setting standards and pricing, to allow independent producers to figure out the road to net-zero: This means Carbon Pricing and flexible regulations that drive every sector in Canada to zero by 2050. Internationally, we should push for the world to take a similar or more stringent approach, using Carbon Border Adjustments to bring market signals to the world.
Danielle Smith hopes emissions markets allows Canada to look good; I hope instead we see a dedication to markets that drive us to zero, not just make Canada look good on paper.
-- Matthew Gaudet
I’ll continue writing, both letters to the editor and letters to elected officials: Any action is better than none.