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	<title>The Narwhal | News on Climate Change, Environmental Issues in Canada</title>
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  <description>The Narwhal’s team of investigative journalists dives deep to tell stories about the natural world in Canada you can’t find anywhere else.</description>
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      <title>‘It’s Very Misleading’: Energy Experts Critique Canada’s Rosy Carbon Pricing Report</title>
      <link>https://thenarwhal.ca/it-s-very-misleading-energy-experts-critique-canada-s-rosy-carbon-pricing-report/?utm_source=rss</link>
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			<pubDate>Fri, 04 May 2018 23:42:59 +0000</pubDate>			
			<description><![CDATA[Earlier this week, the federal government published a bombshell report on carbon pricing, predicting that a nationwide price of $50 per tonne by 2022 will cut emissions by 80 to 90 million tonnes of carbon pollution. That’s equivalent to shutting down up to 23 coal-fired power plants or taking as many as 26 million cars...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure><img width="1400" height="822" src="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-1400x822.jpg" class="attachment-banner size-banner wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-1400x822.jpg 1400w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-760x446.jpg 760w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-1024x601.jpg 1024w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-450x264.jpg 450w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-20x12.jpg 20w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px" /><figcaption><small><em></em></small></figcaption></figure> <p>Earlier this week, the federal government published a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-action/pricing-carbon-pollution/estimated-impacts-federal-system.html" rel="noopener">bombshell report</a> on carbon pricing, predicting that a nationwide price of $50 per tonne by 2022 will cut emissions by 80 to 90 million tonnes of carbon pollution.</p>
<p>That&rsquo;s equivalent to shutting down up to 23 coal-fired power plants or taking as many as 26 million cars off the road. In other words, a pretty big deal for the climate.</p>
<p>The stunning news spread quickly in online circles, shared by renown energy economists, clean energy experts and pollsters.</p>
<p>Journalist Justin Ling <a href="https://twitter.com/Justin_Ling/status/990968002395942913" rel="noopener">tweeted</a>: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been an incredibly disingenuous effort to suggest that carbon pricing won&rsquo;t reduce CO2 emissions, or at least to contend that there&rsquo;s no evidence to support the claim. So Ottawa went and produced the research.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But nobody slowed down to check if the numbers were actually reflective of reality.</p>
<p>And they&rsquo;re not.</p>
<p><!--break--></p>
<p>The research that Ottawa went and produced isn&rsquo;t really evidenced-based at all.</p>
<p><a href="http://markjaccard.blogspot.ca/2018/04/canadian-carbon-pricing-confusions.html" rel="noopener">According to an analysis</a> by Simon Fraser University energy economist Mark Jaccard, the federal carbon pricing policy will only reduce emissions by 10 to 15 million tonnes below 2005 levels &mdash; but it will take until 2030 to get there.</p>
<p>So the federal government&rsquo;s claim of a 80 to 90 million tonnes reduction by 2022 is raising some eyebrows.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When I see that, I&rsquo;m like &lsquo;oh come on guys, you&rsquo;re trying to pull a fast one on us.&rsquo; &rdquo; Marc Lee, senior economist at the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives, told DeSmog Canada.</p>
<p>&ldquo;People who ought to know better are just uncritically praising it.&rdquo;</p>
<h2><strong>Carbon pricing being used as tool to justify new pipelines</strong></h2>
<p>This might just seem like a boring and wonkish debate over numbers. And in a way, it is.</p>
<p>But carbon pricing is currently playing a major role in the current climate policy landscape, viewed as the likes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley as a <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/carbon-tax-hike-trans-mountain-expansion-notley-1.4578353" rel="noopener">key bargaining chip</a> in the campaign to get Kinder Morgan&rsquo;s Trans Mountain Expansion built.</p>
<p>As a result, the amount of emissions that we think the policy can cut matters a great deal &mdash; especially if it&rsquo;s used to justify a new pipeline and subsequent oilsands expansion.</p>
<p>Carbon pricing can be a very <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/business/does-a-carbon-tax-work-ask-british-columbia.html" rel="noopener">effective tool</a> for increasing the cost of emitting. B.C. has been a <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/2015/05/20/b-c-s-prized-carbon-tax-primer">shining example</a> of a carbon tax that is both effective and popular with the public.</p>
<p>But disingenuous accounting has undermined faith in both the efficacy of putting a price on carbon emissions and the integrity of climate plans.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The federal climate plan, overall, is weak,&rdquo; said Laurie Adkin, political science professor at the University of Alberta, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.</p>
<p>&ldquo;They keep trying to dress it up, and the latest assessment of anticipated gains from the federal carbon tax may be part of that effort.&rdquo;</p>
<h2><strong>Analysis way overinflated current emissions</strong></h2>
<p>So what went so wrong with the federal government&rsquo;s analysis?</p>
<p>Well, for beginners, it didn&rsquo;t actually reference any specific numbers. The closest that they came to that was presenting a colourful graph with unclear metrics.</p>
<p><img src="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Report-2018.png" alt="" width="781" height="336"></p>
<p>As Bora Plumptre of the Pembina Institute put it: &ldquo;There are difficulties in actually assessing how they actually got the numbers that they did.&rdquo;</p>
<p>By manually drawing a straight line from the supposed emissions reduction to the vertical axis (yes, that&rsquo;s the only way of figuring it out) it appears that government assumes that carbon pricing will cut emissions to 680 megatonnes by 2022.</p>
