Burgess Langshaw Power, University of Waterloo
Last week, the federal government released its long awaited plan to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Bill C-12, if passed, commits Canada to “binding” targets every five years as of 2030 with the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The bill is thin on details, due to its focus on establishing an independent 15-member advisory board. This is both a strength, in that it will hopefully include climate scientists, Indigenous people and other expert stakeholders, and a weakness, because it pushes the timeline for specific measures and action further into the future, with 2030 the first target date.
What is most concerning is that by dragging its feet on specific measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the Trudeau government is shoehorning Canadians into expensive, unproven and unreliable technologies.
As a researcher who studies the governance of climate-altering technologies (such as carbon capture and storage), I can assure you that we are already behind on tackling climate change and catching up is going to be expensive. The government’s strategy will likely rely upon technology that isn’t viable in the way it hopes.
Staying on target
Canada has repeatedly failed to meet any of the climate targets it has set in place since 1992. This has left us further behind our Paris climate agreement targets and scrambling to catch up to meet our global commitments.
Not only do we need to meet these climate targets this time around — our international trade partners such as the EU and even China may see us as laggards, further eroding our international credibility — we need to make up for lost time.
The focus of the federal government is on market-driven solutions, including technologies that remove carbon from the air or emissions and lock them away. But carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are not silver bullets in the fight against climate change.
Canada is home to some of the most successful CCS projects and companies in the world, including the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, Boundary Dam and Carbon Engineering. However, these are expensive demonstration projects. Their use could be targeted to specific sectors (such as aluminium manufacturing), but they will never effectively reduce Canadians’ emissions at scale.
Capturing and storing carbon is expensive, and in some cases outright ineffectual. The United States government spent US$5 billion from 2010 to 2018 on the technology, but it would take additional significant investments, more research and some technological breakthroughs for the technology to lower the cost of capturing carbon to US$94-232 per tonne. This is staggering compared to Canada’s baseline carbon tax of $50 per tonne of emissions by 2022, and when factored into the already low price of Canadian oil, we are left with a most unhappy conclusion.
Who is paying for this?
Typically, companies would pay taxes or levies over time into various programs to pay for negative externalities — the side effects of products or systems they run that cause social, economic or environmental harms. These funds would then be used to pay for those associated costs.
This solution is dubbed “Pigouvian taxation” (after Arthur Pigou). Ireland, for example, introduced a plastic bag tax (as opposed to banning them), which resulted in a 90 per cent decrease in their use.
The problem is that in Canada companies are not paying into any such funds — nor have they — leaving Canadians with no source to pay for this new expense.
So how would Canada find the money to pay for expensive projects such as carbon capture and storage? As it stands, that cost will be passed to the taxpayer. Our current carbon tax circulates the money back into the economy.
Two billion trees
What about Prime Minister Trudeau’s promise to plant two billion trees? Planting trees is, after all, a natural method of carbon capture and storage.
Planting trees is a useful short-term exercise, but trees don’t live forever. Although the soil in boreal forests contains carbon stored there generations ago, it can be released by logging or forest fires, which are getting more severe due to climate change. These types of changes, if not properly managed, can lead to forests becoming carbon sources. https://www.youtube.com/embed/mqbJYIGx9HQ?wmode=transparent&start=0 As northern summers get warmer and drier, boreal forest fires are becoming more intense, meaning they burn deeper into the soil (NASA).
In addition, the darkness of leaves can absorb more incoming energy than the potentially lighter ground surface. Planting trees over areas that would otherwise be snow covered, could actually warm the planet while still absorbing carbon, though more analysis is necessary to understand this issue.
This is not to say that carbon capture and storage or carbon dioxide removal technologies do not have a role to play in the future. Concrete produces four to eight per cent of global emissions, and mandating that all concrete facilities be fitted with carbon capturing technologies could reduce their emissions. While these are expensive, they may be necessary.
