Canada’s Environmental Realism: A Surrender? | Tzeporah Berman

Last week, teh United Kingdom did something all too rare: it chose leadership by backing science and prioritizing public safety. The Labor government announced it would ban new oil and gas licences in the North Sea,strengthen a windfall tax and accelerate phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies.

These are not symbolic gestures.They are an acknowledgment that the global energy system is shifting and that mature economies must shift with it.

And they came in the same week that catastrophic floods swept across south-east Asia,killing more then 1,000 people and displacing over a million. The real-world imperative to transition off fossil fuels has never been so urgent.

But, at the exact moment the UK stepped forward, Canada stepped back.

Ottawa signed a new Memorandum of understanding with Alberta to support a new oil sands pipeline that would facilitate increased production of fossil fuels. The deal would delay methane regulations, cancel an oil and gas emissions cap and exempt the province from clean electricity rules. All this comes as leaders are lifting environmental-assessment requirements for major projects, preparing to weaken greenwashing laws and suspending Canada’s electric vehicle sales mandate. The MP Steven Guilbeault resigned from Mark Carney’s cabinet rather than defend the retreat.