<p>Given they&rsquo;re predicting 80 to 90 megatonnes in savings, that means that it thinks emissions without carbon pricing would be between 760 and 770 megatonnes without carbon pricing.</p>
<p>But at last count, Canada&rsquo;s greenhouse gas emissions were <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html" rel="noopener">704 megatonnes</a>. Even the country&rsquo;s highest year for emissions &mdash; in 2007, when we emitted 745 megatonnes &mdash; was considerably less polluting than what the federal government used in the analysis.</p>
<p>So the actual starting point appears inflated.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is a trick the Conservatives used many times to try to pretend their plans were actually doing a lot more than they were actually doing,&rdquo; Lee said.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada told DeSmog Canada that they were contacting a &ldquo;few different branches within the department&rdquo; for more detailed methodology of the carbon pricing analysis but didn&rsquo;t provide a response before deadline despite multiple extensions.</p>
<h2><strong>Government analysis ignored existing provincial carbon pricing </strong></h2>
<p>The analysis also assumed that the four provinces that currently have carbon pricing in place (B.C., Ontario, Quebec and Alberta) don&rsquo;t already have them in place.</p>
<p>You read that correctly.</p>
<p>B.C. introduced its carbon tax in 2008. Quebec brought its cap and trade scheme into existence in 2013.</p>
<p>For inexplicable reasons, the federal government simply pretended that wasn&rsquo;t the case and that four of the five highest polluting provinces in Canada didn&rsquo;t already have carbon pricing. In his critical breakdown of the analysis, Jaccard wrote that it&rsquo;s &ldquo;grossly misleading to suggest that current provincial pricing can be attributable to federal policy.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It also appears safe to assume that the modelling didn&rsquo;t include industry exemptions and subsidies like gasoline used on farms, or natural gas burned by conventional oil and gas producers, or a large chunk of completely unpriced emissions at oilsands mines via Alberta&rsquo;s convoluted <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/output-based-allocation-engagement.aspx" rel="noopener">output-based allocation system</a>.</p>
<p>Experts suggest there&rsquo;s also a chance that the federal government included significant emissions reductions accomplished by other policy measures.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very misleading, and also neglects that most of the impact is largely based on regulation, Lee said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t get rid of lead in gasoline because we had a lead tax that was phased in over 20 years. We just said &lsquo;no, you can&rsquo;t have lead in your gasoline after this date.&rsquo; &rdquo;</p>
<h2><strong>A steep carbon price needed for dramatic cuts</strong></h2>
<p>It&rsquo;s not like carbon pricing <em>couldn&rsquo;t</em> have these kind of reductions.</p>
<p>In fact, if you plug in a $50/tonne carbon price into the Pembina Institute&rsquo;s <a href="https://policysolutions.pembina.org/scenarios/home" rel="noopener">nifty new climate policy simulator</a>, it pops out 114 megatonnes in reductions by 2022.</p>
<p>But Plumptre caveated that by noting the simulator doesn&rsquo;t include any exemptions or subsidies, and treats all carbon pricing as a tax (instead of including more complex cap and trade schemes, used in Ontario and Quebec).</p>
<p>Furthermore, Pembina actually uses a considerably higher baseline emissions assumption than the federal government due to recently updated global warming potential factors and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/17/study-methane-emissions-from-alberta-oil-and-gas-wells-are-worse-than-thought" rel="noopener">higher rates of methane leakage</a>, which puts Canada even farther from its Paris targets.</p>
<p>Jaccard and his team at Simon Fraser also reported in a <a href="http://rem-main.rem.sfu.ca/papers/jaccard/Jaccard-Hein-Vass%20CdnClimatePol%20EMRG-REM-SFU%20Sep%2020%202016.pdf" rel="noopener">2016 analysis</a> that Canada could meet its Paris target with a $200/tonne carbon price by 2030.</p>
<p>But they concluded rather starkly: &ldquo; It is highly unlikely that our political leaders will implement such a price, given the severe political consequences.&rdquo;</p>
<p>So without such dramatic increases to the carbon tax and in the absence of transparent government accounting, experts are left scratching their heads at Ottawa&rsquo;s latest rosy report.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all just been this black box and they&rsquo;re basically saying &lsquo;trust us,&rsquo;&rdquo; Lee said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I feel like the federal government doesn&rsquo;t have much credibility on the climate file these days because they&rsquo;re saying &lsquo;we&rsquo;re all in favour of climate action and we&rsquo;re also in favour of pipelines,&rsquo; which we know are going to increase emissions and are specifically designed to allow the increase of production from the oilsands.&rdquo;</p>

<p><em><strong>The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/newsletter/?utm_source=rss">signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism</a>.</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Wilt]]></dc:creator>
			<category domain="post_cat"><![CDATA[In-Depth]]></category>			<category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Analysis]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Bora Pluptre]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Canada]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Carbon]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[carbon pricing]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[carbon tax]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[CCPA]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Climate]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[climate change]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Marc Lee]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Mark Jaccard]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[media]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[pembina institute]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Trans Mountain Pipeline]]></category>			<media:content url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-1400x822.jpg" fileSize="21246" type="image/jpeg" medium="image" width="1400" height="822"><media:credit></media:credit></media:content><media:thumbnail url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Canada-Carbon-Pricing-Climate-Change-2018-3-e1526160509848-1400x822.jpg" width="1400" height="822" />    </item>
