More pipelines not the answer

Re: “We still need oil and gas” (Letters, April 26)

Letter-writer Arnold Condy supports building oil pipelines to both our coasts to supply oil to world markets. This, he says, will strengthen our economy to enable us to meet the challenges of climate change.

However, building more pipelines will make it that much harder for us to meet our Paris Agreement commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to limit climate change.

Canada has agreed to reduce emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 compared with their 2005 level, but so far we’ve reduced emissions by only two per cent.

Condy suggests that ultimately the solution will be technology making clean energy commercially competitive, in which case it will eventually be universally adopted.

However, leaving aside the urgency of the climate situation, the reality, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, is that nearly two-thirds of all energy installed globally in 2018 was renewable. Canada lags behind this change, in part because our governments have supported the oil and gas industry more than renewable energy.

If our governments — provincial as well as federal — would support and promote much more the production and use of clean energy in Canada, they would be strengthening our economy in a way that directly counters climate change.

Further, by encouraging the export of this technology to the rest of the world, they could be helping other countries to do the same.

Robert Hajaly, Montreal