With its recent climate decisions, such as the approval of the Bay du Nord project and the substantial investments in still very experimental capture technologies, the federal government of Canada is evading its international environmental obligations and ignoring the warnings coming from climate science. , economic and public health impacts on the dangers of the exploitation of fossil fuels, while feeding doubts on its credibility in the fight against climate change.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
The scientific evidence is abundant and incontrovertible: the deleterious effects of the extraction and combustion of oil, coal and gas are ravaging the world.
To hope to limit global warming to a prudent threshold, we must immediately abandon any new project for the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels, concluded the International Energy Agency in May 2021.1 The imposing report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published earlier in April corroborates this implacable diagnosis.
The call of the right
Today, the growing existential threat caused by the exploitation of fossil fuels and the inertia of governments to tackle the problem have led a broad social movement to call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.2similar to the prohibition of nuclear weapons.
International law calls for a just transition and is developing binding rules obliging 192 countries to adopt measures to reduce carbon pollution, through the Paris Agreement. Amid an explosive wave of climate litigation, courts in multiple jurisdictions have affirmed the binding nature of national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. State obligations under international law have been interpreted as requiring states to refrain from funding new fossil fuel projects or increase funding for existing projects, and to decrease existing support in a clearly set deadline.
The call of the economy
On the economic level, the latest IPCC report is the latest study to add its stone to the theoretical and empirical edifice demonstrating the costs, not only ecological and human, but also economic, of climate change.
One of the most important conclusions of all these studies: the effort necessary to curb global warming will cost less than its long-term economic consequences.
Can the Canadian government force recalcitrant provinces to join the climate effort?
Without a shadow of a doubt! International obligations and economic considerations call for an end to fossil fuel expansion. Strongly criticized for its laxity in relation to the most emitting sector, the federal government retorted with the argument that a reduction in emissions is compatible with the expansion of the exploitation of fossil fuels. This is the good old principle of decoupling.
In terms of areas of jurisdiction, the Canadian government has also insisted on its inability to interfere in provincial jurisdictions over natural resources and industry. However, if the federal government really wanted to impose a binding limit on emissions from the oil and gas sector, or even impose a cap on the use of negative emissions technologies, such a measure is well within its legislative powers.
The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that climate change is a matter of national concern and that GHG emissions are not limited to provincial and international borders. Like climate science, we see that the law is also constantly evolving, and constitutional interpretation by the courts is certainly not stagnant.
All of these legal and economic developments justify the fact that the federal government must stop supporting a polluting industry, which is at the root of the current climate crisis.
With the announcements of the past few weeks, the inconsistency and scientific denial of federal actions are becoming more and more blatant and less and less justifiable.
In its last budget, the federal government ruled out any follow-up to its commitment to phase out oil and gas subsidies. On the contrary, he introduced a carbon capture tax credit whose main beneficiaries will be the industries responsible for the climate crisis so that they can continue to expand oil exploitation. The new Bay du Nord project is also part of this trend.
When science, law, economics and public health demand the elimination of hazardous products, governments should and usually do act in the name of the common good.
In the past, equality and fairness among parties to international environmental negotiations have been a key feature of successful global ecological governance, as evidenced by the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Layer-depleting Substances ozone, this international agreement signed by 24 countries being considered by many as a great success of international cooperation.
There is still today a great denial of the seriousness of climate issues. It is however imperative that the international community act in a similar way for the elimination of the production of fossil fuels. The health and safety of human communities depends on abandoning this polluting energy resource, which remains a crippling obstacle on the way to a livable future worthy of passing on to our children and grandchildren.