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      <title>Four Whopping, Face-Palm Inducing Realities About Christy Clark&#8217;s LNG Obsession</title>
      <link>https://thenarwhal.ca/four-whopping-face-palm-inducing-realities-about-christy-clark-s-lng-obsession/?utm_source=rss</link>
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			<pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2016 18:01:08 +0000</pubDate>			
			<description><![CDATA[By Andrew Nikiforuk for The Tyee. The B.C. budget claims the province is making money from shale gas. But last month The Tyee&#160;showed&#160;the province is pouring more cash into the industry than it is getting back. In fact the only time the B.C. government made any money from shale gas was during a land lease...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure><img width="640" height="427" src="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1.jpg" class="attachment-banner size-banner wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1.jpg 640w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1-450x300.jpg 450w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1-20x13.jpg 20w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /><figcaption><small><em></em></small></figcaption></figure> <p><em>By Andrew Nikiforuk for <a href="http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/03/16/Whoopers-BC-LNG/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=031916-1&amp;utm_campaign=editorial-0316" rel="noopener">The Tyee</a>.</em></p>
<p>The B.C. budget claims the province is making money from shale gas. But last month The Tyee&nbsp;<a href="http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/02/29/Wacky-Accounting-Shale-Gas/" rel="noopener">showed</a>&nbsp;the province is pouring more cash into the industry than it is getting back.</p>
<p>In fact the only time the B.C. government made any money from shale gas was during a land lease boom nearly a dozen years ago. Ever since then, revenues have dwindled to next to nothing due to low royalties and taxpayer-funded subsidies to the ailing shale gas industry.</p>
<p>Dig deeper, and four more claims made by the B.C. government turn out to be liquefied natural gas whoppers as well.</p>
<p>New information on employment numbers, shale gas reserves, transmission lines and the LNG promise of economic prosperity show that stretching the truth remains a persistent trend in the Christy Clark administration.</p>
<p><!--break--></p>
<p><strong>Whopper #1: Vastly less gas to sell than claimed</strong></p>
<p>Let's begin with the government&nbsp;<a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Opinion+natural+bounty+export+real+imagined/11223474/story.html" rel="noopener">claim</a>&nbsp;that British Columbia "has more than an estimated 2,900 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of marketable shale gas reserves," or more methane in the ground than the entire United States.
Last year David Hughes, a former analyst with Natural Resources Canada who mapped much of the nation's coal and gas supplies, took a hard look at real reserves and found that the government claim had no basis in reality.</p>
<p>Hughes pointed out in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/clear-look-bc-lng" rel="noopener">report</a>&nbsp;for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that the BC Oil and Gas Commission estimated that B.C. only had 376 tcf of marketable shale resources. (Hughes added 40 tcf to this number for good measure, for a total of 416 tcf, to account for possible resources in developing plays.)</p>
<p>But proven reserves, or what industry can extract with existing technology, were only 44.4 tcf. That's one sixty-fifth of the government's inflated figure of 2,900 tcf. When Hughes noted that the emperor was wearing no clothes, the emperor (Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman) accused Hughes of misrepresenting the facts.</p>
<p>Coleman wrote an&nbsp;<a href="https://news.gov.bc.ca/factsheets/opinion-editorial---british-columbias-natural-gas-supports-long-term-prosperity" rel="noopener">op-ed</a>&nbsp;that said "B.C.'s natural gas supports long-term prosperity." The op-ed did not correct the government's accounting errors.</p>
<p>But according to a series of freedom of information requests&nbsp;<a href="http://www.policynote.ca/bc-governments-spin-cycle-on-lng/" rel="noopener">just received</a>&nbsp;by Marc Lee at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, that's not what civil servants were telling politicians.</p>
<p>In several email exchanges, they admitted that the government had used the wrong terminology and "misused terms or values such as 'reserves,' 'resources,' or 'marketable' in describing B.C.'s oil and gas endowment."</p>
<p>Hughes notes that the BC Oil and Gas Commission now estimates raw methane reserves in the province to be 51 tcf. Once processed, that gas might amount to 44.4 tcf.</p>
<p>Yet National Energy Board regulators had already approved 12 export permits totalling 205 tcf at the time Hughes's report was published, and were reviewing seven more with a combined total of 435 tcf (the NEB has since approved another six permits).</p>
<p>If the Clark government's aspirations of five LNG terminals come to fruition, this would require exports of 150 tcf of gas by 2040, or more than three times current proven marketable reserves.</p>
<p>Given the uncertainties in resource estimates compared to proven reserves, coupled with Canada's own needs, Hughes, a conservative energy analyst, questions the wisdom of a strategy hell-bent on liquidating these finite resources as fast as possible, particularly if B.C. and Canada care about meeting the greenhouse gas emission reductions committed to in the Paris climate talks. Yet the dubious figure of 2,900 tcf&nbsp;<a href="https://www.britishcolumbia.ca/invest/industry-sectors/natural-gas/" rel="noopener">remains</a>&nbsp;on the government website.</p>
<p><strong>Whopper #2: Vastly fewer LNG jobs than claimed</strong></p>
<p>The next wacky accounting LNG figure concerns the government claim that its non-existent industry will gainfully employ 100,000 British Columbians some great day in some near future, or more specifically 2018.
