CO2 emissions by country (2015 numbers) show that China and the U.S. contribute 43.85% of the world’s total. Canada contributes 1.54%
Here is a report card on Countries policies to reduce CO2, both the U.S. and Canada get “Inadequate” scores, while China gets “Medium”.
Policies and plans are one thing, and producing results are another. Of course.
What should Canada do considering that a huge effort on it’s part may be offset by negative results in the U.S. and China by a factor of 20? Especially considering Trump’s recent rejection of the Paris Agreement.
IMO, Canada should keep an eye on alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels and emission reductions but not kill it’s economy doing an overly aggressive implementation of those alternatives. Also, Global Warming is going to help Canada reduce hydrocarbon use as it’s climate warms up. Unlike most countries, Canada burns a inordinate percentage of hydrocarbons just to keep from freezing to death.
Canada’s coastal cities are largely built on cliffs and rocks and won’t suffer too much from rising sea levels. (Vancouver is one notable exception).
Canada needs a strong economy and military to protect itself from U.S. hordes trying to escape flooded cities and uninhabitable areas due to heat. The Canadian economy is under threat now due to Trump’s aggressive protectionism in trade - it needs to focus efforts to stay economically healthy and strong.
Good luck with that. Canada doesn’t currently even meet the minimum NATO spending levels and hasn’t for quite a while. Even if they did, by some chance, have a change of heart and decide to start spending, your current levels of spending are around what the US spends on…NASA. Double that or even triple it and, well, that’s still not going to even get you in the 10.
Besides, you do realize that 35 million Canadians spread across a country the size of a continent are going to have a bit of trouble dealing with 300+ million Americans, yearning to breath free in the great white north…right? Doesn’t even take into consideration the 127 million Mexicans who might have the same idea.
Totally agree which is why Canada needs to stop wasting time and money fighting something that benefits us. And strengthen it’s military against the Russian and U.S. foes who have recently come under common leadership.
And in 30 years, the 49th parallel will be a steaming jungle so all Canada has to do is ask the Vietnamese how they did it.
The part about you mentioning fighting off the american hordes
Has that BC air about it
We are intergrated on a number of things with the American’s, and one of those things is disaster response and recovery. If very bad things happened up here, American support would only be days away at most, and you purpose to stop America refugee’s or displaced persons at the border, should something happen south of the Border.
A number of things that you are advocating for, have not been realistic for a very long time, regardless of the reasons for displacement, they would be welcomed.
Um, no. Nobody gains from global warming, certainly not Canada (or for that matter Russia). If global warming starts wreaking havoc on warmer-climate countries, both Canada and Russia will lose markets for their exports and will be flooded by ‘climate refugees’.
I might add that the ecosystems (both natural and managed) in places like Canada are adapted to cold climate, and that sudden warming would be disastrous for them, as well as for other countries.
“The most important thing to Canada is our economy. And besides, we should get a free pass on emissions mitigation because we emit so little anyway.”
The US is saying: “The most important thing to the US is our economy. And besides, we should get a free pass on emissions mitigation because China and India are getting preferential treatment.”
Can anyone blame China if they say: “The most important thing to China is our economy. And besides, we should get a free pass on emissions mitigation because the US isn’t doing anything either.”
India will say the same thing as China.
Does anyone see a pattern here?
And is it perhaps clearer why it’s so important that the Paris accords represent a solidarity among all nations?
Of course. It’s the Prisoner’s Dilemma in real life. Economics 101.
Canada of course cannot simply cut off carbon emissions tomorrow because… well, it’s the prisoner’s dilemma, Economics 101. Unilateral action will simply impoverish Canada and reduce CO2 emissions by nothing. Canada must continue trying to get the communit y of nations to work together.
Regrettably, here we are; the President of the United States is a genuinely evil man who does not care about anything but himself. So we’ve hit a bump in the road here. What we need to do is keep the alliance of countries who believe in keeping the planet’s climate relatively stable together until Trump is gotten rid of. How precisely one does that, or what Canada must engage in to help in that regard, is a pretty complicated question, and the best option - a world free trade zone that excluded the Paris holdouts until they see reason - is not poltiically possible.
