The first line of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) acknowledges “change in the Earth’s climate and its adverse effects are a common concern of humankind.” It doesn’t say of humankind “except for Canadians.”

The impending decision to authorize Teck Resources’ Frontier oilsands mining project in northern Alberta again calls into question how sincere Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is about the environment and the economy going hand in hand. Trudeau has promised to make Canada a leader in fighting climate change but has actually followed the same policy of oilsands expansion over climate protection as previous governments.

Prof. Bill McKibben is unambiguous: “When it comes to climate hypocrisy, Canada’s leaders have reached a new low,” he notes in a recent opinion published by The Guardian. “Canada, which is 0.5 per cent of the planet’s population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planet’s remaining carbon budget.”

He is right. Of 61 countries analyzed in the 2020 Climate Change Performance Index, an independent monitoring tool to hold governments accountable, only six perform worse than Canada — including Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Other studies have shown that if all other countries did what Canada is doing, global warming would reach 4 C, instead of the 1.5-C called for by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Canadian oil industry is in no doubt about what is going on. From the UNFCC in 1992 to the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in 2007, oilsands production rose 280 per cent. Between 2007 and the 2015 Paris Agreement, production grew by 74 per cent. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers foresees additional growth of 80 per cent in production from 2015 levels to 2035.

What’s more, in November 2019 the Canadian Energy Research Institute showed this increase will come from what the industry refers to as ‘in situ’ production, which requires thermal heating to bring oil to the surface for oilsands too deep to mine with open pit mining.

In situ production can produce as much as three times more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per barrel than open pit mining does. In situ production is expected to double by 2040, making it impossible to meet any meaningful targets by 2030, or by 2040, or by 2050.

Indeed, Canada’s consistent failure to meet its emissions targets tells the rest of the tale. Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada committed to reduce its GHG emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Emissions increased by over 30 per cent instead.

Under the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, Canada committed to reduce its GHG emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. Five years later, Environment Canada reported that target wouldn’t be met either.

The 2015 Paris Agreement has had virtually no more of an impact in the last four years. Against the background of those repeated Canadian failures, the Liberals’ new promise to achieve “net-zero” emissions by 2050 again moves the goalposts, this time adding 30 more years.

The only thing that has slowed oilsands growth was the crash in oil prices from their $100 dollar a barrel highs. There has never been an intervention by government intended to reduce this long-term growth.

Trudeau will green light the Frontier oilsands project. And the next ones after that. He’ll say it’s a matter of equity and national unity. He’ll repeat how the environment and economy have to go hand in hand. He will promise that, just like for the Trans Mountain pipeline, the massive government revenues anticipated from the project will be used to support climate change measures. He will ask us to believe we have to destroy the climate to afford to save it.

The truth should no longer be covered by the fig leaf of national unity or the other platitudes we’ve heard for the last four years. It’s time to tell the truth about Canada’s climate policy, and then come up with a concrete plan with clear and ambitious short-term targets that will actually protect the climate. That’s the only way to end the hypocrisy.

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