How Can You Proclaim a Climate Emergency and Have No Sense of Urgency?

I don't believe Justin Trudeau and, unless you're one of his Gullibillies, you shouldn't either.  His arguments excuses don't add up.

Here's a good example. In trying to justify his decision to green light the Trans-Mountain pipeline, Justin - with a straight face - promised the pipeline will generate vast revenue, every dime of which the feds will pump into clean energy technology.

That's like banking on Rachel Notley's emission promises. Remember Trudeau saying no Alberta carbon policy, no pipeline? Then Rachel got turfed out on her butt and the first thing Jason Kenney did was throw that policy out with her.

Trudeau's promises mean nothing. We learned that lesson repeatedly as we watched him freely jettison one major election promise after another shortly upon taking office. There's a guy who'll say whatever he thinks people want to hear. Remember that old line about "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Fool me, not once, not twice, but again and again and again and you've got this prime minister.

Trudeau says the pipeline may generate half a billion dollars a year that can be invested into clean energy. Gee, that sounds like a lot of money.

Trudeau said he was elected on a plan to grow the middle class and fight climate change, two goals he said were not at odds. “We need to create wealth today so we can invest in the future,” he said. 

“This project has the potential to create thousands of solid middle class jobs for Canadians,” he said.  

Trudeau made a commitment that every dollar earned from the expansion project will be invested in Canada’s transition to green energy. A senior official said that amounts to about $500 million per year once oil starts flowing through the pipeline.

That does sound like a lot of money only, true to form, it's Trudeau greenwash. $500 million a year is a fraction of what Alberta and Canada put out every year in direct and indirect subsidies to the oil and gas giants. A small fraction.

In direct subsidies, the feds alone fork out some $3.3 billion annually. Half a billion is chump change.  A more inclusive estimate that incorporates direct and indirect subsidies, deferrals, exemptions and benefits is available from the International Monetary Fund. In 2015 the IMF calculated global subsidies to the fossil fuel industry reached a staggering $5.3 trillion or 6.5 per cent of global GDP. Canada's subsidies were estimated at $43 billion - annually, per annum. Suddenly half a billion dollars sounds pretty meagre.

But how can that be? That would be madness. It is. It's the madness of a quarter trillion dollar unfunded liability for remediation of the Athabasca tailing ponds. It's the madness of Alberta's (and Saskatchewan's and BC's) orphaned wells, 170,000 in Alberta alone. It's madness writ large so that politicians can create the illusion of wealth and prosperity knowing the bill for their dereliction will be some other government's problem, some future generations' burden.

So, why not cancel those subsidies and freebies? That's easy. If you put the energy giants on a pay as you play, polluter pays, basis, they'll walk. Only if they can continue to fleece the country and the Canadian people will they keep this dark farce running.

Here's one other reason (there are several) for not trusting Trudeau. While he's happy to declare a climate emergency, he shows no sense of urgency. He does not acknowledge the warning from the IPCC that we need to slash GHG emissions by half by 2030 if we're to have a reasonable chance of averting climate catastrophe. Trudeau is still gunning for maybe, if we're lucky, cutting emissions by just 30 per cent by 2030.

Now he's talking about freeing money for clean energy projects when the pipeline is finished and the bitumen bounty supposedly flows in. That's years and years and years off, if ever. That's not a prime minister who has any sense of the urgency of our peril. That's a prime minister who is asleep at the wheel.

No, I don't trust Justin Trudeau. I've had three and a half years of learning that he's not to be trusted, not to be believed. Then again, so have you.