Editor:
I was at the first debate of the local campaign and watched Michael den Tandt, the Liberal and Alex Ruff, the Conservative, get away with murder. Well, not literally, but certainly figuratively. Well, maybe literally if things keep getting worse.
Den Tandt insisted more than once that the Liberal’s carbon tax is working. Well, maybe it will someday, but not yet. In fact, not for two more centuries. Carbon emissions are still increasing and they will continue to do so under the Liberal plan. It doesn’t help that the Mr Trudeau keeps encouraging oil sands production with subsidies and pipelines.
Canada’s Paris Accord target, by the way, is 30% reduction of 2005 emissions by 2030 – ten years away. That’s just to keep the world below a 1.5 degree increase.
Alex Ruff said carrots are better than sticks and the Conservatives will give tax breaks and subsidies to industries who reduce their carbon footprint. Terrific – more subsidies for fossil fuels. They’ll also set some sort of ‘emissions standards’ but no word yet on what those might be or how they’ll be enforced. Ruff didn’t say this, but part of the Tory plan is to claim Paris Accord credits for moving to lower carbon fossil fuels like liquid natural gas.
So … the Liberals say they’ll get to the Paris targets by pumping more oil. And the Conservatives say they’ll get to some sort of target, someday, maybe, by subsidizing Big Oil to develop technology that hasn’t been invented yet and by some tricky arithmetic around carbon credits.
Someone has to call BS on these guys. The Liberals are on track to blow through the Paris target and the Conservatives will help push the global temperature to up to a dangerous 4 degrees Celsius. At that temperature, our goose will be cooked – literally.
And the Greens? Well, there’s very little difference between the Greens’ promises on the climate crisis and the NDP’s. The Green climate plan is more aggressive – they want to get to higher reductions in carbon emissions faster than the NDP. In my opinion, given the current political tensions around carbon taxes and emissions reductions, that just might sink the Greens’ plans.
But then, I’m biased. But I’m not wrong either.
David McLaren
Neyaashiinigmiing
Former NDP Candidate