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Have you noticed that whenever you start talking with someone who opposes climate change action in Canada, they ask, "What about China?" They argue that since China is responsible for such a high percentage of global emissions, (35 per cent), then why should Canada bother trying to curtail its small 1.4 per cent contribution?
The answer is simple: we should be decreasing our emissions because we've committed to significant reductions, and the rest of the world is decarbonizing. Numerically, 1.4 percent might seem insignificant but it means that one out of every 70 tonnes of greenhouse gases in the world comes from Canada.
So, let's explore the "What about China?" question. In 2023, Canada added 0.4 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity, mostly in Alberta. In contrast, China increased its solar capacity by over 220 GW — more than the rest of the world combined. China is headed to one terawatt of installed solar capacity by 2026, more than six times Canada’s total generating capacity from all sources. Yes, China is still building coal plants, but Chinese coal plants run only at half capacity with new plants often replacing older ones, or both new and old being used more and more only during peak demand periods.
So, what about China? The answer is its energy transition is happening at an astounding pace, highlighting our own anemic efforts. We must look to China because its green shift has major repercussions for the world, including here in Canada. In particular, China’s progress will disrupt two of Canada’s key legacy industries: oil and cars.
Oil and gas production accounted for more than six per cent of Canadian GDP, while automotive manufacturing accounted for around one per cent. In an economy that encompasses $2.5 trillion of total activity, that's a heavy dependence on these two industries.
China is also the world's largest oil importer at 11 million barrels per day, which represents 23 per cent of the market for imported crude today. Twenty years ago China only imported 2.5 million barrels per day. For perspective, Europe's oil demand declined by 20 per cent during the same period. (30.4 to 24.5 Terajoules)
If you were looking to place your heavy oil from Alberta, building a pipeline to the West Coast to access China would seem like a good idea — right? Well, maybe 10 or 20 years ago. But China is making such decarbonization headway that an analyst recently declared the nation is past peak oil demand. Instead of growth, we can expect a steady decline from now on. Think about that. The world's largest buyer of imported oil is about to reverse course — which means the outlook for Trudeau's controversial tripling of the Trans Mountain pipeline’s capacity continues to worsen. Without China driving world oil demand, oil prices will likely fall.
The price drop will be exacerbated by major new world supplies expected to come online in the next few years. The IEA and others are predicting peak oil by 2030, meaning overall global demand will begin its long slide to net zero. Don't believe it? It's already happened in Europe and China is soon to follow.
So, where does that leave Canada? We're about to see the difference between oil scarcity and a big surplus in a declining market. Our oilsands, one of the world's most expensive to produce and lowest quality oils, will not fare well in such an environment.
As for cars, China represents more than 30 per cent of the world’s market for car sales and more than 30 per cent of global manufacturing capacity. Sales in China have grown exponentially over the past 20 years. Initially, a large portion of that vehicle demand was met by legacy brands like Volkswagen and Toyota. Chinese manufacturers have now turned that around by producing some of the world's best cars, both electric and gas-powered, at low prices.
The Chinese now supply a significant and growing portion of vehicles sold in their own country and are establishing manufacturing facilities internationally. They are in the running for the world’s largest exporter of cars and legacy manufacturers are feeling the heat on this relationship reversal with China. “There are no more cheques coming from China,” the CEO of Volkswagen is reported as saying.
You've heard about the U.S., with Canada in tow, slapping tariffs on Chinese EVs and batteries for "unfair competition," even as both countries provide massive subsidies to their own industries. This issue goes beyond EVs. China's shift toward self-sufficiency and international competition is shaking global industries on three fronts.
First, legacy brands’ share of the world’s largest market is shrinking due to strong price competition from Chinese domestic manufacturers. Volkswagen has discussed closing some plants in Germany partly due to this pressure. Second, Chinese automakers are fierce competitors building cars for the future, not the past. While North American manufacturers focus on large SUVs and trucks, Chinese vehicles are often smaller and more affordable.
Third, in battery technology, where Canada is trying to buy its way in, China owns two thirds of the global market. They’re conducting groundbreaking research on sodium batteries and solid-state batteries that could revolutionize EV range and charging times. Our battery plants could be obsolete before they even open.
So, what about China? They're eating our lunch. We can debate about unfair competition or not, but they're running full speed toward the future while we're stuck in the past. Our response has been protectionist tariffs aimed at shielding our vehicle and battery industries in a country that's not adapting fast enough while heavily subsidizing an oilsands pipeline for a shrinking market.
We’re spending tens of billions in the wrong places for this shift, like the almost 60 billion in subsidies to battery plants while barely growing our solar. Or tens of billions expected in subsidies from the federal and Alberta governments for carbon sequestration in the sunsetting oilsands industry. The green transition is well underway and it’s leaving us behind. It’s time Canada started looking forward — not back.
