Canada has been consistent in our commitment to maintain a path to net-zero by 2050
Net zero by 2050 means essentially zero cars and trucks powered by hydrocarbons on the roads by then. That means we stop manufacturing and selling them by 2040 at latest. It takes car companies something like ten years to design a new model, so they have to commit to full electric transport or else start preparing to abandon the Canadian market by 2030. That’s four fucking years from now. There are similarly big problems elsewhere in industry and agriculture. Cleaning up the electric grid is the easy part and we haven’t even done that yet. Getting to net zero by 2050 would require a level of effort well beyond what was in view before Carney came along and destroyed al hope. I don’t think Canada is going to be leading the way on this one.
The technological silver bullets (solar, wind, batteries) do exist… but it’s just that we have to seize that opportunity that is sitting right in front of us, only being held back by oil interests.
Ford (car company) is making a new EV, I’m honestly a little surprised that the Japanese automakers are falling behind on this, but many manufacturers are already partway through that 10 year design cycle.
Whether it’s the design cycle, production planning, marketing, or the financial consequences, I don’t see any of the major American automakers being prepared to go electric only in ten years. Mind you maybe they’ll surprise me. I’m just going by casual observation of the news and a couple of random conversations with insiders. Of course they’re all making a new EV or two, hedging their bets in case they’re forced in that direction, but even in Europe where the regulators are generally more serious about such things the automakers managed to get their EV mandate scrapped. What’s more the plans are mostly just for passenger cars which leaves out quite a lot.
Net zero is absolutely possible, the technology exists, yes — after all it doesn’t take much fancy technology to not burn fossil fuels and when it comes to transportation it’s not hard to imagine reinventing passenger rail, rebuilding cities around public transport, living with a tiny fraction of the air travel we have today, investing heavily in sustainable agriculture, and so on. But it’s a much bigger change than seems to be commonly appreciated even among people who think it ought to be done and I don’t think the previous government of which Guilbeault was a part came anywhere near presenting a convincing case that they were on course to do it.
To your credit, “can we” and “will we” are two different questions related to achieving net zero, and the Canadian regulatory landscape doesn’t look too favourable.
However, Trump’s futile Iran war and resulting Hormuz closure, even if it is opening again soon, has destroyed oil & gas’ image as a stable, dependable and secure resource to base transport and industry off of. As much as fossil interests want to keep the blinders on, the world is changing and embracing green tech at such a remarkable scale, that it’s at this point a deliberate choice for Canada’s government to ignore.
