Climate change is real. It’s a scientific fact.
It’s also a fact that China, by far, leads the world in the number of coal-fired power plants, one of the most highly pollutive ways to produce energy in the world. For the last two decades, China has been the world’s largest carbon emitter. The Asian country has been responsible for 28 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions over the past decade.
China has nearly 1,100 coal-fired power plants, which is about half the number of all coal plants worldwide — and the country continues to build more. India ranks second in the world with the number of coal-fired power plants, with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 270, or nearly four times less than China.
Then there’s Canada. The way our prime minister is talking at the UN Climate Conference, Canada is going to lead the world in the battle against climate change. Justin Trudeau pegs 2050 as the year Canada achieves a net-zero economy. Trudeau said Monday, “Climate action can’t wait. Since 2015, Canada has been a committed partner in the fight against climate change, and as we move to a net-zero future, we will continue to do our part to cut pollution and build a cleaner future for everyone. Together, we will beat this crisis while creating a green economy and new middle-class jobs for Canadians.”
If you enjoy a healthy slice of motherhood and apple pie, you’d draw the conclusion that Canada needs to get its polluting act together — that Canada can lead by example. Despite what Trudeau might think, and what Canadians would like to believe, Canada is an inconsequential player on the world stage. With a population of 38 million in a world of eight billion people, we hardly register. The same can be said for greenhouse-gas emissions. Canada produces about 1.6 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases — a far cry from China and India.
The point is, Canada should not act in isolation when it comes to declaring emission targets. The math indicates it’s a futile exercise. Unless China and India — the greenhouse-gas gorillas — can kick the coal habit, reversing the effects of climate change will be near-impossible.
What is missing from Canada’s climate-change discussion is pragmatism. All-too-often politics supersedes pragmatism, and platitudes substitute for factual information.
David Knight Legg, the founding CEO of Invest Alberta, recently spoke to the Urban Development Institute, Edmonton Region, and he injected some pragmatism into the green discussion. He said the world’s natural gas consumption will move from 140 trillion cubic feet per day to 180 trillion cubic feet per day in the next 20 years, and Alberta is in an envious position to capitalize.
"What people are unaware of is that Alberta is creating some of the greenest, cleanest fuels that are the best substitutes for the growth of thermal coal, and that we're the most proximate resourcing for that into China."
It's certainly a thought worth pondering, that perhaps even though Alberta will be off coal by 2023, the province could also be moving China off coal as well.
Legg suggested that Canada could ship cleaner natural gas to China, thereby replacing its reliance on coal. This, he said, would do more to remove global emissions than what Canada has done in its own backyard in the last two decades.
It's a convincing argument, and one worth more than a passing glance. It may be a tough sell in green spaces, but if it walks the entire planet more quickly toward environmental targets while the renewable industry catches up, the strategy may have a leg to stand on.
Editorials are the consensus view of the St. Albert Gazette’s editorial board.