Last year, Lee at the CCPA also dug into that fiction.</p>
<p>He discovered that the impressive and magical number came from a report written by the accounting firm Grant Thornton. The firm only used government-provided data and economic models.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly the government published the report just prior to the 2013 election. In his study Lee found the numbers were highly inflated and bore no resemblance to the real economic world of LNG.</p>
<p>Lee&nbsp;<a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/BC%20Office/2015/07/ccpa-bc_LNG_Employment_web.pdf" rel="noopener">concluded</a>&nbsp;that B.C.'s LNG sector could be expected to support "only 2,000 to 3,000 construction jobs per LNG terminal over three years and 200 to 300 permanent workers once operational." As a consequence, five LNG terminals might create between 15,000 short-time jobs, but not 100,000.</p>
<p>When Lee released his findings last year the government immediately attacked the CCPA report as "misguided and poorly researched."</p>
<p>A freedom of information request, however, has revealed, once again, that email exchanges between civil servants largely supported Lee's version: real job creation numbers might be a few thousand but not 100,000.
One email thread confirms that the Petronas Pacific NorthWest LNG project will launch only "330 long-term operation careers."</p>
<p>Clear-headed analyses by the industry around the world also confirm Lee's realistic job assessment and question the government's credibility. The International Monetary Fund, for example,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/dp/2014/afr1404.pdf" rel="noopener">recognizes</a>&nbsp;LNG as a capital-intensive industry with a poor record of job creation. A typical LNG plant will only create a few hundred jobs during the planning phase, a few thousand during the construction phase, and only a few hundred when operating. That's it.</p>
<p>Consider the example of Mozambique, which wants to exploit its rich offshore natural gas reserves. A 2014&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NG-86.pdf" rel="noopener">report</a>&nbsp;on its prospects emphasized the well-known fact that LNG is not a job-creating industry. "In terms of employment, the capital intensive nature of the industry means that its direct contribution to job creation is extremely limited, at less than 0.5 per cent of formal sector jobs," explained the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies report.</p>
<p>"Of key importance will be the ability to link the extractive sector &mdash; which is capital intensive and responsible for few direct jobs &mdash; to the wider economy," added the report.</p>
<p>And then the report makes this notable revelation: "Unlike the situation in Tanzania, where politicians frequently promise citizens tens of thousands of jobs in the gas industry, the Mozambique government's expectations of massive job creation have already been moderated. Most estimates put job creation linked to the LNG ventures at around 7,000&ndash;7,500."</p>
<p>To date, a million-dollar government&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-website-for-lng-job-opportunities-lacks-jobs-1.3459806" rel="noopener">website</a>&nbsp;designed to connect citizens looking for work in the LNG industry has not connected anybody to anything. But it has employed one previous politician, Gordon Wilson, a former leader of the BC Liberal party.</p>
<p>Wilson now earns $150,000 a year to advocate for a capital-intensive industry that hasn't created any jobs &mdash; except for Clark supporters.</p>
<p>In Australia, LNG has left another poor employment horror show that the government in B.C. has failed to study or acknowledge. Unfettered LNG exports in Australia not only increased both natural gas and electricity costs for consumers, but also reduced the manufacturing sector's ability to compete and create jobs.</p>
<p>"U.S. policymakers should look to the Australian LNG export example as a warning for what can occur due to escalating LNG exports," recently&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ieca-us.com/wp-content/uploads/10.03.14_Australia-LNG-Article_Senate1.pdf" rel="noopener">warned</a>&nbsp;one industrial energy consumers' group. In other words, a successful LNG business could kill the province's manufacturing base by inflating natural gas prices.</p>
<p><strong>Whopper #3: No, LNG prosperity is not close at hand</strong></p>
<p>Along with the jobs fiction, the government has also manufactured a prosperity fiction. In February the Conference Board of Canada published a glowing&nbsp;<a href="http://www.conferenceboard.ca/e-library/abstract.aspx?did=7726" rel="noopener">report</a>&nbsp;on the province's proposed 21 LNG projects called "A Changing Tide: British Columbia's Emerging Liquefied Natural Gas Industry."</p>
<p>Even though not one project has proceeded to the construction phase, the optimistic report concluded that just three large LNG terminals could export 30 million tons per annum (MTPA).</p>
<p>Such activity would generate 33,000 permanent jobs and $7 billion in investment and raise GDP. It would also double the amount of shale gas production by an additional five billion cubic feet, and carpet-bomb much of northeastern B.C. with gas wells.</p>
<p>But these figures are all pie in the sky and again bear no resemblance to reality.</p>
<p>Here's one bitter taste of reality. Most readers will recall that Apache Corp., a Houston-based energy firm, conducted some of the largest frack jobs in northern B.C. and was one of the first companies to champion an LNG terminal. But in 2014 it sold its interests in its Kitimat proposal along with an Australian project. Here's why: last year the shale fracking company&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2016/02/25/apache-reports-multibillion-dollar-loss-cuts.html" rel="noopener">posted a loss</a>&nbsp;of nearly $25 billion. That's right: $25 billion. Fracking shale gas, an exercise in declining returns, rarely pays the bills.</p>