Even if the technology were applied to the energy sector, Canadian oil would likely be a net loss on every barrel produced — and who would pay for the cost of moving it to widespread use? The federal government is still reeling from the cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline, the private sector has no appetite to invest in such a venture without guarantees of profitability and despite claims of well-financed conspiracy, environmental groups aren’t exactly flush with cash.
The current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models rely on the deployment of significant amounts of carbon capture and storage in the latter part of the century to meet agreed-upon targets. To rely upon such technologies as a silver bullet for addressing Canadian climate policy, however, is flawed and doomed to fail. When the Government of Canada releases precise details for meeting the climate targets outlined in Bill C-12, it cannot rely upon carbon capture and storage or carbon dioxide removal if there is any hope in succeeding.
Burgess Langshaw Power, PhD Student, Global Governance program at the Balsillie School for International Affairs, University of Waterloo
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Well, that describes everyone who legally agreed to that farce.
The countries that claim reductions towards their targets ignore the CO₂ they cause to be emitted in China, SE Asia, Korea, India, etc.
Having other countries emit CO₂ is not a true reduction. All that steel, aluminum, plastics, resins, manufacturing, assembly, mining, refining, welding, etc. etc. is a lot of CO₂ emissions.
Making it clear that China had a long term plan when they refused to reduce their CO₂. With the loser net-zero plan, many countries ill be in it too deep to recover by 2030.
Belonging to the tax paying class, the whole thing gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Trudeau’s ‘Covid Recovery Plan’ is just as vague.
The title needs correcting:
“Ottawa’s latest climate plan bets on expensive,
andunproven, and unnecessary carbon capture technologies”There, that’s better!
1. Since power plants in Denmark are burning wood, the climate crisis is over. No further action by anyone else in the world is required.
2. The reality is that based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. Hence if Canada eliminated all of their CO2 emissions, doing so would have no effect on climate. It is all a matter of science.
3. The AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere caused by trace gases with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere, or anywhere else in the solar system for that matter. The radiant greenhouse effect is hence science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well. Officials in Canada need to understand this.
4. For those who still believe in a radiant greenhouse effect, it has to be dominated by H2O and not CO2. Molecule per molecule, H2O is a stronger IR absorber than is CO2 and on average there is 50 times more H2O in the Earth’s atmosphere than is CO2. Changes in CO2 will have no significant effect on the over all radiant greenhouse effect. Apparently Canada has no plans for lowering global H20 emissions and hence no plan to significantly change the overall radiant greenhouse effect, if it exists.
5. But even if we could somehow stop the Earth’s climate from changing, Extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue unabated because they are both part of the current climate. We do not even know what the optimum climate is let alone how to achieve it. Officials in Canada need to understand this.
6 The gas in the atmosphere that holds the most heat energy is N2 and not CO2 or even H2O. It is really the non-greenhouse gases that trap more heat energy in the Earth’s atmosphere because they are such poor IR radiators to space. N2 is also the one gas that is most responsible for the pressure at the Earth’s surface. The higher the atmosphere pressure the warmer will be the Earth’s surface. So if Canada really wants to cool the surface of the Earth significantly they need to find a way to significantly reduce N2 in the Earth’s atmosphere and so far they have no plans to do so.
7. Capturing CO2 by the use of more trees in Canada would be improved if the Canadian climate were warmer and the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere above Canada where higher than it is today.
In his article, Burgess Power omits the usual scientific misconceptions while attempting to discuss an expensive plan which will have no results.
**As a researcher who studies the governance of climate-altering technologies (such as carbon capture and storage), I can assure you that we are already behind on tackling climate change and catching up is going to be expensive. The government’s strategy will likely rely upon technology that isn’t viable in the way it hopes.**
**Canada has repeatedly failed to meet any of the climate targets it has set in place since 1992. This has left us further behind our Paris climate agreement targets and scrambling to catch up to meet our global commitments.**
Probably good news since we did not waste money there.
