The uncertainty embedded in oil and gas serves up another option

VANCOUVER—“This pandemic is like the appetizer to the effects of climate change.” This is the latest nugget from a series of recent dinner conversations with my roommate. We have discussions about apocalyptic sci-fi books sometimes, but this wasn’t one of them. (Though the other week I read Kevin Chong’s 2018 novel The Plague—based on Albert Camus’ classic but set in modern-day Vancouver—purely for escapism; it had a nice ending.) My roommate needn’t remind me that, even with the vigilant focus on a very real, very now global health crisis, Canada continues to warm at twice the rate—three times, in the North—as the rest of the world. Through the lens of today’s systems, however, an old climate crisis and a fresh pandemic are second-fiddle to a brand new economic meltdown. How to rescue it, and what to rescue, exactly? Canada’s economic identity is so entwined with oil and gas, it’s no wonder the federal government wants to put their money where their heart is. Letting go ain’t easy. Canada pledged to phase out subsidies in 2009 and the Liberals were elected in 2015, based on similar promises. Still, Canada funnels billions of dollars every year into oil and gas—it’s hard to say exactly how much, as we are also one of the least transparent of the G7 nations with providing fossil fuel subsidy information. The Canadian oil and gas sector saw a 78.5 per cent average loss of share values from 2014 up until 2020, just prior to COVID-19 spreading to every corner of the earth. Subsidies—a.k.a. taxpayer dollars—are the reason the fossil fuel industry has survived as long as it has. COVID-19—aside from the horrific impact on the health and societal norms of the human population—has devastated the global economy; inactivity is bad for demand. No single person has been spared the consequences, including in their day-to-day comfort and safety, or in their physical- and mental-health states. It has damaged people financially. Necessarily, it has disproportionately affected lower- and middle-class citizens. This moment in time alludes to how and when we may finally respond to climate catastrophe: during a state of emergency directly linked to climate change, governments will implement sweeping, dramatic actions to do damage control. In January and February, COVID-19 was happening somewhere else. People were dying, but not our neighbours. Denial is our name, preparation and prevention are not our game. In 2017, the oil and gas sector and the transportation sector accounted for 52 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Share values dropped steeply over the past six years. Those annoying climate activist kids are growing up and studying policy and political science. One only has to read the OPEC Wikipedia page to get a sense of the historic volatility of oil and gas. If uncertainty is the one thing that we can’t plan for, then investing in the wobbly future of hydrocarbons leaves Canada (and the world) at the whim of an industry that destabilizes its own viability with every GHG emission. A volatile climate creates uncertainty in the market and minimizes demand due to expanding financial insecurity, jeopardized health, and death. The best party trick is knowing when to leave. Our fossil fuel legacy is coming to an end, and better to sidestep the crash and burn and salvage our strength: adaptability. Economic disruption of this magnitude creates a tenable moment to reconsider what Canada’s future can be. Oil and gas has relied upon government subsidies for years in order to be viable and keep us on the market as a competitor, even as the playing field pushes us to the sidelines (looking at you, OPEC and Russia). The government might consider this a chance—an excuse, even—to invest in ourselves. To get ahead of the renewable energy game. It’s not a secret that 85 per cent of Canadian fossil fuels are exported, and those companies are owned by foreign direct investments. When this is all over (and it will be, at some point), what will Canada look like? Will gas and oil boot back up, spewing GHG into the atmosphere? We could take this moment of economic disruption to alter the course of our jobs and industries away from a precarious system that puts money into foreign coffers, corporations, and environmental collapse. After all, this is just a taste of what’s to come, an hors-d'œuvre de catastrophe, if you will. Dayna Mahannah is a writer and freelance journalist based in Vancouver, B.C. Follow her on twitter: @daynamahannah The Hill Times

The uncertainty embedded in oil and gas serves up another option

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The uncertainty embedded in oil and gas serves up another option

The government might consider this a chance—an excuse, even—to invest in ourselves. To get ahead of the renewable energy game. It’s not a secret that 85 per cent of Canadian fossil fuels are exported, and those companies are owned by foreign direct investments.

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