When Vijay Jayaraj was growing up in India, power blackouts were frequent. He said the blackouts affected everything from schooling to employment—because when there was no power, it was difficult to get much done.
He pointed to the cotton industry of South India, a major employer.
“But all the industries were disrupted whenever there were phases … of continuous blackouts, eventually translating into thousands of lost jobs,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Even during my college days, electricity disruption meant we didn’t have water, so we had to wait it out.”
A research associate with the U.S.-based CO2 Coalition, Mr. Jayaraj said he points to India’s experience because people in Western countries often take reliable power for granted.
“They think they are taking a bold step, a bold initiative, but are they ready to experience and live in that kind of lifestyle, which is certainly unpredictable and makes you unproductive, losing out ... energy and time and even money on something that could be avoided easily?” he said.
“The electricity needed in the country is high, and the country knows what happens when there is a disruption. And that’s why this year when they had a shortfall from hydroelectric stations, they pushed back in using coal,” he said.
Given the needs of China and other developing countries, Mr. Jayaraj does not believe coal use will be curtailed anytime soon, which makes Canada’s goal of a net-zero electrical grid by 2035 seem irrelevant.
“In 2022, China gave approval to two new coal plants every week,” he said. “So when [Western governments] advertise on billboards and public transportation that you’re saving the world by reducing emissions … it’s a false claim. That doesn’t make any difference at all to the global scenario of CO2 emissions. That does make a huge difference for the quality of life and the security of the energy sector in Canada.”
Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault is slated to travel to China on Aug. 26 as part of his role on the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
“I can’t see Canada and Guilbeault influencing them, but I can see Canada and this government, perhaps naively, entering into some concessions with the hopes that it would change China’s policies,” says Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources, and environment at the Macdonald Laurier Institute.
Ms. Exner-Pirot told The Epoch Times she believes Mr. Guilbeault is going with good intentions, but she says a much more effective way for Canada to make a difference on the world stage is to better utilize what is already in the country.
‘Friendly Supplies of Commodities Critical’
Ms. Exner-Pirot said Canada should be looking at providing the world with more responsibly produced oil and gas.“You don’t want OPEC to grow their market share. You don’t want authoritarian countries, like Saudi Arabia to control markets,” she said. “And yet the policies of Western governments, the policies of ESG [environmental, social, and governance], of publicly traded companies has been to basically do exactly that—to reduce our market share of global oil.”
She pointed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example of what can happen.
“The lessons have been learned … that it’s very good to have friendly supplies of commodities that are so critical to your economy,” said Ms. Exner-Pirot. “It’ll be nice to have at least one liberal democracy that has reserves that can provide those hydrocarbons into the future.”
She also believes Canadian natural gas could make a difference in China, “displacing coal with LNG by making LNG affordable and accessible.”
She says a similar argument can be made about Canada’s supplies of uranium, and nuclear expertise.
“There’s a lot of companies in tech in Canada developing small modular reactors with different kinds of applications,” says Ms. Exner-Pirot. “And so I think Canada becoming a nuclear powerhouse, and improving the supply chain and being a more reliable supplier, and advancing the technology is probably the number one thing we can do reduce climate change in the medium and long term—transition to nuclear.”
All of that, she said, requires investment in things like carbon capture technology in order to get Canada’s resources to the world in an environmentally responsible way. But instead, the government is taking an approach that in many cases seems to hold back workable solutions.
“The approach that the federal government has taken is very top-down, heavy-handed. And … you can quote me on that—Soviet planning,” she says.
“Instead of allowing market-driven approaches, which a carbon price, for example, would support, they are picking winners and losers and using subsidies to try and achieve their climate goals, and this is going to be very expensive.”
“[They need] critical minerals for all their plans, but at the same time, have made no changes really to make the regulatory environment smoother, faster, more efficient, to actually get those out in an affordable way,” she said.
And while countries like Canada could be facing significant sacrifices in efforts to achieve an energy transition, Mr. Jayaraj does not see developing countries like China changing course on energy anytime soon.
“It’s basic energy economics,” he said. “China is the manufacturer of the world. I don’t think China will sacrifice itself by not using coal.”
