If only Richard Nixon could go to China then maybe only the United Arab Emirates could host a climate summit that yielded a unanimous agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. No, COP28 in Dubai didn’t produce the sort of ironclad pledge to eliminate the use of oil, gas and coal that so many scientists, environmentalists and country representatives in attendance wanted to see. But it did commit the nearly 200 countries in attendance to move “away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.” Denmark’s Climate and Energy Minister Dan Jørgensen said, "We're standing here in an oil country, surrounded by oil countries, and we made the decision saying let's move away from oil and gas."
And yet, for all the talking that occurred over the two weeks in Dubai, few people seemed willing to call out the oil and gas industry and its thousands of representatives at COP28 for the contradiction that lies at the heart of their shared conceit. Whether it’s ExxonMobil or Saudi Arabia, they all seem to believe they can reduce their emissions to net zero by 2050 but maintain or even expand current levels of production. Somehow, by affixing huge volumes of carbon capture technology (heavily subsidized by governments, of course), they’ll get to have their climate cake and eat it too.
But of course, upwards of 80 per cent of emissions associated with the combustion of oil and gas come at the tailpipe, and that’s the part governments committed to their own net-zero targets must address. As those emissions are phased out in major economies like the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan, global oil and gas production will necessarily have to follow suit. This is as plain as day in the International Energy Agency’s forecast, which shows that in a net-zero global economy, the volume of oil consumed would fall from over 100 million barrels per day in 2023 to 24 million barrels by 2050. Natural gas demand drops just as precipitously, from 4,150 billion cubic metres per day to 900 billion in 2050.
These are stunning, staggering declines in demand, and yet they’re ones that nobody seems willing to acknowledge will actually happen. Take Mark Cameron, vice-president of the Pathways Alliance and part of the large Alberta delegation in Dubai. As he told The Atlantic’s Zoë Schlanger, “We can’t control the way that our product is used once it leaves our plant gates or our pipelines.” To climate activists, this probably sounds like a cop-out. To me, though, it sounds more like a confession — and a pretty consequential one at that.
Cameron is right about the fact that the companies his organization represents can’t control the way their oil and gas products are used once they’re combusted in the engines of people’s cars and trucks or the furnaces that heat their homes and businesses. But they also can’t control the increasingly attractive economics behind things like electric vehicles and renewable energy. They can’t control the rapidly growing demand from both consumers and businesses for products that reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels. And they certainly can’t control the behaviour of major fossil fuel-importing countries like China, where growth in both zero-carbon energy and electric vehicles continues to outstrip even the most ambitious projections.
They are, in a word, powerless. This probably sounds crazy in a country like Canada, where oil and gas companies exert a massively disproportionate influence over the national political discourse — to say nothing of places like Alberta or Saskatchewan, where they essentially control it. But the truth is that the energy transition is already well past the point of no return and all the slow-walking in the world won’t change the pace at which it unfolds. Even geopolitical events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which the fossil fuel industry has tried to weaponize for its own purposes, simply serve as a reminder of why true energy independence is so important.
Given that, there are two possible explanations for the fossil fuel industry’s apparent indifference to the consequences of its own stated objectives. The first is that these companies have no real expectation of anyone actually meeting them and are simply using events like COP28 to stall for time. The second is that it will be someone else’s problem by then, and they’re simply trying to extend their window as long as possible. Both are different versions of the same bullshit, and both need to be called out as such.
Now that the world has declared the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel age, it’s time for the oil and gas industry and governments in its thrall to act accordingly. They must plan seriously for a world of declining demand and adjust their own forecasts to match. Companies need to either actively plan for a transition away from selling as much oil and gas as they do today to some other line of business or embrace the idea of winding down their operations over time. Governments that depend heavily on revenues from the fossil fuel industry should wean themselves off it as quickly as possible. In both cases, pursuing business as usual is a form of deliberate sabotage that will leave future generations shouldering the highest price.
Ravi Kahlon is building a housing revolution in B.C.
The housing crisis that has consumed the entire country began more than a decade ago in British Columbia, so it’s fitting the solutions to it are finally coming from there as well. New(ish) NDP Premier David Eby, who has long expressed a level of understanding and interest in the issue that dwarfs that of other politicians, has clearly decided to stop tinkering at the edges. And while federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser has gotten most of the national political attention of late, B.C.’s Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon deserves just as much credit.
In just the last few weeks, Kahlon has done everything from allowing the use of so-called “single-stair egress” design in new buildings (housing expert Russil Wvong wrote a wonderfully wonkish thread on its merits) to changing the BC Building Code in order to increase the height on so-called “mass timber” buildings.
Last month, he introduced preapproved residential designs for triplexes, fourplexes and laneway homes that will enable builders to get through the design and application process far more quickly. The federal housing minister picked up on this with a similar announcement of his own this week for preapproved housing designs aimed at expediting the construction of new homes.
And, of course, there’s the massive zoning changes that Kahlon and the Eby government have imposed on B.C. municipalities, taking direct aim at the supremacy of the single-family home and the role it plays in driving up prices across the province. “Nowhere in Canada is making moves on housing affordability like B.C. is right now,” says Cara Stern, a journalist with the Smart Prosperity Institute and the co-host of the new Missing Middle podcast. For his part, economist Mike Moffatt — Stern’s podcast co-host — gave Kahlon’s recent work an “A or A+.”