<p>More reality can be found in a 2015&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/NG-98.pdf" rel="noopener">report</a>&nbsp;by Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, a rigorous non-profit educational group based in London that analyzed the prospects for North America's LNG industry.</p>
<p>It was blunt: "Despite Canada's abundance of gas resources and the plethora of proposed LNG export schemes, the current business environment, characterized by low oil prices and industry consolidation, does not indicate that any Canadian LNG scheme will be commissioned before the middle of the next decade."</p>
<p>Moreover, "the window of opportunity to capture premium Asian markets has eluded the Canadian projects" because of deep uncertainty and falling demand in those markets. U.S. LNG projects are also cheaper.</p>
<p>The report concluded that the fate of Canadian projects is tied to the price of oil, and they would only succeed if oil were selling for somewhere between $76 to $90 a barrel, "which does not seem competitive with the first generation" of U.S. LNG projects.</p>
<p>In other words there is no emerging LNG industry in Canada, and if one does appear it won't arrive until 2025, or nearly a decade from now. And even that is uncertain.</p>
<p>The Conference Board (which makes no mention of the Oxford Institute report) was funded by Progress Energy, which is owned by Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned oil giant backing the Pacific NorthWest LNG project.</p>
<p>Most media stories on the report failed to mention this apparent conflict of interest. But the government of B.C. is only too happy to cite this as gospel while cheerleading a fantasy industry.</p>
<p><strong>Whopper #4: Yes, Site C dam is for powering frackers</strong></p>
<p>Last but not least come some wacky accounting numbers on the Site C dam, a $9-billion public works project that analysts generally agree will increase everyone's electricity bills. Although provincial authorities swear the project has nothing to do with LNG, Ben Parfitt, an investigative journalist, has&nbsp;<a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/2016/02/04/ever-wondered-why-site-c-rhymes-lng">revealed</a>&nbsp;otherwise in a DeSmog Canada article.</p>
<p>Last January, the province announced a new $300-million transmission line to power shale gas development in the south Peace Region. Two other transmission lines are also being proposed. The lines will allow shale gas drillers to use electricity to power their operations instead of methane.</p>
<p>As a consequence they'll have more gas to export and access to cheap energy subsidized by taxpayers.</p>
<p>What the press release did not explain, notes Parfitt, is that "virtually all of this new transmission infrastructure is being built at public expense to provide power to one entity and one entity alone &mdash; the natural gas industry."</p>
<p>Two other proposed lines reinforce the story. One 140 kilometre-long project will fragment the forest to bring power to the Pink Mountain Region in the north Montney basin. It will benefit one shale gas extractor in particular: Progress Energy.</p>
<p>That shale gas drilling company is owned by Petronas, which successfully lobbied the government to lower its LNG tax rates. Meanwhile, Progress Energy paid for the boosterish Conference Board report.</p>
<p>Petronas is also one of the backers of the controversial Pacific NorthWest LNG project off Lelu Island at the mouth of the Skeena River.</p>
<p>ATCO, the anointed builder of the Petronas transmission line, recently&nbsp;<a href="http://prrd.bc.ca/board/agendas/2015/2015-35-821874477/pages/documents/14-b-CA-7ATCOQuestions_NMPS.pdf" rel="noopener">argued</a>&nbsp;that no public review of the project was necessary and asked for an exemption under Section 22 of the Utilities Commission Act.</p>
<p>"The project is being developed on an aggressive schedule to meet with Progress [Energy] timelines. Failure to meet these timelines reduces the feasibility of electrification and poses a substantial threat to the project proceeding."</p>
<p>Energy Minister Bill Bennett&nbsp;<a href="https://www.biv.com/article/2015/11/peace-power-plans-cant-wait-public-review-minister/" rel="noopener">supported</a>&nbsp;the corporate request in a Business in Vancouver story: "My understanding right now is that if I do not direct the BCUC [British Columbia Utilities Commission] to allow these projects to go ahead, that we may lose some interest on the part of the gas companies&hellip;. They just don't feel that they can wait for a long BCUC process."</p>
<p>When politicians elect to bypass mandated legislated safeguards to protect the public purse by evaluating the need for projects (and that's what the BCUC does), then they are no longer working for taxpayers.</p>
<p>But the logic is clear, says Parfitt. "The more transmission lines erected to allegedly 'green up' the field operations of fossil fuel companies, the more fossil fuel industry activity. The more such activity, the more the government and BC Hydro can justify Site C."</p>
<p>It's all a self-serving story. The government produces wacky numbers and accounting figures to justify corporate LNG scheming that no longer make any economic sense.</p>
<p>Years ago Jacque Ellul, the French philosopher, noted that "propaganda is called upon to solve the problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world." It's how government and industry now work.</p>
<p>In B.C. the government uses propaganda not only to integrate its citizens into its wacky LNG fantasy, but to subsidize foreign companies and pay for unneeded dams and transmission lines at the same time.