**Not only do we need to meet these climate targets this time around — our international trade partners such as the EU and even China may see us as laggards, further eroding our international credibility — we need to make up for lost time.**
China?? Really. A country that is not interested except for virtue signalling.
**As a researcher who studies the governance of climate-altering technologies (such as carbon capture and storage), I can assure you that we are already behind on tackling climate change and catching up is going to be expensive. The government’s strategy will likely rely upon technology that isn’t viable in the way it hopes.**
Behind on tackling climate change? Really?
Let’s step back and look at what you are really talking about. I wrote to all the MP’s questioning the emissions reduction and received NO responses. And I expect the same here as nobody wants to reply when they are wrong or cannot answer.
What you and the politicians are dealing with is Step Two – reducing emissions. But you have all FAILED to address Step One – Proof that emissions aka CO2 are actually causing any or a significant temperature change. I have scanned the literature and have not found ONE study which MEASURES the amount of temperature change caused by the so-called “greenhouse gases”. So by talking about reducing emissions, the politicians and scientists have in effect admitted failure and plan on misleading the public by cutting emissions which will have NO EFFECT. In addition there is NO method of MEASURING success so they will again fool the public and claim success if can cut some emissions or trade credits which is a real joke.
So, one of your projects of studying carbon capture is a circular argument which will accomplish nothing other than cost money which can be put to better use today. The Liberals, NDP, and Greens have no concept of responsible spending so we can expect those three to continue the wasteful spending.
**The focus of the federal government is on market-driven solutions, including technologies that remove carbon from the air or emissions and lock them away. But carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are not silver bullets in the fight against climate change.**
Fight against climate change? Time to wake up and realize that you cannot fight Mother Nature. Mother will cool us off in due time and it is likely around the corner if you open your eyes.
**Canada is home to some of the most successful CCS projects and companies in the world, including the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, Boundary Dam and Carbon Engineering. However, these are expensive demonstration projects. Their use could be targeted to specific sectors (such as aluminium manufacturing), but they will never effectively reduce Canadians’ emissions at scale.**
Expensive and a waste of money.
**Capturing and storing carbon is expensive, and in some cases outright ineffectual. The United States government spent US$5 billion from 2010 to 2018 on the technology, but it would take additional significant investments, more research and some technological breakthroughs for the technology to lower the cost of capturing carbon to US$94-232 per tonne. This is staggering compared to Canada’s baseline carbon tax of $50 per tonne of emissions by 2022, and when factored into the already low price of Canadian oil, we are left with a most unhappy conclusion.**
Yes, you again made my point of expensive and useless.
**So how would Canada find the money to pay for expensive projects such as carbon capture and storage? As it stands, that cost will be passed to the taxpayer. Our current carbon tax circulates the money back into the economy.**
You and the politicians forgot to note that the administration of these circular funds also costs money and is a waste. It gives jobs to bureaucrats and costs the public.
**This is not to say that carbon-capture and storage or carbon dioxide removal technologies do not have a role to play in the future. Concrete produces four to eight per cent of global emissions, and mandating that all concrete facilities be fitted with carbon capturing technologies could reduce their emissions. While these are expensive, they may be necessary.**
Necessary? Why?
**The current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models rely on the deployment of significant amounts of carbon capture and storage in the latter part of the century to meet agreed-upon targets. To rely upon such technologies as a silver bullet for addressing Canadian climate policy, however, is flawed and doomed to fail.**
The model is doomed to fail as has already been shown. We are not warming as projected and NASA/NOAA is adjusting temperatures upward to fool the public that we are warming:
**When the government of Canada releases precise details for meeting the climate targets outlined in Bill C-12, it cannot rely upon carbon capture and storage or carbon dioxide removal if there is any hope in succeeding.**
Succeeding in what? They will not alter the temperature especially in Canada where we have less than 2 percent of emission. We will be leaders in fooling ourselves especially the gullible public.