The task for those wishing to move the issue forward, in Canada or internationally, is on the one hand to keep up the pressure from movements, and on the other hand to get creative in leveraging strategically astute national governments and their negotiators at the UN process.
Energy efficiency is an obvious solution because it is quick, portable, abundant, and cheap. Unlike pipelines that take years to build, energy efficiency efforts can be ramped up within months.
In the face of these challenges the Minister of Natural Resources reacted by repeating the untruth that Keystone XL will not increase GHG emissions. Our federal government has stuck its head back in the tar sands.
Canada’s brand of the resource curse is called the “staples trap”. The pattern was articulated by celebrated Canadian economic historian Harold Innis in his studies of Canadian staple resource economies.
Even though Canada has an abundance of clean energy resources and the potential to find the innovative capacity to take advantage of them, the staples mentality informs the federal government’s policy and politics.
Far from promoting economic security, the Conservatives appear incapable of dealing with the economy’s most vexing problems.
