The emissions figures around climate change are more dire than we thought.
We cannot increase Alberta tar sands production and escape the worst effects of climate change.
Our best hope is for the swiftest possible decline in the production of carbon-based energy from sites we already have in production.
Four years ago we felt we could release no more than 800 more gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2).
But present sites have the capacity of producing 942 gigatons. So we must use less than those sites that are now actually in production.
Untapped fossils fuels contain five times more carbon than we can burn without global temperature rising past was thought to be the critical cut-off of two degrees Celsius, as agreed by many countries around the world.
But we have already raised the global temperature by one degree. That has been enough to melt almost half the ice in the Arctic and heat last July and August to the hottest in history.
So in Paris last fall, scientists set a new number. We should aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
To do this, we can only release 353 more gigatons of CO2, (and there is only a 50-50 chance that releasing that amount will lead to success).
We can play with the figures a bit but they basically mean that we need to leave undeveloped fossil fuel resources in the ground and begin managing a decline in their use as quickly as we can.
If we continue to use our current fields, and let them decline naturally, we will be using 50 per cent less oil by 2033 says Stephen Kretzmann of Oil Change International.
That gives us 17 years to develop sustainable energy resources. Bill McKibbon, writing in The New Republic, estimates that switch could produce a million new good paying jobs by 2030.
Which brings us to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his approval of fossil-fuel pipelines.
He has approved the Pacific North West LNG plant outside of Prince Rupert.
Then he approved two pipelines that would expand tar sands extraction: Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement pipeline into the U.S. and the twinning of Kinder Morgan’s Trans-Mountain pipeline (TMX) through B.C.
These would create massive new greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions.
This one LNG project and the increase in production that these two oil lines represent will increase our GHG emissions from their present 26 per cent of the national total, to 45 per cent by 2030. We can’t afford that.
It does not matter whether GHGs are produced by oil or natural gas.
They are all fossil fuels and produce CO2 when extracted, transported and burnt.
The problem with both oil pipelines is that they each involve mining more tar sands than we are presently.
Line 3 is billed as a replacement line but it will be bigger. The TMX line is also bigger than its twin.
The new pipeline will be able to carry 780,000 barrels a day, in addition to the 350,000 barrels that the present line is already carrying.
That’s over a million barrels a day travelling through B.C.
If the Prime Minister is to keep our international promise to reduce our GHG emissions, he cannot at the same time increase our fossil fuel infrastructure to carry more.
Ironically, if Alberta is to keep to its promise to cap oil sand growth and emissions to 100 megatons a year, it does not require an increase in pipeline capacity.
Changing energy sources doesn’t lose us jobs, it switches them between old and emerging energy sectors.
And the faster our governments support the emerging sector, the faster we will get those sustainable jobs, and a sustainable planet.
Our role as citizens is to demand both.
Terrace resident Robert Hart is a parent of three.