It is designed to make taxpayers smile while they are being robbed.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Image: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChristyClarkForBC/photos_stream" rel="noopener">Facebook</a></em></p>

<p><em><strong>The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/newsletter/?utm_source=rss">signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism</a>.</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[ictinus]]></dc:creator>
						<category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Analysis]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Andrew Nikiforuk]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[B.C.]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Christy Clark]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Christy Clark climate change]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[David Hughes]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[emissions]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[fracking]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[LNG]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Marc Lee]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[royalties]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[transmission lines]]></category>			<media:content url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1-300x200.jpg" fileSize="4096" type="image/jpeg" medium="image" width="300" height="200"><media:credit></media:credit></media:content><media:thumbnail url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Christy-Clark-LNG-1-300x200.jpg" width="300" height="200" />    </item>
	    <item>
      <title>Global Carbon Budget Means Canada’s Fossil Fuels a Risky Investment</title>
      <link>https://thenarwhal.ca/global-carbon-budget-means-canada-s-fossil-fuels-risky-investment/?utm_source=rss</link>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost.com/narwhal/2013/10/31/global-carbon-budget-means-canada-s-fossil-fuels-risky-investment/</guid>
			<pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2013 16:04:33 +0000</pubDate>			
			<description><![CDATA[In its latest report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave global greenhouse gas emissions a worldwide limit, know as the global &#8216;carbon budget.&#8217; In order to prevent temperatures from rising above the 2 C threshold scientists have designated to avoid &#8220;dangerous&#8221; climate change, total global emissions need to stay within about 921 billion...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure><img width="618" height="419" src="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM.png" class="attachment-banner size-banner wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM.png 618w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM-300x203.png 300w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM-450x305.png 450w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM-20x14.png 20w" sizes="(max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px" /><figcaption><small><em></em></small></figcaption></figure> <p>In its latest report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave global greenhouse gas emissions a worldwide limit, know as the global &lsquo;carbon budget.&rsquo; In order to prevent temperatures from rising above the 2 C threshold scientists have designated to avoid &ldquo;dangerous&rdquo; climate change, total global emissions need to stay within about 921 billion tonnes or gigatonnes (Gt).</p>
<p>As Marc Lee, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/global-carbon-budget-is-a-harsh-reality-check-for-canadian-investors/article15158549/" rel="noopener">recently pointed out</a>, the carbon budget &ldquo;should be a wake-up call for Canada.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;With a development model based on ever more fossil fuel extraction, Canada&rsquo;s economy and financial markets are on a collision course with the urgent need for global climate action,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p><!--break--></p>
<p>As Lee explains the global carbon budget of 921 Gt gives the planet a 66 per cent chance of staying within the 2 C limit. But that chance gets drastically worse if we surpass the budget: emitting as much as 1068 Gt leaves us with a mere 50 per cent chance.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/files/Screen%20Shot%202013-10-31%20at%209.08.57%20AM.png"></p>
<p>The warming potential of all global carbon assets via the Carbon Tracker Initiative's report <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/07/Unburnable-Carbon-Full-rev2.pdf" rel="noopener">Unburnable Carbon</a>.</p>
<p>Canada&rsquo;s portion of the emissions pie would depend on negotiations, but would likely end up being between 4 (given our population size) and 24 Gt (given our gross domestic product).</p>
<p>When pooled together, however, Canada&rsquo;s proven reserves of bitumen, oil, natural gas and coal add up to 91 Gt. If you add our probable reserves in you end up with a whopping grand total of 174 Gt.</p>
<p>Even if Canada&rsquo;s negotiators were shrewd, Lee allows, and end up with a 30 Gt national budget because Canada relies on fossil fuel exports, still two-thirds of Canada&rsquo;s proven reserves, and 83 per cent of proven-plus-probable reserves would need to remain unburnt.</p>
<p>As Lee writes, this has significant impact on Canada&rsquo;s financial market:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"This math should alarm institutional investors, and pension funds in particular &ndash; because stock market valuations are premised on fossil-fuel-producing companies extracting those resources. Analysts have called this a 'carbon bubble' in our financial markets.</p>
<p>This is bad news for the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), which is highly weighted toward the fossil fuel sector, with total market capitalization of fossil fuel companies of about $400-billion to $500-billion. Fossil fuel companies account for about 24 per cent of the total value of the S&amp;P/TSX composite index."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/07/Unburnable-Carbon-Full-rev2.pdf" rel="noopener">report</a> recently released by the <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/" rel="noopener">Carbon Tracker Initiative</a> shows that &ldquo;currently financial markets have an unlimited capacity to treat fossil fuel reserves as assets.&rdquo; This unchecked incorporation of what are already considered unburnable carbon reserves is a major market failure, write the report&rsquo;s authors, that is &ldquo;creating systemic risks for institutional investors, notably the threat of fossil fuel assets becoming stranded as the shift to a low-carbon economy accelerates.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The concept of &ldquo;stranded assets&rdquo; made international headlines last week after a <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/investors-challenge-fossil-fuel-companies" rel="noopener">coalition of 70 investors worth $3 trillion</a> pressured 45 of the biggest oil and gas companies to deal with this concern.</p>
