Many defenders of Canada’s carbon tax insist it’s a great idea but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn’t explained it properly.
This is utter nonsense.
Trudeau’s real problem is that he has explained it and millions of Canadians are skeptical.
It’s not hard to see why.
Ford said on Wednesday it would cut around 14% of its European workforce, blaming significant losses in recent years compounded by weak demand for electric vehicles, a lack of government support for the shift to EVs, and rising competition.
The U.S. company is the latest automaker after Nissan, Stellantis and GM to cut costs as the industry struggles with growing competition from Chinese rivals in Europe, waning demand in China, and the challenges of shifting to EVs that remain too expensive for most consumers to buy.
h/t DS
Whirl with me back in time all the way to September 2023, when the federal and Quebec governments announced that they would be partnering with Swedish battery maker Northvolt to plunge headlong into the bright green future. Canada and Quebec would be laying out about $2.7 billion in capital, and more in downstream subsidies, to facilitate the construction of a vast, hypermodern battery plant in the province’s hinterland to help meet the world’s unlimited appetite for electric vehicles, creating thousands of jobs and contributing to global environmental health. “It’s a win-win-win — for workers, for communities, and for the environment,” trumpeted the prime minister. What could go wrong?
Hardly any major world leader bothered showing up to the UN’s big COP29 event in sunny Azerbaijan. (Unless you count UK PM Kier Starmer showing up along with the Taliban.)
Even before Trump takes office, there are signs that world leaders are distancing themselves from the global climate change system.
What does Donald Trump’s resounding win in the recent U.S. election mean for Canada? Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been much thought about the answer to this question in Ottawa, because the vast majority of our political and pundit class expected his opponent to be victorious. Suddenly they’re all having to process this unwelcome intrusion of reality into their narrow mental picture.
Well, what does it mean?
“The future of European competitiveness,” a report by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi published by the European Commission on September 9 “to save the European economy,” has been unanimously welcomed by the European media, as likely to propel the European Union out of the nasty rut it has been in for 20 years.
Let us humbly offer a dissenting opinion: it does not seem that Draghi’s report, even if implemented — which is doubtful — will solve anything on a European macroeconomic scale. The problem seems that Draghi refuses to take leave of the Germano-environmentalist myth of a zero-carbon Europe.
Another year, and another ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will convene. The 29th COP is meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. It started yesterday and will last for 11 days.
My view of the previous year’s UN climate jamboree, attended by a record-breaking 86,000 delegates, was realistically downbeat (some would say cynical)…
h/t DS
Canadians woke up Monday November 4th to witness two opposing national political forces on course for a head-on collision.
On the one hand, they learned that Alberta’s Premier Smith received a 91.5% rank and file mid-term confirmation that her administration was delivering on her election campaign promises at the United Conservative Party’s (UCP) annual general meeting over the weekend.
On the other hand, they witnessed Trudeau’s administration respond by demanding that the Canadian oil and gas (COG) sector reduce its CO2 emissions by 35% relative to 2019 levels by 2030.
California’s electric vehicle mandates, which go into effect next year, are “impossible” to meet and will result in reduced choices on dealer lots.
“I have not seen a forecast by anyone,” Jack Hollis, chief operating officer of Toyota Motor North America, said on a Friday roundtable discussion, “government or private, anywhere that has told us that that number is achievable. At this point, it looks impossible.”
How much does Canada owe in climate aid? A trillion-dollar question headlines COP29
This year’s international climate talks are expected to be headlined by fraught negotiations over how Canada and other wealthy countries, who have contributed a disproportionate share of planet-warming emissions, should financially compensate other nations in their fight to tackle climate change.
Many pressing questions for negotiators are on the table: How much should those wealthy countries pay? Which countries will have to contribute? And how should the money be provided?
Ever since coming to power in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals have fervently believed their climate change and carbon tax policies would make the Conservatives unelectable, as long as Canada’s official opposition party refused to come up with its own plan.
Under the Trudeau government of the last nine years, Canada has been locked into an extreme regime of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission controls meant to make Canada a “net-zero” emitter of GHGs by 2050, meaning Canada cannot emit more GHG into the air than Canada’s forests, agriculture and ecosystems draw out of the air on an annual basis.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith did not mince words over Ottawa’s new greenhouse gas emissions cap announced Monday.
“I’m pissed — I’m absolutely angry,” Smith said at a news conference.
“We’ve been working with these guys for two years because we have a plan that would reduce emissions responsibly by 2050 and they continue to act like they are working collaboratively with us — then they come out with exactly same policy they put forward a year ago, with no changes whatsoever and then trying to mislead the public about the true intent.”
A new cap on emissions in Canada’s oil and gas sector could eliminate over 112,000 jobs by 2040, with minimal environmental benefits, according to an analysis by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).
The think tank argues that the federal measure, set to reduce emissions by 35% from 2019 levels, will weaken the economy while having little impact on global oil demand.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson revealed that Canada has only installed 6% of the public EV charging ports required to meet its 2035 electric vehicle (EV) mandate, despite $1.2 billion in subsidies spent so far.
Blacklock’s Reporter says with nearly 447,000 charging ports estimated as necessary, only 28,800 are currently in place.
I have long predicted that the EV charger subsidy program would be the next Liberal Party scandal.
