Article content

People need to get their heads around the idea that fossil fuels are “probably dead,” the CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway said Wednesday.

“I’m not maybe as green as I should be, but I happen to think the climate is changing (and) they’re not going to fool me anymore,” Hunter Harrison told a J.P. Morgan transportation conference in New York.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Fossil fuels are 'probably dead,' says Canadian Pacific Railway CEO Hunter Harrison Back to video

The veteran rail executive said the transition to alternative fuels will be long, but new investments in traditional energy sources will dry up because of environmental hurdles.

The country’s second-largest railway has seen shipments of crude drop due to declining demand brought on by the dramatic fall in oil prices. Thermal coal shipments have also waned.

Harrison said the rail industry will have to adjust to a shift to alternative energy sources, just as it did in the 1990s when the U.S. Clean Air Act wiped away 29 per cent of the business at Illinois Central Railway that he ran at the time.