<p>The very real limitations placed on the value of Canada&rsquo;s carbon assets due to their impact on climate change also casts the Harper Government&rsquo;s position on resource development in a new light.</p>
<p>Recently Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver <a href="http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/media-room/news-release/2013/7456" rel="noopener">told the World Energy Congress</a> in Daegu, South Korea that &ldquo;expanding and diversifying our energy exports is a top priority of the Canadian government.&rdquo;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Canada is well placed to meet the growing demand for oil and gas. Canada is the world&rsquo;s fifth-largest producer of oil and has the third-largest proven reserves &ndash; 172 billion barrels, of which 168 billion are from the oil sands. Canada is the world&rsquo;s fifth-largest producer of natural gas, with recoverable gas resources approaching 1,300 trillion cubic feet &ndash; some 200 years of production at current rates,&rdquo; he said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In addition to having enormous carbon reserves, Canada is <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/2013/10/25/canada-massively-fails-meet-copenhagen-targets-calls-it-progress">failing to adequately manage its current emissions </a>output. According to a new <a href="http://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/985F05FB-4744-4269-8C1A-D443F8A86814/1001-Canada's%20Emissions%20Trends%202013_e.pdf" rel="noopener">Environment Canada report</a>, Canada&rsquo;s carbon emissions in 2020 will be 20 per cent higher than the Harper Government&rsquo;s promised reductions under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord.</p>
<p>Canada&rsquo;s emissions are set to be 66-107 per cent higher than its required reductions to avoid more than 2 C of warming.</p>
<p><em>Image Credit: Cover image from the <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/" rel="noopener">Carbon Tracker Initiative</a>'s report <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/07/Unburnable-Carbon-Full-rev2.pdf" rel="noopener">Unburnable Carbon</a>.</em></p>

<p><em><strong>The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/newsletter/?utm_source=rss">signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism</a>.</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Linnitt]]></dc:creator>
						<category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Canada]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[carbon budget]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[carbon pollution]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[CCPA]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Climate]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[greenhouse gas emissions]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[IPCC]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Joe Oliver]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Marc Lee]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[oilsands]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[tar sands]]></category>			<media:content url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM-300x203.png" fileSize="4096" type="image/png" medium="image" width="300" height="203"><media:credit></media:credit></media:content><media:thumbnail url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-10-31-at-9.07.42-AM-300x203.png" width="300" height="203" />    </item>
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      <title>Canada in the Era of Unburnable Carbon</title>
      <link>https://thenarwhal.ca/canada-era-unburnable-carbon/?utm_source=rss</link>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost.com/narwhal/2013/09/30/canada-era-unburnable-carbon/</guid>
			<pubDate>Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:41:08 +0000</pubDate>			
			<description><![CDATA[Investments in the oil, gas and coal industry are starting to lose their value and will become a liability based on a major UN report released today. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change&#39;s (IPCC) 2000+page report confirms that Canada must keep more than 75% of its fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Forget peak...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure><img width="640" height="427" src="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM.png" class="attachment-banner size-banner wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM.png 640w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM-300x200.png 300w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM-450x300.png 450w, https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM-20x13.png 20w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /><figcaption><small><em></em></small></figcaption></figure> <p>Investments in the oil, gas and coal industry are starting to lose their value and will become a liability based on a major UN report released today. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/%23.UkljVhZ6z-g" rel="noopener">2000+page report</a> confirms that Canada must keep more than 75% of its fossil fuel reserves in the ground.</p>
<p>Forget peak oil. This is the era of Unburnable Carbon.</p>
<p>In the IPCC report summarizing more than 9000 new climate research papers confirmed that only so much fossil fuel can be burned to keep global warming under 2C, the internationally agreed on cap. Written by hundreds of the world's leading scientists from 39 countries, the report also confirmed that half to two thirds of the 2C carbon budget have already been used up.</p>
<p><!--break--></p>
<p>At the current 'burn rate' the remaining carbon budget will only last 15 or so years. And that's to have a 50% chance of staying below 2C of warming. No scientist regards 2C as 'safe.' The heating will be wildly uneven and spawn extreme weather events beyond any ever experienced in human history.</p>
