Mark Carney testified to the Canadian Senate claiming Canada risks $5.5 trillion in climate damage if it doesn't align climate finance with other nations, says Friends of Science Society. A new report by Robert Lyman, former federal public servant and diplomat, and a report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer show that Mr. Carney has the claims and consequences backwards.
CALGARY, AB, May 21, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- On May 08,2024, UN Climate Envoy, Mark Carney told the Canadian Senate that Canada risked climate damages of $5.5 trillion in the future if it fails to act on climate finance legislation, says Friends of Science. Carney was referring to legislation sponsored by Senator Rosa Galvez, prepared by the Institute for Sustainable Finance, which uses an implausible scenario (RCP8.5) as a business-as-usual case. Friends of Science says this means the climate damage is a case of bad math; the real damage to Canada would be if the country tried to meet climate targets or if it adopts the Senator Galvez bill (S-243).
Robert Lyman, former federal public servant of 27 years and diplomat of 10 years, a retired energy economist, published an op-ed in the Financial Post on May 15, 2024, showing that "Getting to Net Zero will Cost Canada Several Fortunes." He writes: "In 2022 RBC estimated it would be about $2 trillion. That year's federal budget projected that reaching net zero would require investments ranging from $125 billion to $140 billion per year every year until 2050 — somewhere between $3.4 trillion and $5.2 trillion in total."
Lyman goes on to put these numbers in context: "How big are these numbers? Canada's GDP was just over $2.1 trillion in 2022, so the range of estimates to attain net-zero is between one and two-and-a-half years of Canada's entire income. Two trillion dollars is $50,000 for every one of Canada's 40 million current residents, or about $118,000 for every household. If you were to spend $40 per second, it would take you 1,584 years to spend $2 trillion and 4,118 years to spend $5.2 trillion."
Robert Lyman's report "What are Climate Policies Costing Canada?" goes into more detail.
Carney also advocated for a "Contracts for Difference" (CfD) climate policy for Canada. Robert Lyman's report "Turning Taxpayers Into Risk Takers: Contracts for Difference – the Eternal Subsidy" shows that while CfDs could be used to "de-risk" investments in "clean" projects, it simply dumps the risk onto taxpayers.
Mark Carney mentioned RBC's transition analysis in his Senate presentation.
Friends of Science Society's team of Professional Engineers did an analysis of RBC's plan in 2022 and found the bank had severely underestimated the costs of getting to NetZero. RBC's estimate of the cost to go net zero on the electrical grid with wind and solar backed up with batteries is $5.4 billion which includes $3.6 billion for batteries. Friends of Science Society says just for the batteries to back up wind and solar power the cost would scale up to about $4 trillion for all of Canada.
Friends of Science says unfortunately even the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions in Canada is climate-addled and also uses the implausible scenario RCP 8.5 in its climate risk scenarios. A Western Standard op-ed of May 13, 2024, points out the stark difference in the climate-alarmed astrologers in the banking industry who use economic models to assess wildfire and flooding (which are extreme weather events, not examples of climate change), versus the scientific perspective of people like Dr. Judith Curry who relies on verifiable data from multiple natural and human-caused factors.
Dr. Curry's presentation "Climate Risk and Uncertainty" for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, shows that climate is a 'wicked' problem that can't be solved by simplistic solutions like cutting emissions or going net zero.
An analysis of "Getting to Net Zero," written by Ian Cameron, P. Eng., and Director of Friends of Science Society, looks at the Canadian Energy Regulator reports on net zero action, versus a report by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Cameron concludes that fulfilling their government's net zero agenda will entail a quarter century of evermore energy and economic deprivation. This video explainer details the challenges.
Friends of Science Society's president, Ron Davison, P. Eng., wrote a plain language assessment of the Nov. 2022 Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on GHG Emissions and GDP. He writes: "Canada's Parliamentary Budget Office just confirmed that continued greenhouse gas emissions will reduce our GDP growth by just 6.6% over the next 80 years (National Post, December 7th, 2022). So, instead of growing 378.0%, we will only grow by 371.4%. That equates to a GDP savings that is only $140 billion less than the do-nothing case."
In other words, far from $5.5 trillion in damage that the Senator Galvez sponsored report claims. It appears that the implausible RCP 8.5 scenario is being used by the financial community to create a climate emergency that only exists on paper, says Friends of Science.
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Friends of Science Society is an independent group of earth, atmospheric and solar scientists, engineers, and citizens that is celebrating its 21st year of offering climate science insights. After a thorough review of a broad spectrum of literature on climate change, Friends of Science Society has concluded that the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2).
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