I’m not sure adopting Trump’s anti-immigrant, don’t-care-about-global-warming, and protectionist positions is a good way for Canada to claim the moral high ground and world-wide esteem. You know when he was talking about building a wall, he was talking about our southern border, not the northern one, right? Ditto about renegotiating NAFTA: we like you guys.
I’d submit to you that such an alliance doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s largely a figment of climate-change-activists’ imaginations. Take a look at this map of the world. Canada, Australia, Japan, and the EU weren’t serious about holding the planet’s climate relatively stable (defined by the Paris Accord as less than 2 degrees Celsius) even before the USA pulled out of the agreement.
I would, again, recommend reading an introductory economics textbook.
An economic agent will behave in a different way knowing that everyone else must also behave the same way than they will knowing they are acting on their own. CO2 emissions are effectively the tragedy of the commons writ very large. You are going to have a lot of difficulty getting me to pay any taxes if it’s voluntary, because no one else will. You’ll have no problem getting me to vote to continue imposing a reasonable tax burden when I know that I and everyone else has to pay them.
Of COURSE no one will really seriously tackle CO2 emissions on their own. It makes no sense to do so, because it won’t work.
Global warming is not evenly distributed. This is why the term has largely been abandoned in favour of Climate Change.
Fr’instance, let’s say that somewhere in the NWT that the average temperature is going to rise by 10 C, but the temperature in a southern city could drop by 5C. This is still a global average increase – but it’s pretty bad for those folks near the U.S. border.
At one point I saw a chart that showed everywhere in the world was warmer than normal EXCEPT Quebec.
The reason? Alterations to the jetstream caused by climate change mean colder, wetter winters and springs in eastern Canada.
What does this mean? It means more ice storms in winter instead of routine snowfalls or blizzards. It means more spring flooding because the thaw happens too quickly. It means more tornadoes, more unpredictable weather.
So your premise, that global warming will benefit Canada, is false.
Again, it has to be pointd out that climate change means the climate will change, not that we’ll just have warmer beach weather.
These are complicated systems. What CO2 emissions do is massively increase the amount of energy in the system, which, as I think should be obvious, will change the system. How precisely that system will change is not a predictable thing; it could just heat everything up a lot overall (which would be very bad) or heat up some places and cool others (also bad) or actually cool things down but make the world much windier and drier (super bad) or could result in changes to the very patterns and flows of heat - an end to the Gulf Stream, for instance, which would be catastrophic for, specifically, Europe.
At the risk of pointing out the incredibly obvious, the world’s population is distributed the way it is largely because of climate and geography. In places that will support huge numbers of people, like southeastern China, Java, or California, there are a great many people. In places where it’s not easy to support a large population, like northern Manitoba or the Amazon rainforest, there are not a great many people. Migration is generally a slow process. If you suddenly, dramatically change where people can or can’t live, either people will starve or they’ll fight to move, or both. The outcome of dramatic climate change that worries me isn’t “oh, it’s wetter in Miami than we’re used to.” What worries me is World War III.
Agreed, and some aspects of climate change are possibly even worse than you suggest. Migration is slow, yes, and (as we’re seeing so vividly today) and also politically charged. Some of the poorest and most densely populated countries are the most vulnerable to climate effects like floods, droughts, food crop failures, and a higher frequency of extreme weather events. Mass starvation in the tropical Americas or in Africa or India is going to create great geopolitical pressures and conflicts.
Biological adaptation (food crops, plant life in general) is even slower. Pest migration and new disease vectors are constant risks. Circulation changes like the Gulf Stream you mentioned are a possibility, but even more fundamental ones are possible, like major changes to the global thermohaline circulation that would drastically alter regional climates all over the world.
The key word here is destabilization – of the climate system, of the biosphere, and the potential for sudden tipping points in either or both. Undoubtedly some areas may seem some benefits, at least temporarily, but because of how finely tuned the elements of the climate and ecosystem are, and because of how the climate system reacts to the huge energy inputs of rapidly forced changes, the negative effects to humanity will greatly outweigh the bad, much like the equivalent of throwing a few sticks of dynamite into delicate machinery is likely to do far more harm than good.
Good luck with that. Canada doesn’t currently even meet the minimum NATO spending levels and hasn’t for quite a while. Even if they did, by some chance, have a change of heart and decide to start spending, your current levels of spending are around what the US spends on…NASA. 