This is currently our biggest unsolved political issue IMO. Without a focus on the supply side, all of our current consumption-focused climate change policies (carbon tax on consumption, electric vehicle mandates, most recently infrastructure issues etc.) effectively amount to weak virtue signaling that has mostly succeeded in dividing voters and provinces against each other, when we should instead be tackling the 500 lb gorilla in the room (Alberta’s oil sands). Hence the well-deserved Greta Thunberg snark towards Trudeau a while back.
How do we do that? Some think we should just leave the oil in the ground. Others think we should avoid building further export infrastructure (i.e. pipelines). These options strike me as politically unpalatable, and even our current government stepped in at one point a few years ago to bail out the troubled Trans Mountain pipeline.
One option I am strongly in favour of is nuclearizing the oil sands. AFAIK right now the process for extracting crude from the oil sands is very energy-intensive and is currently powered by nat gas since the producers have it on hand. There was a proposal a while back to power this process by nuclear energy, which failed because: a) nuclear energy was scary, and b) crude prices took off and reduced the economic incentive for cost savings.
I imagine that the nuclear option could be resurrected now alongside government investment in LNG infra as well as a supply-side carbon tax to provide extra incentive to push producers on board. Since we’re not going to leave the oil in the ground anyway, this would allow us to extract it in the cleanest possible way, while actually creating jobs and making our energy exports more competitive overall.
Now, if only Canada could elect a visionary government that actually cared about climate change and not just about virtual signaling…
A carbon tax is not 'weak virtue signalling', a sufficiently priced carbon tax changes the composition of supply and demand for all goods to account for carbon emitted.
> Without a focus on the supply side, all of our current consumption-focused climate change policies (carbon tax on consumption, electric vehicle mandates, most recently infrastructure issues etc.) effectively amount to weak virtue signaling that has mostly succeeded in dividing voters and provinces against each other
This is a very bad-faith read of what actually happened. There’s been decades of interest in the supply side, but this isn’t happening in isolation: the fossil fuel industry is massive and has enormous political clout, and they know that there’s no path to a better world which doesn’t involve the fossil fuel industry making trillions fewer dollars. That means that supply side improvements have both been prevented or steered in infeasible directions which conveniently mean fossil fuel consumption won’t drop in the slightest until decades in the future when something very hard finally happens (hydrogen, nuclear). Any time you’re about to repeat a right-wing trope about virtue signaling, know that you’re contributing your time and credibility to assist their propaganda campaign entirely pro bono instead of doing anything which could help.
Re: tar sands, nuclear takes too long to construct and if you did get a plant through you’d want to use it to decarbonize usage directly rather than encourage more oil consumption.
Q: Who decides whether the policy focus is on the supply side or consumption side?
A: The government and its voters.
That’s it. That’s who I am going to hold accountable.
Now, the point I am making that you seem to miss is that in Canada, the supply side is the larger issue. This is because we are a net energy exporter. So hence why to most Canadians outside of Alberta, blaming the consumer while giving the oil sands a pass feels like cheap political theatre.
OTOH Albertans feel very threatened any time the government starts to talk about doing something supply side, and I think many are actually very happy to go along with the political theatre of the demand side focus because they know it doesn’t directly threaten their jobs.
What should we do in an ideal world? Target both. But if I were designing an effective climate policy and had to pick only one, I would do supply side first.
On a side note, studies have estimated that the current carbon tax levels are 5-10x too low to effectively price in the externalities due to releasing the carbon. So yes, it’s virtue signaling.
Do they operate in an ideal state of perfect knowledge or have they possibly been influenced by the billions spent by fossil fuel companies trying to deny or minimize the problem, and massively overstate the economic cost of reducing carbon emissions? By all means, hold people accountable for bad decisions but also recognize that they’re not making those decisions in a vacuum. If you think the carbon tax is low, start your blame with the people who strenuously opposed it more than the people who got you the current tax.
Overall you’re right about fossil fuel interests blocking progress. But you’re wrong about nothing changing until “far in the future” as well as the part about “hydrogen, nuclear”* being key drivers. China has now built so much solar PV and wind that their emissions are set to peak and enter a structural decline this year. Similar trends are occurring everywhere in the world, just a couple of years behind. It’s just taking time for people to realize this is happening, because the exponential phase of an S-curve produces such fast change that even being one or two years out of date is like reading news from last century.
* As a note, hydrogen and nuclear will be relevant, but only for the last (hard) fraction of it. Ironically, promoting hydrogen and nuclear as the “only viable technology” seems to be the latest PR campaign pursued by fossil interests.
I think we’re actually in agreement. All I meant by that was that the fossil fuel companies have been happy to support things like an envisioned transition to hydrogen, biofuels, or nuclear power when that means it’s business as usual for decades until [hypothetically] some major change happens and our emissions will drop precipitously. Toyota is similarly happy to talk about how green they’ll be in 2040 while heavily advertising that you need a $60k ICE Tundra to drive to the office in the meantime since those have a much higher profit margin than the few hydrogen vehicles they can sell.
I strongly agree that nuclear is relevant for some last n% stuff but am hoping that the renewable boom will buy enough time to deploy it. As you noted, the capacity there has been on a reassuringly massive growth curve with no barriers to stop it other than politics.
Let me introduce you to the western/eastern Canada divide...
Alberta is the fourth largest oil producer in the world, Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba are basically 100% conservative party.
Ontario/Quebec/BC are the political battlefield of Canada. The Liberal party uses Climate Change basically as anti-western-Canada/anti-conservative-party tool.
The Liberal Party is in power, and promotes a lot do climate change rhetoric. The Conservative Party is pro oil. Alberta & Saskatchewan are pro oil.
> The Liberal party uses Climate Change basically as anti-western-Canada/anti-conservative-party tool.
It isn't used by the liberal party as an anti western tool. It's an actual threat that is creating serious problems across Canada today.
Here in Alberta today, we are facing an unprecedented drought in 2024 as a product of record low snowpack that itself is a product of 2023 being the hottest year in recorded history.
Pine beetle infestations are destroying forests across the BC / Alberta border because in the last decade our winters have simply no longer been cold enough to kill them off.
The revenue neutral carbon tax is the most effective market oriented policy for decarbonizing economic growth, as demonstrated by economic study after economic study.
> It isn't used by the liberal party as an anti western tool. It's an actual threat that is creating serious problems across Canada today.
It is both.
The question is, if Canada completely shut down everything, would that change anything? Would Canada literally ceasing all oil extraction fix any of the issues you bring up? Would it measurably help anything?
Unfortunately, having an ideological agenda against climate change and trying to effectively manage and mitigate climate change are completely orthogonal.