<p>What is the liability of companies continuing to produce and profit from their carbon stocks?</p>
<p>"It's the reserves of oil, gas and coal that props up the stock prices of the industry," said David Cadman, President of ICLEI, the only network of sustainable cities operating worldwide. More than 1200 cities in the network are on their way to reducing their emissions 20% by 2020 and 80% reductions by 2050.</p>
<p>"This 'carbon bubble' is going to burst. What are the consequences for Canada now that we've tied ourselves to the fossil fuel industry?" Cadman, a Vancouver city councilor, told DeSmog.</p>
<p>At least 78% of Canada&rsquo;s proven oil, bitumen, gas, and coal reserves, and 89% of proven-plus-probable reserves need to remain underground according to a<a href="http://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/fossil-fuel-divestment-necessary-order-avoid-carbon-bubble-study" rel="noopener"> 2013 study</a> by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).</p>
<p>"Business-as-usual for the fossil fuel industry is incompatible with the need to keep the global temperature increase to 2 degrees C or less," said CCPA Senior Economist Marc Lee.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"We are in need of a &lsquo;managed retreat&rsquo; from fossil fuel investments," Lee said in a <a href="http://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/fossil-fuel-divestment-necessary-order-avoid-carbon-bubble-study" rel="noopener">press release</a>.</p>
<p>Some of the <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/04/climate-change-two-degree-rise-ever-more-likely-scientists-warn/" rel="noopener">first calculations</a> about the size of the 2C carbon budget were published in the leading scientific journal Nature four years ago. That same year the first-ever Indigenous Peoples&rsquo; Global Summit on Climate Change ended with a<a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/04/climate-change-burden-lies-with-rich-polluters-native-people-say/" rel="noopener"> call to phase-out of fossil fuels</a>.</p>
<p>The fact that carbon or CO2 traps heat from the sun was established more than 120 years ago. Burning fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities puts additional CO2 into the atmosphere where it remains essentially forever.</p>
<p>It is hardly surprising &ndash; and is certainly not scientifically controversial &ndash; that additional CO2 in the atmosphere acts as insulation, trapping heat. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Humanity has already pumped out 531 billion tons of carbon* the IPCC confirmed. The resulting warming is now 0.85C and on its way to between 1.0 and 1.2C.</p>
<p>Add roughly 1 trillion tons of additional carbon* to the atmosphere and the blanket will be so thick the surface of the entire planet will heat up on average of 2C.</p>
<p>This heating, however, will not be even. The Arctic and the north will heat up 6 to 8C due to a process called <a href="http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/arctic-polar-amplification-effect" rel="noopener">Arctic Amplification</a>. That guarantees the end of the Arctic sea ice in summers and major but unknown changes to the weather of the Northern hemisphere. It would also mean the end of the Greenland ice sheet, raising sea levels 7 meters over the next 1000 years. Local effects on Canada's northern region will be profound from collapsing permafrost, increased flooding in some regions and fires in others. And in this new climate there will be major impacts on wildlife and vegetation.</p>
<p>And that's the 50-50 budget: With that much CO2 there is a 50% chance of heating up more than 2C. And scientists acknowledge this budget doesn't include positive feedbacks like emissions from thawing permafrost that they know are draining the carbon account but not by how much.</p>
<p>Given the deadly serious consequences of blowing the budget, there is a high incentive to stay well under the budget cap. But the opposite is happening. Billions of dollars are being wasted by banks, investment funds and pension plans on the oil, gas, and coal industry's efforts to get more carbon out the ground.</p>
<p>None of this is theoretical. Lord Stern, the former World Bank chief economist, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/29/carbon-budget-talks-urgent-ipcc-lord-stern" rel="noopener">said on Sunday</a> that the effort required to stay within the budget must be addressed as a matter of urgency.</p>
<p>"Delay is dangerous because greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere and because we are locking in high carbon infrastructure and capital."</p>
<p>Lord Stern told the Guardian that cutting carbon emissions "will be full of opportunity, discovery, innovation and growth," if there is sound public policy.</p>
<p><em>*Correction: this originally stated 531 billion tons of CO2 had been pumped into the atmosphere rather than carbon. Note&nbsp;1 ton of carbon = 3.67 tons of CO2.</em></p>
<p><em>Image Credit: Kris Krug</em></p>

<p><em><strong>The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/newsletter/?utm_source=rss">signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism</a>.</strong></em></p>]]></content:encoded>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Leahy]]></dc:creator>
						<category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Canada]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[CCPA]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Climate]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[climate change]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[David Cadman]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[fossil fuels]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[global warming]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[investment]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[IPCC]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[Marc Lee]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[tar sands]]></category><category domain="post_tag"><![CDATA[unburnable carbon]]></category>			<media:content url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM-300x200.png" fileSize="4096" type="image/png" medium="image" width="300" height="200"><media:credit></media:credit></media:content><media:thumbnail url="https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2013-09-30-at-9.53.51-AM-300x200.png" width="300" height="200" />    </item>
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