To defend the decision to authorize the Bay du Nord oil extraction project despite the fact that the United Nations Secretary General said on Monday in the release of the IPCC report that investing in new fossil fuel production infrastructure was a “economic and moral madness”, Steven Guilbeault hides behind the report of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.
Posted at 5:00 p.m.
To “depoliticize” the process, the opinion of the experts would have to be respected, and these experts would have established that the carbon contribution of Bay du Nord is negligible. Let’s not be fooled. What could be considered by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada in the carbon contribution of this project results from political choices that condemn the experts to short-sightedness.
In 2016, following heated debates around pipelines in Canada, the federal government promised to reform the environmental assessment of major projects.
Remember: in 2013, it was forbidden to mention the issue of climate change in the public hearings of the National Energy Board. It was not in the list of admitted subjects. Activists denouncing the situation by reading a poem (“Enbridge and the Flood”) were then escorted out of the courtroom.
After years of mobilization involving Aboriginal communities, citizen movements and municipalities, and after the Lac-Mégantic disaster and the scandal over the link between the commissioners of the National Energy Board and the lobbyists of the oil sector, Justin Trudeau therefore announced, in 2016, a reform of environmental assessment to better consult Indigenous nations and take climate change into account in the assessment of impacts.
Where are we today ? The environmental assessment system has been reformed, but does it adequately take climate change into account?
The Bay du Nord assessment only considered emissions up to the time of extraction. We do not follow the life cycle of oil until its combustion, which is very real and polluting. And we forget that a State whose economy depends on the extraction of fossil energy has more difficulty than the others in reducing the consumption of this resource.
By omitting so-called “downstream” emissions, it is much easier to aspire to eventual “carbon neutrality”. The eminently political decisions on the content of the environmental assessment condemn the expert process to being myopic, by not taking into account the fact that increasing production generates more consumption of fossil energy.
When production stimulates consumption
Let’s not be naive. The fossil fuel industry does not simply fill a pre-existing demand. History shows that the production of energy stimulates its consumption.
Energy producers obviously build energy extraction and transport infrastructure in anticipation of potential demand. But they participate in creating an effective demand.
Oil companies, for example, have played a historic role in building automotive infrastructure to stimulate demand for their products. They financed the construction of service stations, garages and even roads. They have also shaped a car culture with road maps, car races and other advertisements. Finally, they encouraged governments not to act to limit our consumption of their products.
Renewable energy producers are also seeking to stimulate the consumption of their own energy, which can help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. For example, Hydro-Québec has made intense efforts to promote electricity, in particular to find outlets for its surplus production. One can think of the programs to encourage the adoption of electric heating during the 1960s and 1970s.
Conversely, a reduction in supply contributes to a reduction in consumption.
Periods of war are a typical example. During World War II, many European countries had to restrict their energy consumption in response to the disruption of energy flows. Measures such as lowering heating temperatures or prohibiting lighting of shop windows were taken quickly. Several countries also adopted measures to restrict consumption following the oil shocks of the 1970s: speed limits on motorways, car-free days, etc. A reduction in supply can therefore lead to a reduction in consumption.
The contribution of projects like Bay du Nord to Canada’s carbon footprint therefore far exceeds emissions at the time of extraction. These effects are simply not accounted for by the myopic expertise of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.
Behind the disappointing decision to accept Bay du Nord lies the even deeper question of our ability to change our institutions to meet the urgent challenge of climate change.
* Co-signers: Clarence Hatton-Proulxdoctoral student in urban studies and history at the National Institute for Scientific Research and Sorbonne University; Francois Claveauprofessor at the University of Sherbrooke and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Practical Epistemology