Ottawa’s Climate Change Measures Mean Nothing

Published 09/28/2023 · Updated 09/28/2023

While Ottawans spend billions of dollars trying to combat the real problem of climate change, the city could eliminate all of its greenhouse gas emissions yet have no appreciable effect on this emerging crisis.

We have our strategy all wrong. Ottawa most certainly can’t change the world climate. Our federal government can do almost nothing to change global warming.

Why? Because China, India and southeast Asia are industrializing at a breakneck pace using technology we are abandoning in the West.

And here’s the telling fact. World coal consumption, one of the dirtiest ways of producing energy, is set to stay at the record levels levels it set in 2022. The culprits? China, India and southeast Asia.

And these countries are not interested in dropping coal consumption. Coal consumption in industry can be the difference between people having a job or starving. Not much of a choice.

Furthermore, most of the governments in those areas are not very flexible (a nice way of putting it). So public pressure from the West doesn’t even register in countries such as China. Many people in those offending regions have not even heard of climate change and wouldn’t care if they did know.

That said, the West must get the attention of these countries or the world is looking at a mammoth disaster. As an example, if there were a climate that was screaming for help, take a look at the summer of smoke and tornadoes in Ottawa.

Perhaps we should suggest that if these offending world areas don’t get their climate acts together, we will stop buying their products.

Better that than wild weather, torrid temperatures, coastal flooding, all-consuming forest fires and conflict that will arise from climate change.

This from the International Energy Agency:

Global coal consumption climbed to a new all-time high in 2022 and will stay near that record level this year as strong growth in Asia for both power generation and industrial applications outpaces declines in the United States and Europe, according to the IEA’s latest market update.

Coal consumption in 2022 rose by 3.3% to 8.3 billion tonnes, setting a new record, according to the IEA’s mid-year Coal Market Update, which was published today. In 2023 and 2024, small declines in coal-fired power generation are likely to be offset by rises in industrial use of coal, the report predicts, although there are wide variations between geographic regions.

China, India and Southeast Asian countries together are expected to account for 3 out of every 4 tonnes of coal consumed worldwide in 2023. In the European Union, growth in coal demand was minimal in 2022 as a temporary spike in coal-fired power generation was almost offset by lower use in industry. European coal use is expected to fall sharply this year as renewables expand, and as nuclear and hydropower partially recover from their recent slumps. In the United States, the move away from coal is also being accentuated by lower natural gas prices.

To read the rest of this very important story from the IEA, click here.

In short, all of Kitchissippi Councillor Jeff Leiper’s bike lanes and Capital Councillor Shawn Menard’s e-buses mean nothing in the global climate crisis. Their strategy is horribly wrong. It is virtue signalling, not an effective method of changing the climate. It makes us feel better but it is not even remotely part of the solution. Such measures will make for much favourable conversation at white-wine-and-wicker parties in Westboro and get these politicians votes but they are spending tax money in the wrong places.

The answer to global warming is not to be found in Ottawa. E-buses might make some people believe they are on a high ethical plain but their efficacy in the big picture is nothing. We share an atmosphere with countries that don’t care at all about global warming. Ideology won’t solve the climate crisis. Practicality might … but it’s a long-shot.

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Somehow, we must change the practices of the economies in China, India and southeast Asia. And the chance of that happening is extremely poor. But that is the strategy for solving the climate crisis … getting the dirty economies to come clean.

That’s why humans won’t solve the climate crisis. It’s too big a political, social and economic hurdle. I’m glad I won’t be here to see the conclusion of this disaster.

It would be nice to be wrong about this but, knowing human nature, that’s not likely.