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By Akshat Rathi and Danielle Bochove
Canada is unlikely
to reach its net-zero goal due to recent policy
changes, said Liberal Party politician Steven
Guilbeault, who resigned last week from Prime
Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet on account of the
shift.
Steven
Guilbeault Photographer: David
Kawai/Bloomberg
The country was
already struggling to bend its emissions curve
enough to meet targets over the next decade,
Guilbeault told Akshat Rathi in an
interview for Bloomberg’s podcast Zero.
But a deal between the federal government and
the oil-rich province of Alberta jeopardizes the
country’s legally
binding 2050 net-zero commitment, he said.
“With what has been
announced, there’s no way Canada can meet its
2030, even its 2035, climate-change objectives,”
he said. “And frankly, I doubt that we could
even be carbon neutral by 2050.”
Last
month’s memorandum of understanding states that
Canada and Alberta remain committed to achieving
net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But
it also promises federal support for one or more
new oil pipelines from the province’s tar sands,
and opens the door to ending a moratorium on
oil tankers off British Columbia’s north coast.
The deal includes a
promise to offer tax credits for enhanced oil
recovery, a method by which carbon dioxide is
injected into the ground to extract oil that
would otherwise be inaccessible. Industry
proponents tout such production as more
sustainable because of the CO2 it stores.
“Some of my
colleagues, including some ex-cabinet
colleagues, see this as a silver bullet. Like
we’ll start producing decarbonized oil,”
Guilbeault said. “Hold on a second.” Oil
production is responsible for only a fraction of
the emissions arising from the fossil fuel. Most
is added to the atmosphere when the oil is
burned, which this technology isn’t able to
capture.
Even so, he doubts
a new oil pipeline will materialize. “I don’t
believe that a pipeline is going to be built,
largely for economical reasons,” he said.
An ex-Greenpeace
activist who was once arrested for scaling
Toronto’s CN Tower during a protest, Guilbeault
was the Liberal government’s culture minister
and before that, the environment minister under
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After Carney was
elected in April, he became increasingly
concerned about the direction of climate policy
and the MOU proved the final straw.
Guilbeault said the
attempt to placate Alberta is also fueling
a “more robust” separatist movement in his
home province of Quebec.
The former minister
was responsible for convincing Green Party
leader Elizabeth May to support Carney’s recent
budget, on the understanding that it did not
include fossil fuel subsidies. In a Canadian
TV interview after Guilbeault’s resignation, May
said she was heartbroken but not surprised given
Carney’s decision to add the tax credits to the
MOU shortly after the budget came out.
“Your word has to
mean something,” she said. “When the budget
specifically said there will be no subsidies for
enhanced oil recovery and 10 days later a deal
with the Alberta premier breaks that, there are
some larger questions at play here.”
Guilbeault said he
was “puzzled” by Carney’s about-face. “I
wouldn’t say that the prime minister lied to me,
but what the leader of the Green Party said is
true,” he said. “I don’t care that the Alberta
government wanted it. It should not have been
there in the first place.”
Read the full
story on Bloomberg.com.
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