Ambition Is Key

Since I was away for the past month, the blog had to go into hibernation. But now that I’m back, it’s woken up.

We’re July 17^th today, smack in the middle of the summer, so there obviously isn’t much political news. The 10 Premiers have spent the past few days meeting in Quebec City and seem to have reached a significant deal on labour mobility, but since the only thing I can find to say about this agreement is “How come it took you so long?” I’d prefer to comment on an event that occurred, yes, south of the border…

Al Gore made a speech today in which he challenged the United States “to commit to producing 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years,". Yes, that’s right, 100% clean electricity in ten years.

Mr. Gore’s challenge was of course immediately endorsed by both presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, but they also refused to include it in their election platform. Politically, a 20 % reduction of fossil fuel electricity production in 10 years is already a tough sell, so a 100 % reduction is simply suicide.

But that’s the kind of reduction that we’ll need to make if we seriously want to halt global warming. Let’s face it, a 20% reduction in western countries, offset by the development of China, India, Brazil and others, simply won’t cut it.

The bottom line is that there are 6.8 billion people in the world and that if they all reach the high standard of living that includes a car and air conditioned house, we will be polluting far too much for the earth to handle.

If we want to stop global warming while maintaining our standard of living, we will need to use new technologies that produce NEXT TO ZERO greenhouse gas emissions. Some of these technologies already exist, many more can be discovered, but this will only happen with pressure from the government.

Targets like the one Mr. Gore suggested demonstrate the unequivocal commitment of the government to tackling global warming. They send a clear message to the industry and encourage innovation more than any subsidy. We should adopt Mr. Gore’s target in Canada, and then go even further. Why not aim to make all cars bought in Canada 100% green by 2018? If the penalty for buying vehicles that run off gasoline were big enough (say $15 000), you’d find that all of a sudden, companies started innovating and hydrogen became affordable.

The idea is very simple. If the government makes pollution punitively expensive or even outlaws it, industry will be forced to adapt to keep its customers. But if the government sets weak targets, industry will stay put, technology will change very little and pollution levels will stay the same.