Given the scale of the housing crisis in British Columbia, there’s still plenty of work left to be done. Much of the collateral damage it’s caused in terms of impacts on younger people won’t get fixed. But it’s clear that for the first time in a very, very long time, the province has a government that is taking this issue seriously and is willing to take some risks on behalf of the future residents rather than simply serving the interests of existing homeowners. It’s not a coincidence that said government is on track to win re-election — and maybe even an expanded majority — in the next provincial election.
To balance the budget, we need to cut spending on seniors
Pierre Poilievre has made his disdain for the Trudeau Liberal government’s supposedly spendthrift ways abundantly clear. One of his most familiar refrains (and Lord, does he ever have a lot of them) is that their deficit spending over the last few years has been primarily responsible for Canada’s inflation surge and that only he can rein it in and bring things back into balance.
This is all nonsense, of course, not least because Canada is actually running one of the smallest budget deficits in the G7. The United States, whose deficit is five times larger than ours, somehow has the same inflation rate — and both happen to be in virtual freefall right now. It’s almost like all those economists and other tall foreheads who kept saying inflation was being driven by global factors like supply chain disruptions and the massive surge in energy prices were right. But I digress.
Poilievre’s pledge to balance Canada’s books apparently can be met by cutting the CBC, getting rid of the ArriveCan app (which is already bought and paid for, but sure) and firing a few faceless bureaucrats. Why, it’s all so simple!
Except, of course, it isn’t. As University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe noted in a recent piece for The Hub, “You could fire every single federal employee (excluding the military and RCMP) and still come up short! You could defund the CBC, privatize Via Rail, eliminate any program with the word climate or energy efficiency in the title, close every single regional economic development agency, and disband the entire Department of Canadian Heritage, and the deficit would be cut by barely more than one-fifth.”
Huh.
As Tombe notes, the real fat in the federal budget is attached to the increasingly generous transfers allocated to senior citizens. That is, by the way, the demographic least likely to be experiencing poverty and benefits most from rising interest rates. But by 2028, nearly $10 billion could be going out the door in OAS and GIS payments to retired families with combined annual incomes above $150,000. If the federal government trimmed those benefits and eliminated the recent 10 per cent boost to payments for seniors over 75, it could save $13 billion annually. As Tombe concludes, “Balancing the budget doesn’t require much else.”
If Poilievre wants to cement his lead among younger voters, he could commit to reining in these excesses. He could bring back the Harper-era change to the age of eligibility for OAS and GIS that the Liberals reversed when they were elected in 2015. And he could promise to match every dollar spent on Canadians over the age of 65 with one spent on Canadians under the age of 45.
He won’t do that, of course, because it would probably be political suicide. Young voters are notoriously fickle, while older ones tend to vote much more reliably. It’s a safe bet that the over-65 turnout would get even higher if a federal leader with a realistic chance of winning the next election promised to cut their increasingly generous benefits. But that political reality doesn’t change the underlying injustice inherent in feathering the nests of people who are already well-feathered.
I’m deeply sympathetic to Tombe’s argument, for what it’s worth. Even as I advance perilously close to my 50s, I remain convinced our political leaders spend far too much time catering to the needs of mostly well-off older voters and not nearly enough to the increasingly existential concerns (housing and climate, for example) of younger ones. I hope that when I’m old enough to start collecting my pension — from the Canada Pension Plan, please and thank you — I’ll put the best interests of my country and its future ahead of my own pocketbook.
To their credit, I know many seniors who do the same. But at some point, we’ll need to have this uncomfortable conversation about what’s driving the federal deficit, and the intergenerational inequity that informs it. The longer we wait, the worse this is going to get.
Don’t call it a comeback — yet
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Pierre Poilievre’s very bad week and how it might mark a bottom for the increasingly desperate fortunes of the federal Liberal Party. I was mocked in some circles for polls that came out shortly thereafter, mostly by people who don’t seem to understand how polling actually works. Well, as I like to say on Twitter: Ahem.
The new Abacus Data poll shows Liberal support snapping back and Poilievre’s negatives on the rise. “It appears that the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre have made themselves less acceptable to these past Liberal supporters over the past few weeks and may have even alienated a small portion of their own past supporters, pushing most back into the Liberal fold,” Abacus Data CEO David Coletto said on Twitter.
Poilievre’s shenanigans in the House of Commons this past week, which included his party voting repeatedly against the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, aren’t likely to help his numbers here. Neither will the recent news of the federal government’s deal with Google on Bill C-18, or the growing international trail of evidence behind the Indian government’s involvement in extrajudicial killings in Canada and illegitimate involvement in our democracy. One by one, the issues that Poilievre had been stacking up against the Liberal government are starting to backfire.