Comments
Right on! The Electric Viking (Sam Evans), on his YouTube channel, claims data from China shows auto sales now show EV sales now exceed 50% of total sales, and increasing rapidly. Legacy car makers (like Toyota, VW, Ford, et.) are giving up on China partly because Chinese cars are cheaper and better. Only Tesla is holding its own. The data shows China may already have passed peak demand for oil. The future is bleak for Canada's oil industry. Unfortunately our government is wasting time trying to support oil and gas and car manufacturing (The past), while almost ignoring green energy opportunities (the future). High tariffs on Chinese cars is shortsighted from a climate perspective, since it delays more widespread adoption of EVs. Further, the massive government support for carbon capture and storage (which has no future) and oil and gas/fracking would be much better spent on growing charging capacity for EVs, improvements to the Grid, retrofits to houses, better public transit, etc. Finally, the future isn't a car in every garage, it's most likely some form of communal vehicle sharing/rental on an as needed basis.
Not to mention the Liberals' other pet: dirty hydrogen fuel, that no one wants.
Vehicle sharing is fine for large urban areas. But almost a quarter of our population still lives in rural areas, or needs to travel highways on a regular basis (e.g., for work, or to buy groceries or other goods at reasonable prices ... not to mention going to doctors, hospitals, dentists ... or visiting friends and relatives who moved to the larger rural settlement 40 km away).
It's precisely those people with whom the auto-and-gas-and-oil supporting administraitons are wildly popular. Except for Trudeau in Alberta. Because of who his father is, he'll never be popular there, even though he forks over money left, right and centre to not only pipelines, but also the oilfields.
"What about China?"
Obvious diversion.
No single nation is responsible for global warming. No single nation is responsible for its solution.
No nation alone can solve the problem, but all of them together can!
That is why nations must work together.
AGW is a global problem. Global/collective problems require global/collective action.
Climate obstructionists fail to grasp simple concepts like collective responsibility and international co-operation.
Do you vote? Sign petitions? Your ballot or signature has no effect on the results. Why not just stay home?
My uncle fought in WWII. Why enlist when he couldn't possibly have won the war by himself? Why didn't he and the thousands of Allied soldiers just stay home?
Every nation but two are a small part of the problem. Most nations account for less than 2% of the global total. If every nation adopts the obstructionist's logic, none will reduce emissions. The problem cannot be solved without their co-operation.
Collective problems require collective solutions. Think globally, act locally.
Climate change cannot be stopped if only the biggest nations or top emitters reduce emissions.
[China, India, and the U.S. cannot solve the problem alone.] Even if the top 3 national emitters representing large populations reduced emissions to zero, that leaves about half of global emissions untouched. Unless smaller national emitters do their part as well, global targets remain out of reach.
"All nations contributing less than 2% of emissions are, cumulatively, more important than India or China. It absolutely does matter that these nations reduce their emissions."
Canada ranks #10 in total emissions.
If Alberta were a country, it would rank first in per capita emissions. High emitters are the problem.
Draw squares on a world map, with each square representing 40 million people. The square we call Canada has higher emissions than just about any other square on the map.
Now draw squares representing 4 million people. The square we call Alberta has higher emissions than just about any other square on the map.
Canadians' carbon footprint is 3x the global average. Exclude the oilsands, and AB's emissions are still more than 7x the global average. If other nations followed our example, global emissions would skyrocket.
Canadians contribute disproportionately to a collective problem; we need to contribute to the collective solution.
If Alberta and Canada are "too small to matter," what message does that send to the 183 nations with smaller carbon footprints than ours?
The energy hogs and high emitters live over here, not in Asia. Canada and the West have exported much of their emissions by outsourcing their manufacturing to the developing world.
Fossil fuels are responsible for a wide range of pollutants and a long list of environmental problems. Shifting away from fossil fuels reduces pollution and health costs. Reducing fossil fuel combustion saves two birds with one stone.
On the technological timeline, 19th-century fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine are "horse and buggy". Inefficient, wasteful, prone to breakdown, costly to maintain, toxic, highly polluting, and extremely damaging.
Many new technologies allow us to live better lives. Renewables, net-zero homes, battery storage, etc. are the leading edge of high tech. Who stands against progress?
I'm an old school teacher and lifelong learner, and I endorse this message...lol. You're doing good work Geoffrey. Don't stop.
Per capita measurements is a very common statistical levelling tool when comparing apples to apples. Yes, Canada is one of the top three pigs of the planet when it comes to per capita emissions. Shameful.
Thanks, Geoffrey, for your once again very articulate exposition.
It's not only the recognized particulate emissions that harm health, either: many petroleum products are in themselves toxic, whether applied to skin, hair, fields, or fruit trees, whether used in blues, sealants, building products, roofs, highways, or as paint on walls, carpets on floors, etc. etc. etc.
