Depending upon the outcome of the upcoming federal election, climate change may claim its first major casualty; the economy of Alberta. Getting out of the oil business has become a major campaign issue. The stakes are huge, and not just environmental.
Written by respected energy writer David Yager, the book examines Alberta through the eyes of the province’s massive oil, gas and coal industries. A major focus is past divisive politics and energy policies that have divided the country.
Thanks to climate politics, it is happening again. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals introduced policies that seriously damaged Alberta’s core fossil fuel industries. The Green Party and NDP promise that if elected, they will go further by moving away from oil and gas and betting big on “clean tech” to keep the country warm, moving and economically secure.
But as the book explains, Canada’s political determination to save the world alone will not stop climate change. Global energy demand is forecast to grow by 30% in the next 20 years. With no substitutes for plastics, petrochemicals and heavy transportation, oil consumption will increase no matter what Canada does.
Canada only produces 4% of the world’s oil, 1.6% of total emissions and houses only 0.5% of its population. Canada could disappear entirely and there would be no material reduction in global emissions unless the rest of the world – specifically China, India and the US – does the same thing.
As Canada’s carbon resource warehouse, Alberta is ground zero for the political battle over the country’s future. Already devasted by the collapse in commodity prices and denied increased market access pipelines in all directions, Alberta’s future depends upon which politicians comprise the next federal government.
The opening line of the book reads, “The current debate about climate change and what mankind should do about it has deteriorated to the point of absurdity.” The federal election is a perfect example.
The book has three sections. Carbon Development: Alberta helps Canada become the world’s fifth largest oil and gas producer. Carbon Politics: past policy failures and how climate change became the world’s greatest threat. Carbon Future: the complex issues behind fossil fuel emissions and practical ways Canadians can help the world meet the challenge.
Get answers to all the big questions about the future of Canada’s oil and gas industry including:
- How Alberta helped make Canada the fifth largest oil and gas producer in the world
- Why millions more people live in Alberta than places with similar geography like Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Montana, North Dakota and Idaho
- What it means to the economy when Justin Trudeau says Canada must “phase out” of the oil sands
- The ever-changing role of politics in fossil fuel development
- The economic impact of oil on Alberta
- The history of climate change
- How the internet shaped the climate change debate and the future of the world
- Climate change becomes mankind’s next catastrophe
- Politicians respond with lots of policies but few solutions
- Forecasts for continued global fossil fuel consumption
- All the good things going on in the world nobody talks about
- Carbon capital crunch – squeezing the taps on fossil fuel producers
- How climate change is exploited without actually changing the climate
- Carbon taxes – the solution nobody will pay for
- Alberta’s future in a low-carbon world
- Workable solutions to control climate change
- How technology can accomplish much more to reduce global emissions than Canadian politicians