It has become, as Gwyn Morgan states, heretical to many to critique aspects of decarbonization movements in the developed world, but I find his position rather interesting. He believes the effort to reduce carbon emissions primarily by attempting to replace the burning of fossil fuels with renewable power sources like wind and solar power, however noble and well-meaning, has been misguided and unrealistic, and to some extent I agree. He also states that domestically in Ontario, efforts to replace the fastest-growing contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, coal power plants, with wind and solar power have caused power costs to sky rocket. This discouraged manufacturing growth in the province and drove companies into the U.S. as an alternative. This same issue was seen in Germany where over 140 billion dollars were invested into wind and solar power that only accounted for 4 percent of electrical supply, only to be revoked for ineffective performance.
At the same time, businesses that produce coal power plants continue to grow throughout the world, especially in developing countries. China and India, the two largest producer of global carbon emissions are greatly powered by coal, and will continue to be if wind and solar power continue to be experimented with rather than an efficient and cheap alternative. However, natural gas produces almost “half the carbon emissions that coals does” and that a primary reason coal power plant use has been reduced in the United States has been because of “advancements in hydraulic fracturing technology” as Morgan affirms. A movement to promote coal businesses to adopt this new fuel would do far more to reduce emissions than the status quo.
Personally, I think ultimately it is harmful and ignorant to group all fossil fuels and energy businesses under the same banner, to discredit all fossil fuels as opposite to the vision of a sustainable future we all have. If we want to make meaningful reduction in our carbon footprint, large subsidies into technologies that do not have the utility needed to replace the bad fossil fuels the big emitters are using are not the best way to do that, at least not now. It’s more important for governments to work with the energy sector, especially here in Canada to make this meaningful change and to use the options available to us to make a cleaner world.
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