I'll start my comment where I often end it: SUCKS TO BE US.
We bought into neoliberal, neoconservative (there's little difference) idiotology and in the last few years have been doubling down on that theory. We subsidize unconventional oil and gas (bitumen extraction/fracked gas) and buy into carbon capture and storage...an expensive boondoggle that won't lower emissions one iota. No one complains about subsidies to these sunset industries.........but we're all in in Alberta in shutting down renewables.
Ironic that it's been in Alberta that the solar industry took off. Thank Rachel Notley for that and curse the socialism of it all, what??? In short: we're dummies. Petrogoofs.
The next chapter in our war against reality will be actual war with China...if we can engineer it.
We distrust collaboration, twist actual science, and haven't minds big enough to imagine what hot house earth is going to be like.
But thank goodness progress is being made elsewhere....mostly in those places neoliberal idiotology was happy to exploit at the beginning of our global free (not)trade era.
Excellent article that's hopeful for climate change overall but also shows how autocracy is eating DEMOCRACY'S lunch, making the latter's trademark "messiness" less tolerable all the time, personified as it is by shambolic Trump and his ilk STILL in the running for "leadership" of the now wholly toxic and noxious right wing of the world's leading democracy.
Coincidentally and quite chillingly, in the context of democracy traditionally having a right and a left wing, the TACTICS (shameless, avid use of propaganda thanks to "social" media) AND the policies (Project 2025) of the GOP and the CPC now bring world autocrats like Putin and Xi Jinping to mind. No wonder we all keep using the word "unprecedented" when it comes to what's happening to the politics in our democracies....
The center is definitely not holding; "uncharted territory" isn't just applicable to climate change anymore.
The US has Biden and Harris. We have no one, really, but Elizabeth May. Who doesn't lead a major party, but is almost always on the correct side of every issue. I was going to say "right side" but realized before hitting "send" how silly that would read!
What I find particularly astounding is Poilievre's unabashed use of the term "Common Sense" in exactly the same way Mike Harris used it in Ontario. That was the beginning of the end of any good for the ordinary people of Ontario. Since then, it's all been "open for business" and let the good times roll for the well-to-do.
Exemplary piece. Kudos!
On TMX, Trudeau and TMX proponents were criticized relentlessly by economists and professional analysts for faulty math, especially for CAPP pulling numbers out of thin air to justify urging Trudeau to cave to Rich Kinder's threats of cancellation of a pipeline project they likely already realized was a lost cause economically. This project will end up in the junk pile of stranded carbon assets building up mainly in Alberta in the 2030s. Unfortunately, federal taxpayers are on hook already to write them down along with ongoing subsidies to these sunset industries.
The economic dominance of China depends on two things, a growing domestic consumer population and trade with the West. First, unless China adopts a mass immigration policy, it will see a very steep decline in its population by mid century. Something will need to give way in its domestic demand for the goods it produces.
That leaves trade with the West where it has been very successful, in no small part because Western private companies (mainly autos, but lots more) sold 50% of their ownership to and virtually all of their technological prowess for access to China's economy. China can't afford to piss off the West too much over support for Russia's terrible war in Ukraine or over Taiwan's right to exist independently. Nevertheless, it has no qualms rattling its sabres at the West while also seeking business. As the result, Taiwan decided to lift its extremely stiff opposition to manufacturing the world's best microchips outside of the country. TSMC agreed to build a major plant in the US, and it's about to come online. Other chip makers are doing the same to lessen their exposure to China.
The EU has learnt to be flexible with Chinese imports and applied limited tariffs on Chinese EVs, which still allows them in to displace ICE vehicles at relatively affordable prices. The electric BYDs and MGs are selling like hotcakes, even to cab drivers who seek vehicles with longevity and low operating costs. The USA's 100% tariff approach did not come from any economist that respects affordability, and Trudeau's immediate mimicry was just childish and poorly thought out. Is Canada still going to subsidize batteries that contain problematic cobalt and nickel, or can it actually develop its own policy on domestic renewable technology that looks toward equal or better energy density and good cold weather performance? China is seriously working on that already and will mop the floor using distinctly old LNMC chemistry.
Batteries are not all about EVs either. They also pertain to the electrical grid, an arguably much more important sector than consumerist road transport use. Where is the vision and R&D in this country for power storage over short and long term periods using batteries with cheap everyday common and perfectly recyclable materials?
China is a challenge with respect to dominance, but it has its limitations.
Part of China's increasing dominance has to do with land and resource acquisition in other countries ... where they "invest" in agriculture or resource extraction, with the proviso that they bring their own labor with them, who work outside the boundaries of recognized labor standards.
So all they really "invest" is the price of harvesting licenses: all the rest of the benefit goes directly to China.