‘Expensive, Unproven’ CCS Deserves No More Federal Support: IISD:

The report,
released last Thursday by the International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD), concludes carbon capture and storage technology
costs too much and takes too long to build to have any hope of helping
industry meet Canada’s 2030 emissions reductions target, The Canadian
Press reports.

Calling the technology “expensive, energy intensive (and) unproven at
scale,” the report urges the federal government not to put any more
public money into the oil and gas industry for carbon capture
deployment.

“The application of CCS does not align with the time
scale or ambition necessary for limiting global warming to 1.5°C,” the
report states. And “the opportunity cost of investing in CCS and the
risk of stranded assets for Canada’s oil and gas sector will intensify
as global climate ambition ratchets up and demand for oil and gas
declines.”

Carbon capture and storage technology has existed for
decades, but it’s expensive and has been slow to scale up, CP writes.
There are currently just seven CCS projects in operation in Canada, five
of them in the oil and gas sector, and only 30 commercial-scale CCS
projects in operation globally. The projects serving fossil companies
capture 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year,
just 1.3% of the industry’s pre-pandemic emissions, and 70% of that
carbon is used to push more oil out of the ground through enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

Wind and Solar Cheaper than Gas Plants in Ontario and Alberta, Study Shows:

“Even without carbon pricing, wind power is set to be 40% cheaper than gas-fired power in both provinces by 2030,” the report states.
“Solar power, meanwhile, is already cheaper than natural gas power in
Alberta and is on track to be 16% less expensive by the end of the
decade.”

“Because power plants typically operate for decades, the choices made
today will have substantial ramifications for 2035 and beyond,” Clean
Energy Canada writes. “Building new natural gas-fired power plants means
locking in emissions—and costs—for many years to come. There is also
the risk that fossil fuel infrastructure is retired before the end of
its economic lifetime and becomes a stranded asset—a liability taxpayers
would likely pay for.”

The report notes that Ontario is currently
planning to install 4,000 megawatts of electricity capacity between
2025 and 2027, including 2,500 MW of storage and 1,500 MW of new gas
plants, to fill the gap when the province’s aging nuclear plants go
offline for refurbishment. The looming electricity shortage was made
worse by the Ford government’s ideologically-driven decision to cancel 758 signed renewable energy contracts and rip a fully-built wind farm out of the ground after it took office in 2018.

As a result, carbon pollution from the Ontario grid is expected to increase 375% from 2017 levels
by 2030, and 600% by 2040. The province added 7,152 MW of new renewable
capacity, mostly solar and wind, between 2010 and 2017, but just 466 MW
between 2017 and 2023.

The Alberta grid is coming off a
surprisingly fast shift from coal to fossil gas, the report says.
Provincial legislation calls for a 30% renewable grid by 2030, and
renewables have grown from 9% to 22% of grid capacity in five years.

Long COVID Has Never Been Taken Seriously. Here’s Where It Left Us | The Tyee:

The dissonance in returning to normal

We are living through a mass disabling event. Statistics Canada estimates
that there are 1.4 million COVID-19 longhaulers in Canada. As the virus
continues to circulate, our ranks keep growing. The World Health
Organization estimates that 10 to 20 per cent of COVID-19 infections result in long COVID.

Many of those people recover after several frustrating months, while others, like me, develop potentially life-long chronic health conditions.

The B.C. government, eager to move on from
COVID-19, barely acknowledges the growing crisis. At this point, I feel
as though the silence must be deliberate. If our government’s current
plan for long COVID is to literally let hundreds of thousands of British
Columbians develop a chronic illness for which there is no treatment
and minimal support, then it’s past time we had an honest conversation
about it.

Long COVID is already affecting our labour market. While Canada thus
far has made little effort to track its impact, U.K. government analysis
suggests that long-term illness due to long COVID is driving a
significant share of the decline in labour market participation.

In the U.S., long COVID could be keeping as many as four million Americans out of work. Harvard economist and professor David Cutler estimates the cost of their lost wages to equal US$1 trillion.

A Lancet study
of longhaulers infected prior to June 2020 found that 22 per cent were
unable to work, with another 45 per cent working reduced hours. Based on
these statistics, we can reasonably assume there are hundreds of
thousands of Canadians unable to work due to long COVID, and even more
working reduced hours.

This calls for a long-overdue strengthening
of our social safety net, as well as a cultural shift towards flexible
accommodations to enable people with chronic illness to participate to
the fullest extent they can in economic activity, among other aspects of
public life.

Young Climate Activists at Davos Want Fossil Fuel Execs to ‘Cease and Desist’ New Oil, Gas or Coal Extraction – EcoWatch: An international quartet of prominent young climate activists attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week with a letter calling on fossil fuel CEOS to “cease and desist” any new oil, gas or coal developments.

The letter was penned by Greta Thunberg of Sweden, Helena Gualinga of Ecuador, Vanessa Nakate of Uganda and Luisa Neubauer of Germany and has so far been signed by nearly 950,000 people.

“This
Cease and Desist Notice is to demand that you immediately stop opening
any new oil, gas, or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean
energy transition we all so urgently need,” the letter begins.

The four activists met Thursday with International Energy Agency (IEA) head Fatih Birol during a side event at the World Economic Forum, as Reuters reported. While Thunberg spoke at the forum as an official delegate
in 2019 — urging attendees to “safeguard the future living conditions
for humankind” — this year she opted not to attend in an official
capacity and instead leave that role to other climate activists.

“I
think it should be people on the frontlines and not privileged people
like me,” she said, as Reuters reported. “I don’t think the changes we
need are very likely to come from the inside. They are more likely to
come from the bottom up.”

How large corporations make huge profits from hidden markups at the expense of consumers: Inflation, followed by poverty and social inequality are the most pressing issues worrying people around the world right now. Canada has not been immune from the rising cost of living and is still fighting an inflation rate above the two per cent target preferred by the Bank of Canada.

Canada’s inflation rate hit 8.1 per cent in June — the highest it had been in over 40 years. While the rate has dropped slightly afterwards, it was still 6.8 per cent in November, easing to 6.3 per cent in December.

High prices funnel wealth from consumers to owners of large companies and widen the wage gap between CEOs and workers. My research
shows consumer prices are higher than they should be. This is even
without considering inflation, because of a less studied phenomenon:
compound markup.

Less competition than you think

Many economists rely on philosopher Adam Smith’s metaphor of the invisible hand
to understand how the market economy works. According to Smith, the
invisible hand is the natural force that drives individuals to
unknowingly make economic decisions that are best for society.