Even housing, which has looked like Poilievre’s ace in the hole with young people for a while now, is starting to turn in favour of the government. No, Housing Minister Sean Fraser won’t have single-handedly made homes affordable for young people by 2025, but it will be increasingly difficult to ignore the progress that’s being made on that front. He may not be moving mountains with his seemingly endless schedule of funding announcements and regulatory changes, but he’s definitely moving the needle. How far he can get it to budge, and how clearly young Canadians see that, will weigh heavily on the next election’s outcome.
So, too, of course, will inflation. With each new batch of monthly data, it becomes increasingly clear that the worst of the inflationary crisis is behind us and that central banks around the world will start cutting interest rates as soon as early next year. The president of the New York Federal Reserve, for example, thinks the United States will hit its two per cent inflation target by 2025 — and as the United States goes, so does Canada. By the time we’re in a federal election, the affordability issues top of mind for so many Canadians may have eased significantly as interest rates on things like mortgages and lines of credit drop precipitously.
What might that leave as ground over which the election will be fought? Climate, for one thing, especially if the election is held at the tail end of another smoky summer. Trust might be another battleground, and Poilievre is just as vulnerable here given his previous dalliances with far-right influencers and personalities who more mainstream Canadians find hard to stomach. And, of course, there’s always the possibility of another Trump administration, which would upend the political table in ways we still can’t quite (or don’t want to) fathom.
None of this is to suggest that a Liberal comeback is a safe bet, much less a sure thing. Governments of this age tend to lose elections, and while the Liberals have gotten off the ropes in recent weeks, they’re still not landing many of their punches. But so long as Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada insist on continuing to punch themselves in the face, the Liberals have a fighting chance.
The Wrap
It’s been a relatively light week for me on the column front (unanticipated childcare gaps can do that!) but earlier this week, I covered the UCP’s entirely predictable freakout over the federal government’s emissions cap and what it really says about Alberta’s commitment to fighting climate change.
In short: the real emissions cap will come from global markets, and even our trading partners. Pretending that a federal Liberal government that has showered the oil and gas industry with more funding than any other in Canadian history — yes, including Stephen Harper’s — is some sort of existential threat might work with the rubes in Premier Danielle Smith’s base, but it’s utterly divorced from any reasonable definition of reality.
Last week I wrote about the CBC and its need to start taking its own survival a little more seriously, and I want to provide a couple of updates on that front. The first is this piece about the considerable progress the federal government has made on meeting Canada’s emissions targets, one that includes a giant chunk of talking points from Pierre Poilievre’s spokesperson.
"Common-sense Conservatives will use technology, not taxes, to lower emissions. We will remove the gatekeepers and green light green projects to bring home our industry and good jobs," said Sebastian Skamski, director of media relations for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. "After eight years of Justin Trudeau, his inflationary taxes and deficits are sending millions of Canadians to food banks and forcing middle-class families to choose between eating and heating this winter. All the while they punish Canadians with a carbon tax, he and his activist environment minister have not met a single one of their own emissions targets."
First things first: repeating talking points is never good journalism, and repeating long ones is even worse. And while the reporter attempts to introduce some factual grounding on the last part of Skamski’s statement, he lets the rest go unchecked. The fundamentally unserious nature of Poilievre’s “plan” (which, to be clear, ignores the central role that carbon pricing plays in advancing the use of low-carbon technology) gets a free pass. The stuff about food banks and deficits also goes unchecked.
This is the challenge with covering Poilievre’s CPC. It puts out such an enormous volume of half-truths, spun facts and outright nonsense that it’s difficult to push back on it all. And if you do as a reporter, you get called out by him and his proxies for doing your job. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, and the CBC has to find a way to introduce as much context and clarity into these stories as it can. Rest assured, Poilievre’s team is counting on their constant attempts at working the refs to bear fruit.
There’s also this observation by Quebec-based economist Stephen Gordon of the difference in how Radio-Canada and the English language end of CBC covered Poilievre’s 15-minute housing video. “English-speaking Canadians should be absolutely furious with the CBC's economics coverage,” Gordon tweeted. “The CBC figures they can be stupid because they think you're stupid too and don't deserve any better.”
While the French-language side of the broadcaster broke the video down and examined the falsehoods and spurious correlations that undergirded it, their English colleagues effectively gave it — you guessed it — a pass. “Election after election is fought on and decided by economic issues,” Gordon said, “and our national broadcaster can't be bothered to make the effort to make sure English-speaking Canadians can make informed choices.”
I’m inclined to agree here. The CBC has to do a much, much better job of helping its viewers understand what’s being said by all party leaders and checking it, as much as possible, against the record of facts and evidence. It also needs to think about its coverage in the way U.S. journalism professor Jay Rosen has suggested Americans covering the 2024 presidential election ought to. “Not who has what chances of winning, but the consequences for American democracy. Not the odds, but the stakes.”
For the CBC, of course, the stakes of the next election are particularly high. Let’s hope it starts acting accordingly.
I’ll be taking the next two weeks off for Christmas, which means this will be my last newsletter of 2023. But in the spirit of wrapping everything up, I’d love it if you would tell me your favourite — and least favourite! — column of mine from the past 12 months. I know what the traffic data says, but it always means more to hear it from someone who has subscribed to this newsletter and wants to follow my work.
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.