Stéphane Dion: Zwei unbequeme Klimawahrheiten

Mr. Dion is wrong. Not that climate change is barrelling ahead or that humans aren’t responsible for it, or that there isn’t more we can do to avoid climate failure. He is wrong that climate change is a „fight“ at all. This framing guarantees failure.

Hydrocarbons are the cheapest form of **consistent** energy on the planet. It’s byproducts are used to make fertilizer needed to feed billions of people, as well as microprocessors that are used in all technology, including the automation of nuclear facilities. This means that if we make hydrocarbons more expensive, whether by adding pigouvian taxes (carbon tax) or simply limiting production, people’s quality of life will drop. Many people, mostly in the third world, will starve. This will make transferring to greener energy supplies expensive and unpopular.

This in not a fight. It is a transfer. And the only out is forward, as China has already discovered. We should make energy as cheap as possible, so that things like nuclear and wind are less expensive to produce. The idea that turning the oil faucet in Canada down will produce any other outcome other than russia or saudi arabia turning their faucets up is naive. We live in a global energy market. If there is demand, supply will come from somewhere—either the US, new wells in Africa, Argentina, you name it. Stopping supply from coming from Canada changes nothing.

Many who are wrongly convinced that limiting production is a solution will point to Canada’s carbon rich „heavy crude“ as the reason why we should block our own production. That is also wrong. Canadian heavy crude is never the first choice in making things like gasoline. Heavy crude is only the primary choice for things like roads and heavy fuels for industrial purposes like shipping. We still need roads, we still need shipping. Making heavy crude more expensive doesn’t make those needs less needed, it just means more expense gets passed along to end users.

I am all for transitioning to a green economy. But hydrocarbon energy is not like other things. There will be no transition if oil prices surge. Look at interest rates since the strait of hormuz closed. Try building nuclear power without cheap debt. It’s not possible, unless you accept major inflation. Which in a democracy, is not popular. We need some realism from the left on this issue.